The Outsider Writers' Book Review

Petition for Amazon.com, please read!

2007-10-21T17:45:00.000-06:00

Outsider Writers, and the people signing this petition, urge Amazon.com to add an “Alternative” literature listing under its “Books” pull-down menu. Alternative Literature needs a room of its own. I have spent close to a year trying to get Amazon to make a decision on this issue without a response, so now it is time to see if people who buy and sell books on Amazon want to see Amazon.com have an “Alternative Literature” listing.

Amazon is an extremely important online sales tool for independent publishers and authors. Bookstore shelf space is more limited than ever, and it can be impossible to find new poetry or fiction from independent publishers. That is why independent publishers increasingly use online sites such as Amazon.com to market their books.

There are thousands and thousands of products listed on Amazon, but Amazon has made it easy to browse through products until you find what you want. Its site has pull down menus for main product categories. Click on “Books” and you will find extensive listings for everything from Graphic Novels to Performing Arts to SF and Fantasy. There is even a Poetry category. There is not such a Literature category, though.

The Amazon system works well if you want to browse through mainstream publications, or if you already know the author and/or title. But if you are looking for “Alternative” you have a problem. There is no Alternative category. The Alternative literature is there, but it is crowded out by the mainstream books. If you don’t know exactly what Alternative writing you are looking for, you won’t find it--but if you want to browse you will find plenty o’ pages listing books, but the Alternative writing is buried among the mainstream products.

It is time for Amazon to create an Alternative listing in its Books section, dedicated to alternative/underground poetry, fiction and prose. Amazon can start by simply listing books from small, independent publishers, and then can create subsections under Alternative, for poetry, flash fiction, political writing, and other subgroups. This would be great for publishers, authors, readers--and Amazon itself.

Victor Schwartzman

Outsider Writers

www.outsiderwriters.org

The petition can be found at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/amazoncom-should-create-an-alternative-literature-section

Misti Rainwater-Lites: Call for submissions

2007-03-24T19:02:00.000-06:00

Misti Rainwater-Lites: Call For Submissions

The following post is from a great poet, Misti Rainwater-Lites:

Anthology To Benefit The West Memphis Three

I still haven't decided on a title for the anthology. I will be taking submissions until June.

If you are interested, please send three poems and a bio pasted into the message to me at mistirainwaterlites@yahoo.com.

If you are not familiar with the West Memphis story, please educate yourself before inquiring or sending me poems. My vision for this anthology is to include at least fifty poets. With three poems from each contributor, the book will contain at least 150 pages. Depending on the base production price at lulu.com, I will set the royalties at two or three dollars. I want to be able to send at least $100 to the defense fund. That is my goal.

If you know even a few things about the case, you know what an important fight this is. It involves every compassionate citizen not just of America but of the world. Three little boys were brutally murdered. Three dirt poor teenagers were convicted of the horrible triple homicide based on "Satanic panic" and gossip. How can we send someone to Death Row in the United States of America WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE? Damien is on Death Row. Jason and Jessie are in for life.

I want to see those three innocent men set free and I want to see them receive millions of dollars from the state of Arkansas for the pain they have suffered for over a decade. I've read that Damien has been raped in prison. I don't know about Jason and Jessie but I'm sure they've also been brutalized in various ways.

It's good to send letters to the three men. They appreciate letters of support and encouragement. Writing letters is not good enough for me, however. I'd like to do more.I have tremendous hope for this anthology. Please spread the word and contribute if you can. Thank you.~Misti Rainwater-Liteshttp://ebulliencepress.blogspot.com

Paul Whittington: Android 207

2007-03-10T21:15:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman

Android 207 is not a poem, a short story or novel. It is a film—a ten minute black and white movie.

Why is it being reviewed on this site? Because it is fine underground work, and that is what this review blog is all about. Android 207 is fine alternative film making.

The film maker is Paul Whittington, his website is www.carrotkid.com.

