City of Legends

The other day I was asked how many books I have had published and I had to guess.  I don’t think it is senility, yet, but just there’s been a few and some of them are far enough back that I forget them…so as much for my own edification as my audience’s…here’s the master list of my books

1.  PanthEon                                                        

ISBN #0-9659576-0-8

My first book, the Panther talked me into it as a predicate to my taking part in the Southern Poets’ Tour of 1996.  A lovely volume containing solid layout of about 70 of the poems from the Panther Cycles.  Out of print, but you can still find it in niche bookstores or occasionally on eBay.

3.  From an Unexpected Quarter                        

ISBN #0-5950023-1-5

Not really my second book, but this volume sucked up #2, "from out of the city", and added a hundred or more additional poems.  Despite some solid individual pieces, and the entirety of the Goldenheart Cycles, very uneven.  best know, perhaps, for the scandalous cover photo of my second wife, model Ann-Michelle.

4.  Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion                      

ISBN #0-5952225-2-8

The second book I did with Ann-Michelle gracing the cover, a stronger book overall that "from an unexpected quarter", some of my better work from that era.

5(a).  101 Great Love Poems (Hardbound)                

ISBN #0-5956540-2-9

My sole hardbound volume to date, a popular gift book, which is why I haven’t taken it out of circulation.  Truth be told, it’s several poems from the Panther Cycles, repackaged with a marketing-concept title.

5(b).  101 Great Love Poems (Softbound)                  

ISBN #0-5952588-2-4

The softbound edition of the book.

6.  INVOCATO                                                    

ISBN #1-4116293-1-0

My collection of some of my best works, not given the wide release of most of my other books, because I wanted to keep it to the hardcore fans.

7.  THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES                      

ISBN #1-4116379-4-1

All 640+ poems, with annotations and both cover and internal illustrations featuring goth model and recording artist Jillian Ann.  A massive book.

8.  The Morgantown Suite Poems                            

ISBN #1-4116337-4-1

Written over a period of several days to give my impressions of the West Virginia town where I spent my teen years.  Some lovely works.  Was disqualified from being used as a prize for a Poetry Out Loud competition because the subject matter of the poem "If your husband gets home".

9.  Ronin in the Temple Of Aphrodite                      

ISBN #978-1-4303042-5-8

A solid collection of muse-free romantic and erotic poems.  I took it out of circulation after the cover model decided she wanted to pick a fight with me, but plan to re-issue it with a new cover in the coming months(!).

10.  Psalms of the Monster River Cult                            

ISBN #978-1-4357072-8-3

Daniel S. McTaggart and I collaborated on this collection of poems about the Morgantown area, the people and culture.  It was fun and well worth the opportunity to work with my longtime poetic mountain poet friend.

11.  As such…                     

ISBN #978-1-4357144-8-9

During my very intense and public relationship with South African writer Candy Tothill, this volume, featuring her image on the cover and a foreword written by her, surfaced.  Intense, romantic, erotic and ultimately ironic as it debuted just days before she packed it in on the relationship.

12.  loveaddict                            

ISBN #978-0-5572839-0-3

Powerful, confessional and true.  The poetry of romantic obsession, of love, of lust of madness.  A very satisfying book to complete, although perhaps a bit inaccessible to my saner readers.

12.  Selected Poems and Passions:  2004-2011                           

ISBN #tbd

Going through a few last minute changes before it goes global, I would have to say this is my strongest book since "love gods…".  The last seven years of love, pain, madness and joy. 

Later this year, or maybe next, you get Apokalypsis, which will render these all moot.  I might even pull them all from publication.  I haven’t decided yet.

2010 is almost over.  An curious year.  I couldn’t have predicted it, couldn’t have planned it, couldn’t have anticipated it, except in my most lucidly random notions.

I fell in love.  Hard.  Nothing new about that.  The relationship is complicated, convoluted and seems determined to rip me to shreds.  Nothing new there.  I am, as usual, the fulcrum around which my life turns.  The fact that a portion of this entry is written in coded phrases targeted to a handful of friends, lovers and fellow poets who will individually take different things away from it, well, that speaks to me and my universe.

I am openly a secret.  I realized that this year.

Four books in the coming year, if the fates and my editor cooperates.  Unlikely.  I have my moments of absolute tottering on the edge of the abyss, but on the one in one billion chance it isn’t a bad thing, I stand there and smile.  Frank Wallenda was right, you know.

