Letters & Poems to the Editor.

Hallo, LUNGFULL! -

Today I got a package filled with yellow LUNGFULLS! Oh, it was a happy day. One LUNGFULL I read and read. The other I plan to eat, with some wine I've been saving since late 2000.

I know a store that wants to carry LUNGFULL! To be honest, it is my store. That is how I know. What should I tell this store?

Also - you may have lost $4 when sending me my LUNGFULLS! Don't worry - it was here in one of my LUNGFULLS! I will send them dollars back. It will be my Super Bowl bet. I will take the Giants winning by at least 8 touchdowns.

I like you. Also Rachel Levitsky and Michael Gizzi. I have a crush on Bobbie : West, but I would like to get to know her better. Amy Gerstler I like like. Wayne Koestenbaum seems cool, as does LIZ.

OK, boyo. I cannot wait to buy you a Brooklyn Brown. I have decided that when I inherit some money, I will bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn. For you. I promise to write better poems from now on.

I am off to fight crime and buy some records.

Love
Green Lantern (Jim Behrle)
Boston, Massachusetts

PS - If you see Douglas N. Rothschild, please tell him that Boston NEEDS HIM. Thx.

Dear Editor -

Have you ever considered a Lorises-only issue of LUNGFULL! ? Please do. Or, we'll release this picture to the media.

Respectfully,
The Retired Loris Guild
Greenpoint, New York

Dear Brendan -

Thanks for publishing my poems in issue #10. I've enjoyed reading it cover to cover. Only two small corrections in my bio: I am the opposite gender, and the Norton Coker Chapbook is Triad, not Temp. I apologize for what was probably bad handwriting. In the mid 80's I didn't give any clues as to my gender when submitting work because it seemed like mags were biased towards men. A few years ago all my male editor friends lamented the lack of women submitting work so I tried to ever since then make it more obvious. Anyway, great stuff.

Best,
Jules Mann
Middlesex, England

"Cruet" From The Dirthead Review

Buxom perform regal

bands of ample Jane,

bituminous gas in rainbow

colors in the hour strap

of flawless Elliot names,

dippy successors wait molten

like a tiger in knot joints

sweating to the oldie airhose,

epoxy bite on my freedom

France along the shining

phone, unpaved with power,

American FM speed, field

of garters and ampersands

of weed, crossed into

suckers, broken skin graves,

midwife on braille, reverse

time glorious exhaled escorted

rolling hill-knuckle, bow before

the hell and bone of my

separate holding language.

Brandon Downing
New York, NY

Brendan -

Imagine Erin Fletcher and I inviting you to tea. Interposed with this measly, paltry little insomniacathon. Been much antisocial lately. #10 is a scream, sufficient to have this letter printed or shall I go on? No, really. I have to go - my cat is licking my basil and oregano - but I just wanted to say I'm proud of you, fine man, and I send poetry soon.

Brian Batcheldor
Louisville, Kentucky

Brendan -

It is easy to have a letter in LUNGFULL!. All one must do is write you, Brendan, an e-mail, forget about it, and two years later, one's mother will notice it as a letter in LUNGFULL!.

This occurred in my own life.

But this can only happen once. The second time one sends you an e-mail, one will edit each word precisely (- except for this word: "camshaft"). I found that term at random in the American Heritage Dictionary.

Love,
Sparrow
Phoenicia, New York

Dear Brendan Lorber -

In a world of uncommunicativeness (among guys who are supposed to be devoted to communicating) your standard rejection slip is a joy. Especially for young writers, it tells how the editors themselves have been there. It must have taken a little time to compose. On the opposite side of the card is one of our neighbors [A Kookaburra]. We must have a couple dozen of them. Their laugh is very realistic and they are not scared to eat from your hand. If I ever start a little mag again, guess what I will call it, and what will be its emblem?

Best wishes from the very deep south,
Richard Deutch
Bilgola, Australia

Dear Editor -

Please be advised I have edited bus out of my poem Provocatively (Issue 10) and replaced it with boss as in "my boss is pulling into the station."

Thank you,
Rachel Democracy Levitsky
Brooklyn, New York

Dear LUNGFULL! -

We've stopped here to bond with our Ozarkian brethren in arms and wish them a hearty "namaste!" Then off to the A & W American Restaurant to resurrect hot dogs from their styrofoam coffins. Sorry you missed the Marshall Crenshaw show at Lake O' The Cherokee Campground last night. Thinking of you and LUNGFULL! while sipping Stewart's Grape Soda. Jesus loves you as do I.

Albert and Marian
Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri

Yo, Brendan! -

I loved the orange issue of LUNGFULL! especially the draft with the spell check on the Windows screen. As we at Microsoft awaited the Big Sell, I sat on my so-firm cot mapping Storm Foci (don't tell anyone I was using Linux!) eating bagel silt laced with bilge salt, when Big Stella looked in and shrieked "it's lab gel!" So I've ridden to Tombstone to await my showdown with Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.