Android 207 is one spunky little fella. He does not look quite like an android. His head, in particular, is a human skull, with pop-out white eyes. His body, while robotic, is curiously human. Especially his face: eerie, but human.

Our little hero finds himself, suddenly, in a vast maze. The maze is filled with threats. There are huge spikes that thrust out from the walls and then retract, pits to fall into, dangerous electrical bolts to fry him, moving try to crush him and, perhaps worst of all, a very nasty machine with rotating spikes is hunting him down.

There is even another android, hanging by its hands at the end of a corridor, who needs his help.

I first came across this film on www.indieflix.com. It was stop motion animation, came recommended by the site, so I ordered it. The cost was well under $10.

I’m a big Ray Harryhausen and Willis H. O’Brien fan. They are the two prime movers in theatrical stop motion animation. Phil Tippett and Jim Danforth are other well known names. This Paul Whittington guy, making the most of his limited budget (the spikes coming out of the walls are just large nails), is as good as any of them technically, and superior to the last two in infusing his animation with emotion.

You forget this is a stop motion puppet. Android 207 quickly feels real. He is courageous, frightened, and compassionate.

The end of the film pulls it all together, but I am not a big fan of spoilers, especially in good films. Let’s just say that the film is an allegory of very real issues. An allegory about work and its tests. About manipulation and the big forces that try to control us. About our lives in this society.

What more can anyone ask of underground writing? So what if it’s a film?

Consider going to Whittington’s website to find out more about this film. Also check out indieflix, which has a large number of underground films, many of which look worth your time.

Coleen Rajotte: In a Voice of Their Own: The Video

2007-03-06T17:32:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Jim Silver

We do not ordinarily review videos, but there is room for everything on this review blog that is provocative and nonmainstream. Check out this powerful video from one of Canada's First Nations. When I saw this review, I knew it had to be posted.

I do know Jim Silver, he's a great guy. You should buy his book. Jim is the Chair of the Politics Department at the University of Winnipeg, and author of In Their Own Voices: Building Urban Aboriginal Communities (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2006).

I should also add that I am a proud member of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a very progressive organization dedicated to making Canada a better place. You can find the CCPA at http://www.policyalternatives.ca. Learn more about this great organization! The Office Manager in Manitoba is Harold Shuster, and I know him too.

The video costs $10 for non-profits and $20 for other organizations and government agencies. That's $10 Canadian. More information is available by phoning Harold Shuster at 204-927-3200, or by faxing (204) 927-3201. You can also e-mail ccpamb@policyalternatives.ca.

Snail mail?
Harold Shuster, Office Manager
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-MB
309-323 Portage Ave
Winnipeg, MB
R3B 2C1

In a powerful new documentary video called In Their Own Voices, by award-winning Aboriginal film-maker Coleen Rajotte, Aboriginal community development workers describe the distinctive and highly effective form of Aboriginal community development that they and others like them have created in recent decades in Winnipeg's inner city.

Based on interviews with some of the 26 Aboriginal community leaders interviewed for the final chapter of In Their Own Voices: Building Urban Aboriginal Communities, the video offers an insightful look, through their own voices, of the often difficult early lives of some of those who have become leaders in Aboriginal community development circles. These leaders describe how they overcame the barriers they faced, and the distinctive Aboriginal community development they have built in Winnipeg¹s inner city.

A powerful theme that emerges in the video is the damage caused by colonization. In the 19th century Canadians of European descent seized Aboriginal peoples' traditional lands, forced them onto reserves, removed the basis of their economic livelihoods, subjected them to the control of the Indian Act and Indian Agent, made every effort to eliminate their political systems and cultural and spiritual practices, and forcibly seized their children and transported them to residential schools where most were treated cruelly and where the deliberate purpose was to separate them from their families and communities, and thus from their Aboriginal cultures.

This was a deliberate strategy.