I am at an age where certainty, the illusion of security, is like crack cocaine.  I don’t have any of that in my life.  A few vague promises and my own talents sustain me.  There are moments I am hollow, hearing the very echo of myself, and other times I am full to bursting, feeling the magma straining every pore.  If I can navigate the next few months…

What an curious year.  And 2011 promises to be more insane.  I would trade an eye for the ability to know what is true around me.  Who means it when they say "I love you" and who say it out of desperation or negotiation or ignorance.  That would be nice to know.

A few months back the manuscript for my "next" book, Apokalypsis took a 176.25 degree turn when I decided to turn it into a full on love letter to the extraordinary woman I call "White Sunday".  No problem.

But then I kept writing more "White Sunday" poems and the book kept growing.  I asked a good friend, fellow poet Mary Katherine Brake, if she would be so kind as to take over the editing duties.  She agreed, but she also said that there was no logical end point for the book until either I stopped writing "White Sunday" poems (at this moment around two hundred and growing daily) or the relationship took such a dramatic turn that I had to change the muse’s "totem".

I agreed and handed off the project, realizing it could be months, even years, complicated by a complicated relationship the likes of which would make the most love-starved fan go "Phew!  I’m glad he’s not involved with me!"

So I decided I needed to do a different book in time for my Spring Tour.  Something different, something stunning.  Something so overladen with images and poetry that it would explode in your mind and eyes like artillery shells full of ecstasy and pain.  This was the book currently called "orphans", but it will undoubtably change names as now, thanks to the editorial tutelage of Ms. Brake, I have ample reason to postpone that book until mid-Summer 2011.  No problem.

I’ll do a third book, something powerful and romantic and poll my readers and find out…they want what?  Erotic?  Sheesh.  And at the very moment I am trying to demonstrate to that small piece of the universe that matters to me that I am not some overly-intense screaming Byronist.  Okay, I am, but I have other sides to me as well, really. 

Thus was born the need for a fourth book.  Something patoral, gentle, true but in the subtle whisper not the cataclysmic bombast.  I am right now working on the concept, but I think you will find it oddly refreshing.

So, here we go.  I was going to do a book in 2010.  Instead, no book in 2010.  Four books (maybe) in 2011.  Blame my editor.  I knew there was a reason I hated editors.

The good news?  I already have the covers to the first three designed. Really.  No, you can’t see them…yet.

The cats have signed a mutual nuclear defense treaty with North Korea because I have my headphones on and am playing "I’ve Got the Power".  Cowards.  Remember Jeff Bridges in "The Fisher King"?  Same principle.  I’m just a better dancer.

Figured out the major logistical, strategic and tactical barrier to the book.  Very exciting.  Still don’t have a final title, but I have a concept, an idea, a dream, and a rabid horde of creative artists backing me and the project.

Full colour, heavy stock glossy paper, perfect bound, with photography pushing the bounds as it synchs up with my poetry.  It works.  Snap.

The cats have taken hostages aboard a nuclear submarine off the coast of Johannesburg and are threatening to rain "pain and bloody catnip" from "here to wherever ‘there’ is".  Gutless felines.

Ten thousand thank yous to my beloved friend, Russian photographer and model Olga Zavershinskaya for giving me a most excellent idea.  Okay, she gives me lots of great ideas, but most of them involve things other than my books.

"this diseased horizon" is out.  too dark.  I am going for the high ground.  wish me luck.

To celebrate several events, but most explicably the 1,000th post that I have made to my pure poetry blog, Amomancer, I have posted the entire 99 poem collection and contents of my forthcoming book "Apokalypsis".  I edited out a few small elements in the dedication and author’s section, to obscure the identity of White Sunday a/k/a The Sunday Girl, as she is not yet ready to go public, but otherwise, it is all there; the Sacraments, Lighthouse, the first 60 of the White Sunday poems, various villanelle, haiku, sonnets and projective poetry of love, lust, desire, affection, despair, pain, sorrow and consummation.

One hell of a ride. 

Here’s the link:  Apokalypsis at amomancer.

Enjoi.

Yes, after all these years, I took down the City of Legends Store. 

Why?  I get tired of it.  You want to buy my books?  Go to amazon or barnes and noble .  You can even download a free pdf of the entirety of The Compleat Panther Cycles if you’re too cheap to spring for the Kindle edition.  Look, to the right.  No, your right.

You want my CDs?  Most of the tracks are available at my listening room or on blip.fm, or you can buy them at my readings.

If you need more service than that, drop me a line, I don’t hide.

