PJ Nights profile picture

PJ Nights

pjnights

About Me


That is me above with my dad who gave me a love of learning and the stars.
I teach high school physics and whatever other science is thrown my way in a particular year (chemistry, for the last few).
My creative outlet (thank god, I have one) is poetry. If you'd like to hang with a community of poets, visit the ezboard, from east to west .
I edit (with Ray Sweatman) from east to west:bicoastal verse which is updated quarterly with the work of 3 or 4 poets and special interest sections. (The board came after the zine, btw, if you were wondering about chicken/egg type things).
I keep a blog, a fish hook , an open eye . more as a reaction to losing a year's worth of poetry in the ezboard crash than because I'm a blogging type person. Things are getting redundant with a blog here as well, no? How much can we post?

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

crazy poets and science geeks

Books:

Recent publications: Mannequin Envy , Blue Fifth Review , Ditch, the poetry that matters .
Ocho #10 by Cheryl Townsend, Reyes Cardenas, Bruce Covey, Amy Gerstler, Hector Milia, K. Silem Mohammad, Edward Nudelman, Jessica Piazza, Emma Trelles, Letitia Trent, Matthew Yeager, Jim Chandler, Amy King, John Korn, P.J. Nights
from east to west in print!
ed. Ray Sweatman & PJ Nights
A lively selection from three years of featured poets at the journal "from east to west: bicoastal verse" including Jack Anders, Coleen Shin, John Sweet, April Ossmann, James Lineberger, Jalina Mhyana, Tara Birch, Terry Lucas, PJ Nights, Tammy Trendle, Valentina Bonnaire, Dorothy D. Mienko, AnnMarie Eldon, Chris Crittenden, Kerri Rochelle, Tasha Klein, Wendy Howe, Jill Chan, Jennifer VanBuren, Craig Kirchner, Jenni Russell, Edward J. O’Brien, Cherilyn Ferroggario, Paul Adrian Mabelis, Gary Lawless, Christine Kiefer, Neil C. Leach, Jr., Graeme Mullen, Sarah Wilson, Ray Sweatman, Tom Blessing, Yolanda Calderon-Horn, and George Wallace.
Books I love are an ever changing thing, but may I recommend nothing lit can leave by Ray Sweatman, The Edge of Grimpen by James Lineberger and Women of the Web Anthology (yeah, my name is in it, but also those of so many poets I admire).
Other poets I love: Neruda, Paz, Rimbaud, Picasso, Creeley, Milosz, Berrigan, Kerouac (for his 'kus) - you know, this isn't a list I can do, there are too many. Maybe just this advice then:
A good anthology entertains when you don't know who you are in the mood to read, and introduces you to new names and fresh words.
Five of my favorites:
A Book of Luminous Things ed. Czeslaw Milosz
These Are Not Sweet Girls - poetry by Latin American Women ed. Marjorie Agosin
The Extraordinary Tide - New Poetry by American Women ed. Susan Aizenberg, Erin Belieu, Jeremy Countryman
Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars ed. Kurt Brown, Laure-Anne Bosselaar
Surrealist Love Poems ed Mary Ann Caws

My Blog

overseers

all day it has been rainingthe seed I planted in Mayis now a plant taller than meone little white floweris putting antennae up to the starsCassiopeia's throne cradles the firststars I've seen in my dr...
Posted by PJ Nights on Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:30:00 PST

swan boats

if only pockets held talking bonesand answers that you might not likeas much as I do  if I could producesearch lights on a dime sweeping back alleys and bedrooms for the drama of it all, if I could l...
Posted by PJ Nights on Sun, 16 Sep 2007 07:58:00 PST

thank god the dog missed the skunk

and I can be self-indulgentwhile I write, the pencil keeping track of tollsthe close dawn with insides milkywise, above catching of morningnever the permanenceof curbstones, or of houses along the str...
Posted by PJ Nights on Sat, 15 Sep 2007 01:19:00 PST

remembering the first time I heard stereo

the alarum of the bell won't be stillwe hear about the war, but the actualbodies are not to be seenfountains howl like a babyas I get older, my gills grow lungsI want to breathe music whose callechoes...
Posted by PJ Nights on Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:02:00 PST

Charivari

A madman is selling stray cats in an open-air marketfor those that inhabit ancient cities where allgoes undisturbed inside their walls. By traffic's sleekmelodies, he is led to a door which leads nowh...
Posted by PJ Nights on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:45:00 PST

Leviathan

if I button my eyes tightly enoughif I inhale completely enoughthis heavenly body will flow frommy lungs, follow along my armsits inhabitants will funnel throughmy fingers, blotting a blank pagea spid...
Posted by PJ Nights on Tue, 07 Aug 2007 09:56:00 PST

mistaken reflection of the moon

this morning I'm ready if you arebut did you hear the clams screamingon the mudflat yesterdaydid you hear the peacocks crying"what am I ready for?"there is no time but the one to be quickon this day n...
Posted by PJ Nights on Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:07:00 PST

neverland

I've kept your chair open on the front porchtipped over in the rain to keep it drywhere grateful dead burns by mosquito torcha blue green fire kindled to keep me highon these nights alight, dancing on...
Posted by PJ Nights on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:22:00 PST

bullroarer

I take a photoof flamboyant trees duringand after the rainI am that way too subduedtrue gray only toclatter into reds when stormsstop I want to leaparound the first fire playingnose flute to the base ...
Posted by PJ Nights on Mon, 16 Jul 2007 08:42:00 PST

another morning, startling out

my phosphorescent heartwings the yellow finch on its waybeyond insect after insect and soonyou will sing physicists are magiciansnetting quarks and light from the firstof time  geologists sque...
Posted by PJ Nights on Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:52:00 PST