RHYME SCHEMES WELCOME
In 2009 Harold Bloom noted that poetry slams were "the death of art."
In his 1997 poem Soliloquy (which took every word the poet spoke for one full week in 1996), Kenneth Goldsmith recorded himself saying, "Where else is experimental writing happening right now in this city? I certainly don't think it's happening at the Nuyrocian [sic] cafe."
In 1986 the American poet Diana Wakoski associated new formalism with Reaganism for having the audacity of "denouncing the free verse revolution, denouncing the poetry which is the fulfillment of the Whitman heritage."
I started The Blue Velvet Review with the idea: is all of this true?
Because, in my mind, Supreme Clientele as a text belongs in the same Western canon Bloom famously promoted.
But it's possible I'm off base here. Perhaps the poetry of "Nutmeg" is fine for the Nuyoricans but still isn't quite ready for prime time "serious" poetry?
And I suppose it's possible that Dennis Coles, due to his regressive adherence to rhyme scheme, is in fact spitting in the face of the Whitman heritage, acting as a counterrevolutionary, and is therefore basically a proponent of Reaganomics?
But I actually tend to think I'm right—that Supreme Clientele is, in fact, a work of classic contemporary American poetry, that The Odyssey was a spoken poem before it was a written poem, that the hippies wrote free verse as an affront to Euro-centrism without interrogating the fact that metrical constructions were in no way restricted to Europe (Persian and Japanese poetry would like to have a word, among others).
So I started The Blue Velvet Review to focus on poets that have backgrounds in spoken word, in hip hop, or poets who just tend to write in metrical structures and/or rhyme schemes.
Please email submissions to: info [at] bluevelvetreview.com
Blue Hydrangea
Blue Hydrangea
by Katreena Dayacap Katsafanas
Blue Hydrangea is a Zuihitsu of considerable scope and depth, perhaps the best example of the genre in recent American literature in my view. Katreena at her peak powers becomes one with the pen, not metaphorically, but actually synthesizing herself with the writing utensil until the subject-object assumption becomes a product of absurdist fiction.
From the Poet: "Nothing can separate love, and I know this to be true. Gathering my thoughts, journal entries, poetry and prose from the last eight years has been incredibly difficult. I held off for a very long time in fear of bringing myself through those painful memories before, during and after my mother’s death. But here it is. By finally opening up to all the change since my mom passed, I’m able to find inner peace and with that, true healing. I love you, Mom. I prayed and hoped that we would beat cancer. We fought against your disease together and gave each other strength through that unimaginable struggle. I know you are with me in spirit and there helping me rebuild my life and become open to all that has changed since I lost you. I know it is natural for me to miss you, even now. I wish we could make new memories together, but I hope you know that the memories of the time we spent together will always bring me happiness." - Tree
(c) 2025 Katreena Dayacap
5x8 Perfect Bound
ISBN: 979-8-9987102-5-4
Released: Sep. 3 2025
S+P
(Σύννεφο και Πρίαπος)
An American Epic Poem
Nicholas Syrianus Katsafanas
Release Date: 10/31/2025
Cloud Strife and Priapus, both virtually depicted with shifting images depicted across eras—from Playstation 1 to Playstation 5, Democratic Athens to Imperial Rome—one gripping a Buster Sword that's, of course, vaguely phallic, and the other wielding a gigantic phallus that's, of course, often employed as a deadly weapon, both psychologically tortured via an ambiguous demigod-adjacent genetic lineage (Jenova and Aphrodite?)—S+P investigates, both directly and via specific character digressions, these mirror images over the course of its 20 modal cantos.
