Ink Sketch while reading Neil Gaiman's 'Ocean at the End of the Lane'

Ink Sketch while reading Neil Gaiman's 'Ocean at the End of the Lane,' Brenda Clews, 2013, 8" x 10", India ink, in a Premium C.D. Japanese Notebook (the paper is like silk).

There is a rough draft of a poem on the other page but I blurred it out.

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Getting Away

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Decided on a PayPal Merchants Account for payment options

After researching my options, I went with PayPal. 

the luminist poems, by Brenda Clews, a romance, its dazzling and dangerous light, questions the paradoxes of who we are before the text blazes into visionary rapture.

"Brenda Clews offers us a pellucid voice that presents and interprets so clearly, it is almost as if light is shining through each one of the magnificent images in these mysterious poems." -John F. Walter

Cost: $20.00 CAD, each book is signed 
Size: 6" x 8"; 15.24cm x 20.32cm 
Hardcover: 39 pages
Publisher: LyricalMyrical Press
ISBN: 978-1-897275-84-9
Shipping costs:
        Canada..............$5.00
        US.....................$8.00
        International....$14.00

'luminist poems,' $20.00CAD, choose shipping from drop-down menu

Ship to US- $28.00 CAD Ship in Canada- $25.00 CAD Ship Internationally- $34.00 CAD

the luminist poems is a small hand-made chapbook produced by Luciano Iacobelli, who owns LyricalMyrical Press. They are hard cover, usually in bright primary colours; the poems are printed on fine paper. Each of his chapbooks is a jewel. With an initial print-run of 30 numbered copies, they are collector's items. I am honoured to be among the poets he has published.

A review of the luminist poems:

“Tell me the eternal form of you, in that burning star.” “We are solar explosions. What else could we be?” These two quotes from The Luminist Poems hint at the romance of the book (it’s a great love story – and I love the way the heroine dresses!) and at the central conflict of light and human experience as metaphors for each other, as primal energies that are subject to a thousand laws of time and place even as those laws are bent around the beating star and the pulsing heart. These are deeply thought-out and felt-through poems, as interconnected as planets of a solar system or the organs of a body, and yet they read with the seductive spontaneity of a diary. There is enormous erudition here, both in terms of science and philosophy (from Plato to Bergson) and of literary tradition (Henry Vaughan to Julia Kristeva), but the author wears her learning with the effort-concealing elegance of a dancer whose lead you trust. Her allusions are always at the service of the poet’s tale and the reader’s pleasure. (I’m reminded of Nabokov’s search for “the passion of science, the precision of poetry”.) Like the passage of light, this book can be experienced as both waves and particles: as irresistible forward movement in an unbroken line and an archipelago of individual thoughts. And what thoughts! Few modern poets are so generous, so companionable, so easy to commit to memory. Few writers are so able to combine turbulence and passion with serenity; and for this reader it’s the equilibrium between pain and peace that makes me feel that my own struggles have been seen from afar, recognized from up close, and given a shape that lets me face them, and, finally, bless them.

--Stephen Hatfield (one of Canada's pre-eminent choral composers)

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Researching Payment Options and Why I Don't Use Credit Cards

Ok, FreshBooks is more of an invoice generator system.  If you only have 3 clients a month, you can have a free account; up to 25 clients costs around $20./month; etc.

What a great company though! The woman I spoke to on the phone listened to what I needed and suggested I check into a PayPal Business account, which she said would be free for what I wanted, and would enable me to accept credit cards. She also mentioned Stripe. And Square - now I have heard of artists who use Square on their smart phones to process sales of their paintings in shows that they set up outdoors, or at craft fairs, and I know it is an excellent service.

Thing is, I don't personally use credit cards. I cut mine up in the late 1980s, not because I was in debt, but because I was appalled by the interest rates, and how people are routinely gouged. It's my one hold-out against Capitalism. Credit cards enable people to borrow on the future. For a whopping price, if you don't get it paid off within the month. I believe in living here and now, debt-free. Even if I have virtually nothing, I owe nothing. This way of living is compatible with my belief system, and I am comfortable with it. If I don't have the cash, I don't buy it, whatever it is. Companies that won't accept my cash, like Amazon, don't get my business, that's all there is to it. I won't be forced into getting a credit card to buy a book that I would really like to have and which is only for sale on Amazon (who also do not offer even gift cards for plain cash).

But for me to accept payment via credit cards for my chapbook and paintings and so on, now I may be snagged there. I may be forced to get a credit card to accept payment by credit cards. If this is so, I'll be finally caught and pulled into the massive debt system that is probably the deepest cause for the many ails of our species on this planet. I won't go on a rant about how the profit margins rule the roost, even at the expense of people's lives, and the environment itself.

Maybe. I'm sure I'll balk. A simple PayPal button may be all I can offer if I wish to be able to live with the fury I feel at the horrors of interest payments on IMF loans for third world countries right down to the guy who goes bankrupt and loses everything because of defaulting on a credit card whose interest payments have exceeded the amount borrowed.

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Researching payment options

I got as far as FreshBooks in my research today. Google Checkout is being retired, with no plans by Google to replace it. It's easy to embed a PayPal button, but I'd like to include other options, like Visa Debit cards, and credit cards for those who use them. Likely FreshBooks is not a viable option, but I will call them tomorrow to see how it works and whether their service would fit my decidedly minimal needs.
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'the luminist poems' chapbook cover

This took hours because my internet went down and then it started telling me another IP address was using it resulting me calling the internet provider and changing the name and the password, all of which took upward of 3 hours (you know, running back and forth between computers, re-starting the modem, having little bowls of curry and cucumber and bananas and mango chutney, taking the dogs for pit stops). I just got it from my old computer, which is connected to a scanner, via the home network. Ok, you'll see it a lot in the coming weeks or months. And I still have to figure out how to make a 'shop' page... that's tomorrow's task... although I seem to be running a fever, so may need to go in search of a doctor since it's Sunday... we'll see. By tomorrow night's end I aim to have a Google Wallet page or some such - and then I'll become like all the other writers selling their book(s). Lol! It's a good feeling!!!!!

And tonight I managed to transfer the video of my launch reading onto a video drive. And even looked at 30 seconds of it. Who knows if I'll do anything with it... maybe a snippet, maybe the whole thing at some point, or not.

Clearly, though, despite a rising fever, tonight I have finally had time in the midst of a week long family crisis to remember I just had a small chapbook published, and to begin to do the tasks necessary for its little journey in the world.

(That I've got this far is good. A shop page is next. Then I have to start selling it at readings by getting up on open mic and not hiding away in the back row. :) (Though... I am a featured poet in two upcoming poetry events in July, so I'll have to step up to the plate, or mic, somehow.)

It's a small hand-made chapbook... by Luciano Iacobelli who owns LyricalMyrical Press. Bright primary colours. Printed on fine paper. Each of his chapbooks are jewels. He probably does 9 or 10 chapbooks a year. Collector's items. I am honoured to be among the poets he has published.

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Steam

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