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a perpetuation of an apophenic phenomenon spreading the only good virus in existence: well-crafted language

Check out this article in the Baltimore City Paper: City Paper Online

"I've always through these 40 years—here and faraway—thought Omar Shapli was a serious yet dryly witty poet. I'll not compare him to others who may come to mind; it would not do him justice. He is an original—and of now. I shall now have a drink and toast Omar Shapli: poet."
Studs Terkel

Just released: Don Burness' Brutal Like All Olympic Games. Go here to order your copy today.

twentythreebooks is also privileged to publish Omar Shapli's second book of poems, THEM: Poems 1999-2002. THEM is available for purchase.

If you have purchased a copy of The General Is Asked His Opinion and other sad songs 2002-2005, we thank you, Omar thanks you, and the health of poetry and the literary arts tips its hat to you, too. Please continue to spread the word to your friends and family and other assorted loved ones, and check back here from time to time for new announcements.

Omar's reading May 11, 2008 at the Bowery in New York was a rousing success. I posted some pictures from the event on Flickr Flickr Set: Bowery Poetry Club

for Paul Sills (1927-2008)

Apostle

a mere quarter century back when i
was about to be out of a job and none
of the people who’d been telling me for
years to let them know if ever i found
myself free to pick up stakes and come
play with them seemed able to answer
a thought a letter or a even a phonecall
it was old sills who told me not to
lose heart because the way society
is now constituted it’s physically
impossible to slip backward out of the
middle class no matter how dismal
the view down the ill-lit sidestreet
and oh golly how desperate i must
have been to grasp at that thought
with the same sense of relief
that bouyed the historybattered
athenians when another paul gave
them a whiff of the unknown god
©2006 Omar Shapli

Submission Policy:

twentythreebooks is not currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts. If you would like your work considered, please check the website again for information on how and what to submit to our journal, Viviparous Blenny.