The idea, as the Department of Indian Affairs put it, was to "kill the Indian" in the child. Aboriginal people suffered immensely from this process of colonization, a process predicated upon the false assumption of the inferiority of Aboriginal peoples and their cultures. That false assumption continues to be widely held today.

Unfortunately, many Aboriginal people have internalized that false belief in their inferiority, and the result has been, for many, a loss of self-esteem and self-confidence, and a sense of worthlessness, often accompanied by despair and anger. One residential school survivor, for example, told us
that:

"Two-thirds of my life has been severely affected, negatively affected, as a result of being a survivor of this system. I hated people. I hated White people, I hated churches, I hated God, I hated governments.

"These things I hated because they destroyed my life, brought it to a standstill...no hope, a useless existence with no future in mind and all
I had was bitterness and anger."

But out of this anger and despair, and the harsh conditions of Winnipeg¹s inner city where poverty and racism abound, these Aboriginal leaders and others like them have built a distinctive and holistic form of Aboriginal community development that is rooted in an understanding of the damage caused by colonization, and of the need to de-colonize, and rooted also in the traditional Aboriginal values of sharing and community. Many of these people began their journey to becoming community leaders through exposure to some form of alternative education: Aboriginal training programs, adult education, specifically-tailored post-secondary education‹where they worked with other adult Aboriginal students and developed an understanding of colonization and its impacts.

This holistic form of community development starts at the level of the individual, and the need to heal from the damage of colonization. Part of this involves rebuilding Aboriginal peoples' identity and creating pride in being Aboriginal. The process of rebuilding themselves, recreating themselves, although it happens person by person, requires a strong sense of community--one in which Aboriginal cultures flourish--and this in turn necessitates the creation of Aboriginal organizations. Just as Aboriginal people work to reclaim their identity as individuals, so do they seek to reclaim their collective organizational identity via the creation of Aboriginal organizations.

This is a process that has been going on for more than thirty years in Winnipeg: the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre, the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, the Urban Circle Training Centre, the Native Women¹s Transition Centre, the Circle of Life Thunderbird House, the Children of the Earth High School, to name a few examples. Finally, a holistic form of Aboriginal community development involves an ideological understanding of colonization‹ an understanding that the problems that weigh so heavily on many Aboriginal people are not the result of individual failings, but of the process of colonization that adversely affected most Aboriginal people, and that require a process of de-colonization for their
solution.

This holistic form of community development, that takes place at the individual, the community, the organizational and the ideological levels, is a process of decolonization, of Aboriginal people taking back control of their lives after many decades of colonial control. It is a powerful force for positive change, created entirely by, and out of the often harsh experiences endured by, Aboriginal people.

In the video we hear Aboriginal people describe this process in their own words. The video, and the book upon which it is based, are among the many outcomes of the work of the Manitoba Research Alliance (MRA) on Community Economic Development in the New Economy, headed by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. Aboriginal people told us, when we embarked upon this research project, that they wanted to be full, participating partners in the research, and that they wanted the MRA to give back to the community what we have learned by working together.

The documentary video, In Their Own Voices, is one of the many ways we are meeting our commitment to work in partnership with the Aboriginal community, and to give back what we have learned. It is an important and accessible source of knowledge about the urban Aboriginal experience, about Aboriginal creativity and innovation, and about de-colonization.

The video is intended to be widely used in Winnipeg's inner city and beyond for educational purposes. Copies can be obtained from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba.

Victor adds that the video has obvious value to people outside of Winnipeg, and deserves wide viewing!

David Mason: Ludlow, a verse novel

2007-03-04T19:39:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Cicily Janus

Cicily and David came from the same town but they do not know each other. She does know the publisher. And yes, I do know Cicily. There! so many of us know each other! Cicily and I have been emailing for over a year. She is an "emerging" writer with some great ideas. You can find out more about her through:
http://www.myspace.com/ellamargomom
http://blog.myspace.com/ellamargomom

Ludlow is published by: Red Hen Press: www.redhen.org. Contact them for copies!

