Eleven “poets who were not afraid to let a little weirdness into their work, a little bit of the imagination”, as guest editor Paul Nelson puts it. Plus readings and interviews in audio. When I was asked by Rattapallax editor Flavia Rocha to curate a selection of West Coast poets, there were several facets of this project that I considered a given. First, I wanted to limit the poets to the Northwest,... 

Rattapallax has the unique opportunity to meet with myriad internationally-renown poets and a staff that is deeply focused on promoting and publishing new work. Meet the staff and contributors to this, or first issue of Rattapallax Online. Ram Devineni is the editor and publisher of Rattapallax and a film-maker who has had films shown at the Cairo International Film Festival, San Jose Film Festival,... 

by John Olson The world is a big round faucet. But what does it mean to appease the flesh with scrapbooks? Do not quibble with a quill which sparkles with being. There are washers that give cleanliness to shirts with agitations of water and soap. The scooter succeeds in its hardware. The pecan is stretched into violet. Since kelp can verge on a map and a flaw can thaw a shoulder... 

by John Olson Shoes enfranchise the feet. The terrain is no longer an obstacle of sharp rocks and broken glass, barnyard manure and hot pavement. Our feet are armored against the prick of a syringe in a city park, rocks encrusted with barnacles, the thorns of the forest. Shoes, like people, become old. Wrinkle and crack. Canvas tears. Rubber wears. Laces fray. Shoes are never long in letting us know... 

by John Olson One winter morning I was sitting in the car waiting for the heater to melt the frost from the windows. It was bitter cold. I turned on the radio. Out came “A Day In The Life,” a song from the Beatle’s Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. A light went on in my head. It’s been 43 years, but I never tire of that song. Angst mixed with awe and amazement. A man’s mind... 

John Olson is the author of Backscatter: New And Selected Poems, from Black Widow Press, and two recent novels, The Nothing That Is, from Ravenna Press, and Souls Of Wind, from Quale Press. Larynx Galaxy, a new collection of prose poetry, essays, and fiction is forthcoming this fall from Black Widow Press. He is currently at work on a novel about French painter Georges Braque. by John Olson John Olson...