The decidedly cool cats at Flashlight Worthy Books (www.flashlightworthybooks.com), a site for book reviews including links to the product, have tapped me in my status as former humour and film review columnist for AOL and Yahoo’s "Romantic Poet of the Internet" to review some books and even contribute a list or two of books that I consider "flashlight worthy"  (worth reading by flashlight, duh).

If you click on the link above, you’ll find a list I did for them of books of poetry that are infused with the power to aid seduction.  No, I did not include any of mine, that would be immodest and I don’t generally hand tactical nukes to small children anyhow (with great power comes great responsibility, as Stan would say).

So, check it out and give the guys there a kudo or two for coming up with a very worthwhile site for any bookfreak.

Having spent as many years in project and program management, including logistics, (Hey, most poets need day jobs, mine just happen to be high-powered business and technology consultancy jobs) you would think I would be more comfortable with distribution and logistics when it comes to my books and CDs. I’m not.

It isn’t arrogance that keeps me from making some of the deals required to have broader distribution, but annoyance. I feel enough of my life is tainted by the need to wheel and deal and compromise. I get, for want of a better word, resentful when a national chain pushes a stack of paper at me and says "fill this out and give us ten free copies of the book you want us to carry and we’ll think about it".

My daughter works for a national bookstore chain and has encouraged me, in the past, to try and open relations with her chain’s distribution people. I’ve resisted, in part because of the aforementioned reticence to deal with distribution issues, in part because nearly all of my books deal with inspirations that are not her mother, and I know that sometimes (most of the time, all of the time, universally until Hell freezes over?) having to deal with my paeans to various false goddesses might offend her.

Dan McTaggart is working with a local bookstore back in Morgantown to try and set up a joint appearance for us both. I’ve been staying away from bookstore venues, owing to the traditionally bad marketing that goes into publicizing the event, unless you are former football coach peddling his ghostwritten memoirs of mediocre seasons of almost-glory. Maybe I’ll make an exception.

I think it is time I learned to play nice, or at least nicer, in the sandbox with the merchants and the marketing kids. So, I am going to talk to some of the chain stores (Barnes and Noble already carries me, although they do not always actively stock me…and Amazon and I go way back) and see what I can do. I am getting to that age where I think about what happens next and not just now.

I have had several occasions where individuals have become confused over some of the names I used in my recent posting ( you are what you read )about characters that have had some influence in my development. Sigh. But having come to grips with the fact that a large portion of the world at large, my country as a whole and, yes, West Virginia, even, have portions of their populations that have not read all books, I must put to rest some of the confusation.