For 48 hours of my life, I was utterly mesmerized into another time and place with this magnum opus of prose. From the minute I opened this novel, written completely in verse, I could literally not put it down. It was almost as if there was a cast of thousands of miners working against my ordinary life, calling at me to keep reading, keep reading…. Or maybe it was just Luisa Mole, Louis Tika, or Too Tall MacIntosh, the MC’s of the book calling out to me.

Their haunting lives leapt out of the pages and into my heart. Although I could not identify with them in the most basic sense of the word, I could surely feel the sympathy for their trials in life. Stunned from page one, incarcerated by his words by page 17, David ominously begins his empathetic look at the miners life at the time of the Ludlow massacre:

The miners made widows too, when timbermen
or diggers deep inside the earth cut through
to gas and lanterns set it off, or when
the pillard chambers fell. You heard a slump
within, and some poor digger ran out choking
there was thirty boys still trapped in the seam.
And some days all you’d see was bodies carted
down the hill and bosses counting heads.

Not only is this passage particularly powerful and ominous to the rest of the book, but it is acutely relevant to the recent tragedy involving all of the mining families in the U.S. This portrait is so evocative, that I can only imagine that it was what was in the mind’s eye of all of those who suffered in those last moments.

David Mason poignantly looks at this tragic piece of American history and Colorado history in a fictional light and makes beautiful, heartrending poetry out of it. He blends the melting pot of the time into a stew of stories and catastrophes, turning the reader into a believer of the power of verse only to end it with:

I dream Luisa gathering her story,
no trace of her parents’ accents left in her,
though they are part of her life’s inventory.
She uses names like Tikas, Rockefeller,
Lawson, Mother Jones. The communards
have heard of some of these, and she unveils
a vision of the camps in simple words,
a scrap of song, a memory of hills.

Bravo!

I can only dream that maybe this is how David pieced his masterpiece together, with scraps of imaginings and songs, wafting down the peak through his window while he dreamt at night in the cool Colorado air. My hat goes off to David, and I pray that he produces a hundred more of these in my lifetime, as the world needs these stunning words as sustenance for the soul.

Brad Evans: and them and the jackals and the night

2007-03-03T18:02:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman

I've emailed Brad, and he me. He lives in England, I live in Canada, and although we are both metric, we have never met. It all started when he emailed me with a request to review his book.

I liked what little I read at first, but wrote him that, given this book certainly gives a reader her money's worth--at 226 pages, it is not a slim volume--I would review it if I liked it, but not all of it. Too many poems, too little time! So I agreed to review only the political poems. I'm not fond of poems about the poet's girl or boy friends, her/his sex life and so on--just in general, nothing specific with Brad's work. My personal interest is in poems that want to change the world. Brad wants to change the world as well...so here we are!

Where can you get this book? Good question. It is a DIY (Do It Yourself) book, i.e. independently published. Not that Brad has not been published before--the 'rap sheet' of print and online magazines which have published his poetry is lengthy indeed. If I were you, I'd email Brad at
evans_baj@yahoo.co.uk and ask to purchase a copy.

The "political" poems are in the "and the jackals" section. And how are they political? And what do they look like? And why should you care?

Check this out:

his first job

we competed for the same
job

and
in the end

Kevin got it,

began to pull in the wages
of an apprentice-

butcher

and the Boss got him
going

quick & mean,

and soon Kevin was breaking up
a swaying sea

of porkers and beef
slung

over hooks of
steel,

and
sometimes

I'd be there, watching him
sweat his

ring out

while the Boss sat &
smoked...

it was later
that Kevin told me about

his near misses with
the blades

and how he almost cracked his skull
against the slimy

floor of the refrigeration
unit.

and then one day he slipped
with a

blunt boning knife,

felt the blade in his left
thigh-bone

and I said to him

"Man, quit the fucking job, the Boss
is chewing you up!"