Bill Gates
Tombstone, Arizona

Dear Brendan -

The first letter I wrote you was too sad. I'm sending instead some goodies for you to eat and some, well lots, of my new poem things for you to read in a warm room, preferably with hot chocolate and this list of things I would give you for Christmas if I could: 1. The Curious Book Of Stains by Julie Reid, not finished, well, not started. 2. A snow lantern and a rare monkey. 3. The four secrets of enjoying delicious soba. 4. A prima ballerina dancing on her 75th birthday. 5. One tenth of a tightrope pressed with bromeliads. 6. Nutmegs hung from strings and bitten to break hexes. 7. A pickaxe for murdering the clockwise.

Love,
Julie Reid
Petaluma, California

Dear Lungfull! magazine -

In the past my correspondence with you has been polite, sympathetic, and I like to think that I am a sensible person. I would like to reiterate that. The dictionary defines polite as meaning the sounds a tuba might generate in a snowy, winter scene. Sympathetic is more like if Charlie Chaplin were to score a bit part as a terrorist in the next Wesley Snipes movie. As I was reading the first drafts printed in you (sic) magazine, Lungfull!, I was looking for signs of weakness in the crossouts, and in the quivers of ink lines. This is more what I mean by sympathetic: I have read Lungfull! before, and I will read Lungfull! again. This is what I mean by thinking about myself as a sensible person. That is why I would like my lifetime subscription for free. I must cease this correspondence now, and return to playing Tombraider on my I-mac.

Best,
"Brandon Downing"
but actually Eddie Berrigan
New York, New York

Dear Brendan -

At last the hour is at hand! I hold within my grasp the shiny new volume of Lungfull! magazine, and I feel myself a better person, even as the glare of the sun's reflecting rays on the waterproof cover burn out my retina, for knowing the humor of and personality of the cover will be the last thing I ever see. What laughs! I will miss my sight at times, but I will have the image of the fiery cover forever burned into my memory, and besides, it won't matter when I'm at the Zinc Bar.

Best,
"Sharon Mesmer" but again in reality
Eddie Berrigan continuing to smear
the good names of fellow poets
New York, New York

Dear Brendan Lorber -

Got a second for a little fan mail? I just wanna say how much I love Lungfull!! I've been a fan of your mag for a while, but recently picked up number 9, which I've relished cover-to-cover. It's grand that the magazine can be so slaphappy fun and yet so damned full of good stuff at the same time. I want to point out particular poems that I especially enjoyed, but there are so many. Certainly Tom Carey, who I had the pleasure of hearing read here in San Francisco a few weeks ago, Nada Gordon & dear Mister Berrigan, from whom I've been trying to get some stuff for my online poetry mag, SHAMPOO. Your sketches are great, too. And there's something about having the draft next to the final product that's really motivating. Go figger.

With kindest regards,
Del Ray Cross,
Editor, SHAMPOO
www.ShampooPoetry.com

LUNGFULL! -

No wonder it's yellow and sunny - you've finally published amy gerstler! congratulations. what a way to ring in #10. thanks for the as ever hilarious writing.

Carol Mirakove,
Los Angeles, California

Dear Brendan -

Hi & how are you? Thought you might like what one of my former students from Queens College had to say about LUNGFULL! (I, but of course, raved about it in class & suggested they all get a copy & attend the reading release party). I recently received this from (an excellent student) Elias Posth: "I hope you will still come to the Lungfull reading the next time they have one. I will make it a point to be there because I must say that the editor has a REAL good sense of humor and I like the journal for its original spunk. To tell you the truth I only wanted it because its the safest thing to read on the toilet. It's waterproof and has all natural aloe." Anyway, we live in Baltimore now. We are still in the settling in stage. It is good. However, you do not live here & that will be a source of terrible daily woe. Hope all is well.

Love,
Pattie McCarthy
Baltimore, Maryland

Hey Brendan -

Thanks for the latest issue of Lungfull! and yes, I'd love to have dinner this weekend! (Hah! I am one of the people who proudly made it to the end of the fine print and was not unemployed, paranoid [I don't think], or at the eye doctor!)

I really like Cynthia Nelson's work and was glad to see it in there; I've also been a fan of some of her musical ventures. The FAQ's are also really funny. I think this issue might make its way home for the holidays with me!

Hope this finds you well and best wishes for the new year from everyone at CLMP.

Best,
Tara Needham
New York, New York

Dear Brendan -

Thank you for the lovely gift of Lungfull! - It is a wonderful issue. I love Tonya Foster's work and of course, yours. Every issue is packed with excitement and generosity. Lungfull! rules over daytime TV, evening news and, yes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Happy holidays to yous & yous.
Kristin Prevallet
Brooklyn, New York

Dear Editor -

How can Jen Robinson sleep at night knowing her puzzles are the leading cause of our residents' distress & the most implacable disorder to treat. Please, in the future, don't merely print the answer to her acrostics, print the cure.

Yours,
Dr. T Jackson Lorre
The Lauterbrunnen Institute
Lake Brienz, Switzerland

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