Two poems of mine for Diego Rivera went up at The Monarch Review Today
It’s strange. Valerie Vogrin pointed out to me that these are such small poems written in response to such large paintings and murals. But I think the people in Rivera’s painting are of few words.
Two of my poems just went up at The Eunoia Review
One of them contains a reference to an old John Cusack movie? Know the name of the movie? The first person to email me with the correct title gets 10,000 points, or a free Jason and the Beast CD.
http://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/as-i-grew-old-one-night/
http://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/thermodynamics-of-laundromats/
Twenty Avocados Published
A well-traveled poem of mine about Guatemala, the people you meet in hostels, and avocados just went up at Outside In Magazine.
I wouldn’t be mad or anything if you clicked on the link to check it out.
http://outsideinmagazine.com/issue-thirteen/poetry/twenty-avocados-jason-braun/
AUTHORS UNBOUND: THE RISE OF THE MAKER AUTHOR is up a Critical Margins
Authors like Matt Kindt, Jenifer Egan, Geoff Schmidt, Ander Monson and more are pushing past the printed page and into the third dimension.
Find out how Author’s can get in on some of that Maker action!
http://criticalmargins.com/2013/05/01/authors-unbound-maker-authors/
Published online at Thunderclap
Here’s a very short and maybe even funny poem that just got published today-
http://thunderclappress.com/2013/04/29/jason-braun-platonic-ideal/
Edwardsville Intelligencer’s Feature Story on Homophonecheck.com
Corey Stevens had this to say:
Their is going to be a new way to edit your class assignments online. Or is it they’re? There?
Jason Braun, an English composition teacher at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, has released the world’s first homophone checker. Homophones are words that sound alike, but are spelled differently, and cause a lot of confusion for many beginning writers.
Read more at:
http://www.theintelligencer.com/local_news/article_d5ecdb8c-a6b8-11e2-b188-0019bb2963f4.html
A new post of mine just went up at Critical Margins
It’s about Zombies, Matt Kindt, and the Future of the Book .
http://criticalmargins.com/2013/04/15/scott-turow-and-the-zombiefied-american-author/
Local Boy (Me) Makes Good (For Once)
http://www.republictimes.net/waterloo-native-creates-helpful-new-web-app/
Homophonecheck.com getting props at Critical Margins
Recently, I’ve discovered two tools that have helped me introduce grammar concepts to students without having to dig through textbooks: Grammarly andHomophone Check.
http://criticalmargins.com/2013/03/27/homophone-check-and-grammarly-automating-grammar-instruction/
Did you know I host a radio show?
If you have a book of poems, short stories, or creative nonfiction that you think is newsworthy, get at me.
Homophone Checker Press Release
Jason Braun
314-614-3717
homophonecheck.com
For immediate release:
Check Yourself:
The World’s First Homophone Checker is Online–and It’s Free!
There, their, and they’re won’t be a problem if you use homophonecheck.com
Edwardsville, IL, March 25th: Jason Braun, who teaches English Composition at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) will officially release the world’s first online homophone checker. Homophonecheck.com is a free web app that allows writers to quickly proofread for errors that word-processing software typically skips over.
Writers copy text and paste it into the homophone checker. Then 40 of the most commonly confused homophones–words that sound the same but are spelled differently– are highlighted automatically. When writers move their curser over the highlighted homophones, a box pops up showing each possible word, its part of speech, and a grammatically correct example sentence.
Although Braun has published extensively, and is the Associate Editor of Sou’wester, a national literary magazine published through SIUE, he has dyslexia and has struggled with these homophones himself. While teaching English Composition, Braun found errors in students writing, distracting from the content of their papers. He complained to his colleagues for a while. They concurred. Then he analyzed the most frequent errors in student papers and conducted an informal survey of his colleagues to determine the most common homophone confusions in student work. Braun then made a list of these words, along with the parts of speech they belong to and an example sentence for each.
Braun bought homophonecheck.com from Godaddy.com. Then he called in Dan McKenzie, a computer programmer, bass player, and artist. Braun and McKenzie have collaborated on projects as diverse as Hip Hop albums and apps. Last year, they created an iPhone app that was the 144th most downloaded paid business app on iTunes. Braun and McKenzie worked on this project for over six months.