"Bullshit", he laughed.

and then in the following week
Kevin

slipped again,

with blood bursting out of his right
thigh,

he limped to the surgery with
soaked towels

& by the end of Xmas, Boss felled
him with

a nervous breakdown...

3 years later,

Kevin got his certificate

and quit,

went into something
safer:

the building
game.

but that's another
story.

The writing is direct, each word carefully chosen, measured against the next. Love that sly mention of "the building game"--any one who has worked in construction knows how safe that is!! This 'story poem' worked for me. It was about real life, a life most poets would not wish to touch unless a gun was pointed at their head: life for regular working people. Life in the slaughterhouse. There is a lot of truth in this poem. You should reread it.

I once had a investigation case involving a slaughter house. The most striking impression when I walked in was how cold it was, about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The workers wore white coats, but underneath they wore jackets to stay warm. Can you imagine how difficult it would be working in such cold temperatures every day? Not to mention cutting up a pig for a living?

Brad's spare style works well throughout his writing, whether a story poem or something more direct. For example, in on being asked how I felt about australia's involvement in East Timor he does not deliver a lecture, but instead creates an image of a desert, where a flock of vultures feed on a carcass, a "benign brotherhood" of carrion. Nice imagery!

Then there is this one:

classroom incident

my voice
my presence

reminds him
of his father

but I don't know it,
until he breaks down
and cries by the whiteboard.

and not being a father
I am not aware of the importance
until now...

as 8 y.o. Jamie
tells me his father
is nurturing a company

6
days

out of
7.

Too bad dad is not nurturing his child instead of the company, eh? Such spare lines, such full meaning! This is almost simplistic writing (because on the surface there are no flowery passages, no self indulgent pompous poetics) with an unmistakable underlying depth.

As with any book containing so many poems, inevitably some read weaker than others. Some feel...slim...compared to the ones I have quoted in this review. But the vast majority of the poems are very much worth your time, and they are all about something. The "jackals" section could really exist on its own, with very few trims.

And though I may not want to admit it, the romantic poems were...well, okay, I'll write it, gritting my teeth: I liked many of them, they were, okay gosh, romantic.

Mark Howard Jones: The Garden of Doubt on The Island of Shadows

2007-03-01T21:04:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Matt Merritt

I won't mention if Matt Merritt has met Mark Howard Jones, nor would I want to say that ten times fast.

This novella comes out of the Sein Und Werden crowd, well it's not a crowd, it's sorta one person really: Rachel Kendall. But she probably has friends, and they crowd around her, I'm sure. The Sein Und Werden web site is worth checking out, but be warned: it is surreal horror, not for the feignt hearted, or is that Fay ain't hearted? Well, you know what I mean.

You can find Sein Und Werden at the following website, and you will, if you're not a great big scaredy cat chicken:
http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden
And, at that site, if you look, you will find ordering information for the novella reviewed below. It costs 1.99 pounds, or is that kilograms?

Matt Merritt is an English journalist and poet. His debut chapbook, Making The Most Of The Light, was published in 2005 by Happenstance Press. His blog is Polyolbion - http://www.polyolbion.blogspot.com/.

The island of the title may be surreal, unreal even, but what makes this fine novella work so well is the skill with which it deals with the harsh reality of death.

There are no answers offered, no easy consolations for the reader, but the unflinching portrayal of grief and loss manages the seemingly impossible task of making the conclusion both devastating and life-affirming, and all the more convincing for it.

The plot centres on the mysterious disappearance of a rock star, and his girlfriend’s search for him by following clues in his lyrics.

As for the central character, she is both well drawn and sympathetic, and Mark Howard Jones succeeds beautifully in using her to highlight the ultra-thin line between hope and self-deceit.

The background in the world of 1970s rock is excellent too, my only complaint being that I might have liked more of it.

But that’s a minor quibble – this is both compelling and moving. Twists are used imaginatively, to advance and deepen the plot rather than just to shock, and the control and restraint exerted by the author suggests he could make a similar success out of a much longer work.

