Like driftwood, words, phrases and severed sentences come floating by. Part fisherman, part scavenger, I spread my net and rescue these bits of debris from the deep. I can’t say why certain severed statements catch my eye. Floating fragments of meaning, they sparkle and speak to me. And by a peculiar lure beyond my conscious ken, they sometimes come together. The pairings are not always opportune. Some sniff at each other’s nether parts in passing, as dogs do, and promptly part in pursuit of other more enticing scents. But on occasion something clicks. This is my second published assemblage of such felicitous couplings. Some readers may relish the result. If not, just toss it back into the tide.


Driftwood at the River's Edge by Peter Wortsman is available now.


Turning to the instinctive and tactile art of cut-ups reminds me of how a simple process with text itself can prompt such a depth of discussion and thinking, and open up the author’s otherwise empty mind.
—Sarah Tremlett
This poet’s cut-up poems […] find their roots in Dada poet Tristan Tzara’s méthode découpé, and shares scissors with William S. Burroughs’ cut-up method by which the gunman-junkie-novelist made new poems from old material. Wortsman’s approach differs though from his forbears. Central to both Tzara’s and Burroughs’ programs was production by chance encounter — Tzara advocated drawing cut-up words from a hat; Burroughs cut pages into sections, rearranged them, and sought out interesting juxtapositions. The products of these chance operations intermittently provided revelatory insights and proved capable of expanding past poets’ oeuvres by rearranging their language in a manner reminiscent the Musikalisches Wurfelspiel, or musical dice game, attributed to Mozart, by which one could compose a near infinite variety of waltzes from a small body of musical text. Rather than relying on chance as a generative device, Wortsman reads his source material prophetically, scanning texts, selecting words and phrases that attract his attention, and turning these to his ends. […] …emotionally rich and truly original.
—Marc Zegans
Peter Wortsman self-deprecatingly refers to his cut-up poems as ‘strange assemblages,’ which is what I myself might have referred to them as before I encountered them. But, much to my amazement, they read to me as real poems—poems written with the startling help of a muse I myself would hardly have believed in before I read them. But I most certainly do now. These are works which, indeed, have, magically, been able “to find a form that accommodates the mess.” But what they create is anything but a mess… It is truly, much to my surprise, pleasure and amazement, art.
—Michael Blumenthal, the author of ten books of poems, including CORRECTING THE WORD: POEMS SELECTED & NEW, 1980-2024, forthcoming from The Ravenna Press.

Opposite of Shadow, a collaboration between old friends (and former Woods bandmates) Linda Smith (artwork) and Brian Bendlin (writing), is an exploration of place, time, memory, and the natural world. It is the companion book to Brian Bendlin’s music CD 13 Groves.

The deluxe edition, including the CD, is available directly from the Bamboo Dart Press, Grapefruit Distribution, and Revolver USA.


Opposite of Shadow by Linda Smith & Brian Bendlin is available now.


Linda and Brian have been friends and collaborators for almost forty years. An album of mid-1980s tracks by their band the Woods, So Long Before Now, is available from Dot Matrix / Modern Harmonic.
Linda Smith began making music in Baltimore during the early 1980s with various bands. Following a move to New York City in 1984, she formed the Woods with Brian Bendlin, Peggy Bitzer, and Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer. After purchasing a four-track cassette machine during that time, Linda began to record her songs at home; from 1987 to 2001 she released music on such labels as Harriet, Feel Good All Over, Slumberland, Shrimper, and her own Preference label. In 2021 Captured Tracks released a vinyl collection of her home recordings titled Till Another Time. Since then she has returned to recording new music, with Untitled 1-10 Plus 1 (Almost Halloween Time Records), and A Passing Cloud, a collaboration with Nancy Andrews (Grapefruit/Gertrude). She received an MFA in visual art from Vermont College of Fine Art in 2008.
Brian Bendlin moved to New York City from the Midwest in the 1980s. He was the first drummer for the band Crash, and has been a drummer and percussionist in numerous bands and ensembles, including Robin Crutchfield’s Dark Day, Nothing But Happiness, the Joan Group, and the Balinese gamelans Chandra Kanchana and Giri Mekar. After the breakup of the Woods in 1986, Brian and Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer released a series of DIY solo and collaborative cassette albums in the late 1980s under the catchall banner Trouble Picnic, including Brian’s ambient album 13 Groves (1987); they also formed the acoustic trio Two Houses (with Lloyd Miller), which played live in New York, London, and Berlin in 1988. Brian received an MFA in writing from Bard College in 1996.


Linda's Bandcamp: lindasmith2.bandcamp.com

Linda's Facebook: The Home Recordings of Linda Smith

Linda's Instagram: @smithlindamarie

Brian's Bandcamp: brianbendlin.bandcamp.com

Brian's Facebook: Brian Bendlin