• Arthur Peabody Goodpasture: Main character in the novel Don Quixote USA by Richard Powell. If someone gave me money to make a movie, tomorrow, I would make an adaptation of this book, starring (most likely) Brad Pitt, as he would be perfect as the wimpish New England Peace Corps volunteer who ends up leading a ragtag revolution in the Caribbean
• Vlad Tepes: The basis for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A Wallachian Prince known for his ferocity in battle and his cruelty to his enemies. I reject his violence, but see in him how a man is shaped (and judged) by the times and environment he lives in.
• Viscount de Valmont: I’ve already dealt with this character.
• Elliot Garfield: Neil Simon’s hyperactive actor hero from The Goodbye Girl, one of my favourite romantic comedies, and a film that, at times in my life, I think I have been trapped in. I prefer the Richard Dreyfus version. The Panther once told me that the playground she played on in elementary school appears in a brief scene of the movie.
• Keyser Soze: The Usual Suspects master criminal. A man who understands that power is for the taking for those who are willing to forswear all other allegiances. Another character who showed me where not to go, from whose mistakes in ethics and morality I learned without having to make the same mistakes.
• Marcus Tullius Cicero: Roman orator, senator, lawyer. Matyred for his attacks on Marc Antony. Eloquence personified.
• Tom Sawyer: Mark Twain’s penultimate young man, who was either going to end up President of the United States, or hung. I was never the scoundrel he could be, but I saw in him the notion that even the most seemingly mischievous has a soul and perhaps a reason for their behaviour.
• Ellen Ripley: The Aliens‘ films heroine. Resourceful, gutsy and lives the notion that you do what frightens you, then you get the courage later.
• Penrod Schofield: Booth Tarkington’s early 20th century version of Tom Sawyer. "The Worst Kid in Town". But actually, when you look at the world from his angle, a very decent kid.
• Jesus Christ: Duh.
• Jeremiah: The prophet from the Old Testament, not a bullfrog. He was known as the "weeping prophet" as he lamented the fate of those around him. There have been times in my life when I focused too much on the darkness that is inevitable and not enough on the light of the moment.
• Ulysses: Clever, resourceful, determined. The kind of man I’d like to be more, at times.
• Jerry Cornelius: Michael Moorcock’s time and dimension spanning ultimate champion, and quite possibly the soul behind Arioch. Too amoral for my tastes, but I am intrigued by his cunning.
• Professor Ransom: The hero of C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra trilogy. Two of my children are named for these books, and I would hope that, were I called to serve, I would serve with the humility and faith Ransom did.
• Macaulay Connor: Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story. A man of style and charm, but immovable decency. I learned many of my more amusing gallantries from him.
• Job: Old Testament patriarch. Suffered but never lost faith. I’ll never have his faith or patience, but he is as good a role model as one is likely to find.
• Charity Hope Valentine: Sweet Charity as devised by Bob Fosse. The romantic "fallen woman" who lived "hopefully ever after".
• Edgar Allan Poe: Write love as dark, avoid laudanum and small, rabid animals.
• Percy Bysshe Shelley: His Ozymandias still brings chills.
• Jed Bartlet: Martin Sheen’s President from the TV series The West Wing. As written by Aaron Sorkin and interpreted by Sheen, a complicated man, always treading the razor wire between morality and expediency.
• Edmund Dantes: The Count of Monte Cristo. I do not believe I would have been as vengeful in his shoes, but here is a wronged man who rises from his ashes with grit and style.
• Jean Valjean: Les Miserables‘ petty thief who finds his redemption in the second chance life offers him.
• Robin Hood: Oh, come on, you’ve heard of this guy.
• Robinson Crusoe: I told my sons the new TV series Crusoe is based on this book and they said "Huh?". So much for the public schools in Virginia.
• Michael Corleone: The fallen son of Don Vito Corleone, who is corrupted by the power he inherits and the pressures of his ascendency. It, in the end, costs him everything he loves.
• Steve Rogers: Captain America, in Marvel comics. It’s nice to have a frame of belief that drives you, a sense of order and principal. A flag to wrap yourself in, if you will.
• Scott Summers: Cyclops, of the X-Men, in Marvel comics. Ignore the movie version. Scott has my tendency to get too gravely serious and take on too much. In him, it marks him for leadership. For me, it just means stress.
• Screwtape: From C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast. I do not wish to be anything like this elder devil, this master tempter. But in his letters to his nephew, he reveals things about the mediocrity of evil that transformed my worldview.
• Hercule Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac: He lived. He was a poet, a warrior and a cynic. After my first wife denied me naming a son for him (how does "Hercule Savinien Arthur DeVault" sound to you?) I at least gave my son Dante the middle name of "Christian", his romantic rival.
• Henry McCoy: Again with the comics. But the avatar for those whose exterior does not easily explain the interior. A genius with a brutish covering.
• George Gordon, Lord Byron: As a young man, I despised his libertine ways, but as I got to know the man, I see a figure more complex than that, and a hell of a great writer.
• Abel: Not from the Bible, but from Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson.
• Barton: Anyone here aside from me read the Cage a Man books by F. M. Busby?
• Will Graham: Manhunter, the movie (based on the book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris) taught me that even our darkest impulses can be channeled for good.
• Gowan McGland: The poet, portrayed by Tom Conti, at the heart of the move Reuben, Reuben. It made me realize that not all poets are preening college professors.
• Patient V: The title character of the graphic novel and movie V. Anarchy with purpose and style points.
• Tyler Durden: If I have to explain this one to any of you, you should be ashamed of yourself and go away.
• Henry Plantagenet: Henry II, the first real King of England (even though, one could argue, that he was French). A mess of a man, but he tried to make sense of the world and to find a balance, not always successfully.
• T.E. Lawrence: Lawrence of Arabia. Aside from also, like Plantagenet, having been portrayed in film by Peter O’Toole, Lawrence showed us a complicated hero, one who didn’t really want to be extraordinary. Anyone who accuses me of a messiah complex is as insightful and clever as a box of rocks.
• Joe Gideon: Bob Fosse’s avatar in All That Jazz. I have been accused sometimes of being like him or of trying to be like him, which is bullshit. I don’t drink, do drugs, screw around on an epic scale or wear leg warmers. I do recognize the self-destructive artist impulse, where one draws creativity from pain and confounds it.
• Jack Celliers: David Bowie’s character in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. A shell of dichotomies, driven by guilt he cannot express, but that empowers him.
• Ramon Guerola: Raul Julia’s character in The Penitente. If you haven’t seen the film, I cannot explain. If you have seen the film, I do not have to.
• Quasimodo: I am forever wracked by doubts as to my value as a person, as a man, feeling malformed, not so much on the outside as on the inside. I see in this character the ultimate outsider, who in the end gives everything for love. A far more romantic character than any dashing soap star.
• Teddy Roosevelt: Larger than life, built of his own will. The classic American icon, to me.
• Theophilus North: From the Thornton Wilder novel of the same name. A character worthy of emulating, who finds the right thing to do, in the face of the criticism of others and the madness of mediocrity and prejudice.
• Johnny Quest: From childhood, I always wanted to seek out adventures.
• Inspector Juvet: Les Miserables. A negative influence here, as he taught me the folly of judgment and single-mindness. Although many of the people I have given second and third chances to have disappointed me, some have not and it is to my realization of what a twisted soul the Inspector was that gave me the strength to continue to give those chances to those who had disappointed me.
• Rocky Balboa: Criticize Stallone for many things, but the character he wrote and breathed life into represents the will to succeed, even on one’s own terms.
• TS Garp: The film mesmerized me, as I saw so much of the sideways view of life I possess in the eyes of this character, portrayed by Robin Williams.
• Inspector Dauphin: The original detective story detective, brought to life by Poe. I wish I had his powers of observation and deduction.
• Froggy: From the Little Rascals. When I was very small, I loved this colourful character and actually wanted my voice to go hoarse and to get glasses. I got the glasses, at least.
• Sir Galahad: To quest for something perfect and pure. To be worthy of questing for something perfect and pure.
• Auguste Rodin: Sculptor. The best of the best. Mad, driven, given to his appetites, but so brilliant that stone seemed to come to life to his touch.
• D’artagnan: The rustic dirt fell off and under it all was the heart of a noble Musketeer.
• Comte de le Fère: Alas, closer to my own sphere than I might like. Athos, of the Musketeers. Brutally self-destructive, his heart broken, he never fully recovered. I look to him not only as a tragic figure, but one whose lesson is to avoid self-pity.