ADVENTURES WITH MENTORS: AL KATKOWSKY
Here’s a short profile and interview I did with my friend and mentor, the app star, Al Katkowsky.
http://criticalmargins.com/2013/02/11/adventures-with-mentors-al-katkowsky/
SOFTBLOW
Four of my poems just went up at SOFTBLOW. The poems are about talking trees, obsession and carpentry, white guys listening to black power poems, volvos, pleasure of old records and other stuff. But I’d just check it out for the shark logo.
TIM FERRISS: 4-HOUR-HERO OR JUST ANOTHER ASSHAT?
Kevin Eagan and I get it going crossfire-style in this blog post below!
http://criticalmargins.com/2013/01/20/tim-ferriss-4-hour-hero/
Prime Number
A few hardboiled and central american inspired poems of mine and a Q and A just went up at Prime Number. If you’ve ever planed a getaway, this is for you.
http://www.primenumbermagazine.com/Issue31_Poetry_JasonBraun.html
Curio Poetry
Three short poems of mine just went up a Curio Poetry. One is about a Southern Illinois town of Hecker-where there’s a street with my last name, one’s about demons, and one’s about a flight attendent I dated once.
http://curiopoetry.wordpress.com/curio-issue-10-jason-braun/
One of my poems just went up at the Camel Saloon
The Poem is called “Old Movies Taught Us” and has dogs, santa, and Shirley Temple in it. Where else you gonna find that all in one place?
iPad, Digital Watches, and the Caveman
NAKED AS A CAVEMAN
Here’s a blog post I did for Kevin Eagan’s blog Critical Margins. It stars like this:
The October issue of Wired Magazine is “The Design Issue,” and it is fruitful to think of this particular issue and theme as being the right time and place for a full-page advertisement for the nuud, a case for the iPad designed by LifeProof. The iPad is produced by Apple, which is a company obsessed with design.Wired’s target market is a white, male, Apple-buying collection of “hackers.”
iPad, Digital Watches, and the Caveman
Check it out.
Today’s Poem
Political Campaign in an Age of Apocalypse:
The Staten Island Ferry
is one of the last things
free left and the zombies
are trying to change that.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
The Point Near Blue
You cannot sooth me at the point near blue.
Cool it on the signs and mumblings,
it knows amour’s at fault and that these ills
are the kind that kills men for souvenirs.
The joy French waiters have venting
on tourists. The appraisal of each penny
spent in another language. How much?
The vanilla nut latte, the cinnamon pastry,
the hour kneeling and lighting candles
for the sacrifice son—explain the exchange
rate compared to the past. Less man dances,
the less man rests with woman face to face.
Those tan disco souls know this. The point
near blue denotes where a brass band
will pass this evening. I will be kneeling there.
-Jason Braun
Cosmos in Evergreen Review
Here’s poem of mine that was just published by Evergreen Review.
http://www.evergreenreview.com/b/cosmos/
Today’s Poem
Underground Ethnography
Reporting from the Earth’s core
I come to you tonight live. I’ve searched
for drinking songs among the men
down here and found none. Not one
note hovering above a bottles mouth,
nor has any man attempted tremolo
in-between the falling of canaries.
Living in their quarters, I can attest
to the horrors, the heat, and longing
for home. Years ago an old man
in a new suit told these boys
that the beautiful virgins were fed
to the volcanoes above, they could
be found here and taken back.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Poem as Birthday Gift for My Girl
I also took her
out to dinner.
I’m not the beatnik
I used to be.
That is not to say, now
I know better.
I don’t. But I do
have a job today.
She not aged,
laughs the same
as she did years
ago when we dated
the first time.
Big-eyed, long-legged,
so foxy and with a halo
of hair that old, white
women don’t understand.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Fable
He woke as a mouse
might. Lazily, still drunk.
Remembering the glue
paper trap from last night
binding his feet in place,
in spite of the throbbing
bass. Stop, squeak, shake,
and repeat. Calling for help
in an empty house might
stir the wrong neighbors
or a stray tomcat.
-Jason Braun
