John - ProfilesArchive

About Me

I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.1 Creative, eclectic, mental age varies from 6-80. I'm a published writer and full-time college professor. I like photography, playing guitar and drums, going to movies, nature walks, laughing.
To hear me reading and responding to poetry on BlogTalkRadio, you can go here and check out an archive from Between The Covers.I offer a manuscript reading and evaluation service to poets. I've edited several manuscripts since published as books, have published four books of my own poetry, written many reviews of poetry books, and been a member of the League of Canadian Poets (professionally published Poets) for almost 20 years. I'll read and comment on 10-12 poems for $40, a longer manuscript for $100 and up, depending on what you want. E-mail me about this service.
Bibliography: books I've written:
Taking Tree Trains, Coach House Press, 1973.
Gearing of Love, Mosaic Editions, 1984.
Mata Hari's Lost Words, Ragweed Press, 1988.
Counting Out the Millennium, Pecan Grove Press, 1996.
Chapbooks:
Rimbaud's Twisted Balls.
Take With You What You've Left.
Books I've edited/and or produced: Falconbridge: Portrait of a Multinational (James Lorimer and Co.) The chapbooks Aventine, Six from the Sixth, and The Long Dash.
Articles, reviews, interviews published: somewhere north of 300, on literature, authors, the arts, generalColumns: "Making It Work" for union newsletter Unfettered Websites: former editor of www.youngpoets.ca; researched and wrote material for electronic version of Poetry Markets for Canadians.TV: episode "Joey Buys a Jacket" for Degrassi Junior High series
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My Interests

Interesting stuff.

I'd like to meet:

On MySpace: literate, open-minded, articulate people with a sense of humour, a lack of religious/political dogma, and a broad interest in the world and its cultures
I don't want to meet:
*hollow "profiles" who are actually fronts for webcams, businesses, bands (unless they're extraordinary)
* people just adding numbers to their Friends accounts
* those not willing to read and comment on my stuff in return for my doing the same on theirs

Mata Hari (I wrote a book about her), Arthur Rimbaud, Leonardo da Vinci, Emily Carr, Jennifer Connelly (beautiful and smart), Paris Hilton (can anyone possibly be as vapid as her public image?), Donald Trump (so I could dislodge his comb-over), Margaret Cho and...

Chocolate

Cream of the cocoa bean slides
along the tongue like lover's privatest part
and then lights little love fires along
the bayous of the brain

but love it is I lack

so I cover myself hair to toenails
in an armour of cracking chocolate and
walk outside. Everyone wants me now,
even the bears, their shag-carpet breath
heating trickles as they lick me clean.

copyright 2006 John Oughton

Music:

Like to play mishmash of blues (a little slide), rock, folk, free improvisation.
Like to listen to: world music: African pop, Balinese gamelan, Indian classical, kletzmer, Ry Cooder, Richard Thompson, Warren Zevon, Love, the Talking Heads, Robert Johnson, John McLaughlin, the Pogues, Bonnie Rait, Velvet Underground, Smashmouth, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, the Roches, The Mothers of invention, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Natalie Merchant, and actually some of Outkast's songs are pretty good.

Movies:

Young Frankenstein, The Seventh Seal, Metropolis, Juliet of the Spirits, Time Bandits, Some Like It Hot, Magnolia, The Royal Tenenbaums, Monty Python's the Meaning of Life, Rashomon, Brazil, I Heart Huckabees, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, most movies John Cusack's in in fact (Grosse Point Blank), Apocalypse Now

Television:

Not that much: CSI and CSI Miami, Six Feet Under, Texas Hardtails, the Comedy Channel, Speed, all-night infomercials, old Seinfeld episodes, the Simpsons now and then

Books:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Ghost Rider, Ulysses (James Joyce), mysteries by Tony Hillerman, Janwillem van der Wettering, Sarah Paretsky, Kathy Reichs, poetry by Al Purdy, Anne Waldman, Emily Dickinson, you name it...

Heroes:

James Joyce, the old guy in The World's Fastest Indian, Frank O'Hara, Katharine Hepburn, the Dalai Lama

My Blog

Advertising sucks (everyone in)

Well, John, as the Brits put it, what's getting up your nose today? Today, without a doubt it's advertising. Not any one campaign, but the whole industry. Don't get me wrong -- it makes me...
Posted by John on Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:13:00 PST

Spring pix and camera question

Well, the Pentax Optio camera I bought refurbished a couple of years ago, and which got me back into taking pix regularly, has passed on. It is a defunct camera. It had a decent 6 Mb of max. res...
Posted by John on Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:35:00 PST

The book is ready!

Friday, I finally got my hot hands on the first copy of Resonance: Poetry and Art. As I mentioned a couple of blogs ago, this is a collaboration in which five published poets (including moi) eit...
Posted by John on Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:51:00 PST

Two views

While I'm waiting for the book to be ready at the printers (Resonance: Poetry and Art, a collection of poetry by five writers in response to visual work by 8 or 9 artists), here's a little somet...
Posted by John on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:39:00 PST

Poetry and Art Project

(image by B. Y. Penman on the blog blog.savvyology.info/?p=4 -- not part of the book mentioned below; I just like it)I was going to confess to my expensive call-girl habit, but then realize...
Posted by John on Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:07:00 PST

Rich Text Generator

For probably longer than you can remember, you’ve stared at this MySpace message every time you’ve dared to comment on someone else’s blog:"The rich-text editor is currently disabled...
Posted by John on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:40:00 PST

The water glass

The writer’s water glass waits quietly, just to the right of the mouse. The writer is deep in thought, or perhaps avoidance, juggling contradictory theories, looking for the ri...
Posted by John on Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:24:00 PST

could this be spring?

A couple of bright sunny days, the maple sap is running in the country... could this be spring? It’s been a long and unusually snowy winter. A rust pattern on some farm equipment outside ...
Posted by John on Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:50:00 PST

Management by Hooker

After some persuasion by media sources, soon-to-resign New York governor Elliot Spitzer has revealed the true reason for his expensive call-girl habit. " It’s not really about the sex," he said...
Posted by John on Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:22:00 PST

March moments

Hundreds of mallard ducks gather in the narrow reach of water between the breakwater and the beach. Waiting for spring, probably so they can migrate further north.I was fascinated by this little city ...
Posted by John on Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:57:00 PST