So, there it is, in a nutshell, a tour of the battlefield with a bit more viscera for those who have been too busy playing Warcraft to read a book or watch a movie older than 2003.

In the run up to August 17th, the day after my birthday, I have stated I am going to release a lot of information and close a lot of chapters. So, let me do some of that now and get things bumping off down the road.

I plan to continue actively being a part of the internet, as this was where my heritage came of age, and I found my audience (or, perhaps, they found me). Ignoring the snarks, the sharks, the hecklers, spammers, phishers and stalkers, I have a substantial audience who continue to read and propagate my works and words around the world. I am grateful for this and would not presume that my occasional moment of despair or fit of pique should entitle me to change the barter between us. I have confronted too many people in this life who are selfish, but mask it under other guises, I do not wish to be able to be accused of such a flaw (I have enough flaws, already, thank you).

To this end, I can promise you that in some form or flavour, both semi-static poetry sites and one or more blogs will remain and will retain their content and intent. To me, time is an ocean, and to scoop bits out of it and rewrite history would be like burning down the White House after each election. Stupid, and intellectually both dishonest and cowardly. These are my standards for my conduct, and these are my documents of my life. With all my flaws and failings, it is still the truth as it was in the moment, I am not so craven as to rewrite, obscure or re-invent myself. I am who I am. I wear no masks.

I will continue with the current course of enhancing www.williamfdevault.com to make it more attractive and to expand the range of works available there, looking to an upward limit of approximately 200 works. Do I count The Goldenheart Cycles as 1, 7 or 49 of those pieces? I don’t know. Ask later.

I derive great pleasure from being able to pick a date or time and look back through my blogs and see what was important to me, what was I thinking of or feeling, then. The blogs serve purpose, not only to someone looking to see the intricacies of my creative process and the evolution of my life and work, but to me. It is my journal. my diary, my photo album and scrapbook, all rolled into one.

The title of this entry should give you some clue as to what I will say next. At this time, barring some monumental and earth-shaking, life-changing event (like falling in love, which seems unlikely given the 4th degree burns this last leap of faith left me with) I will be, in this life, producing 3 more books of poetry. I am not disposed towards giving any more information than that concerning my publication and production plans. Most likely the remaining 9 billion poems will have to wait for my death to see at least paper publication.

That’s part of the path at this time. The web stays, the books peter out and I am bound to the light. You can ask me all about it on the next bardo.