Scott Virtes: Peripheral Visions

2007-03-01T20:56:00.000-06:00

Review by: Charles P. Ries

I have no idea whether Charles has met Scott. However, I do know that Charles has met cheese, and liked it. So he'd probably like Scott also. Not that I am saying Scott is cheesy.

Assume Nothing Press. E-book: $5 order at http://assumenothingpress.blogspot.com/
Chapbook $6 order by sending e-mail to thepoetrymarket@yahoo.com36 pages / 22 poems.

In an interview with LB Sedlacek of The Poetry Market Editor, Scott Virtes explains why he chose Peripheral Visions as the title for his most recent collection of poetry. “I've always been amused by seeing things in peripheral vision. The edges of our vision like to play tricks on us, so the collection is about things which are almost real or blown out of proportion.”

This collection is a thoughtful reflection on the small and almost unnoticed; the life that surrounds us and often escapes our acknowledgement. Here is an example of Virtes ethereal observations entitled, “Transformation”: “the Me who commenced this is dead --/ broken apart, transformed, new, / having left pieces behind displaying / how he has changed to become / Me who is about to finish”. Virtes’ collection of narrative poems is written in clear, spare language. He provides only enough narrative structure to allow the reader to experience his meanings, but not be led to their conclusions.

Here is another good example, “damn the night before continued”: “it returns, reminds us / days are numbered / randomly / a surge of smiles / undertone bass / raising and falling / moving away in patterns,/ everything was here / we came, we saw, we were, / we needed no more.” This is thoughtful nuanced collection of poems.

Wred Fright: The Pornographic Flabberghasted Emus

2007-02-28T20:02:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Leopold McGinnis

Yes, Leopold does know Wred. But Leopold also writes honest reviews, just like Wred writes honest novels. You can find out more about Leopold at www.redfez.net.

As for Wred, check out his site: www.wredfright.com. It's worth the visit!

Available through: ULA Press. Purchase at: http://outyourbackdoor.com/article.php?id=684

A victory for literature that does not take itself so seriously.

The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus is a great book. And it’s great without ever making any pretensions about being great. And that’s what makes it great. Got it?

It’s not the concept, but the execution that makes the Emus (and no I won’t be spelling that out in full again) such a good novel. In fact, you could argue that a book about a band has been done before. About a million, bajillion times. It’s even been done well in some rare cases – Hard Core Logo being a good example. But the charm of PFE is not staked in its concept, but in what has to say and how it says it.

In a world increasingly full of pompous, masturbatory, navel-gazing BORING books, The Pornographic Flabberghasted Emus is a rare and much needed breath of fresh air. So few band novels manage to grab the energy of actually being in or seeing a band, but PFE reads like a punk show put on in some suburbanite’s basement while the parents are away. It's something you just can't find but in an underground novel.

The plot of PFE is refreshingly non-complex. In fact, it doesn’t have so much a plot as a premise: the novel is about a group of zany housemates-cum-garageband who never come close to ‘making it’ but rock on anyway. And rock on they do, through a series of housemate/band related events, all of which are often too bizarre to be NOT true... Emus reads like a series of episodes, which makes sense as the book, in its original incarnation, was published as a series of 7 zeen instalments.

There's not much point listing all these zany and humourous events here because there are a LOT of them. They fly out of the cupboards, drip down the stares and blare through the doorways. There’s so many crazy, different and overlapping situations going on in the book, reading it is almost like running a gauntlet of chaos-induced fun. What one feels being part of the Pornographic Flabberghasted Emus might just be like.

I won’t leave you totally hanging, though. Some of the situations you can expect to enjoy in PFE are as follows: an episode of band-poster rivalry resolved through stapler-based violence; a housemate who is a witch and curses the band member’s girlfriend prospects, a safari-outfitted ethnomusicologist studying the band for his degree, lesbian groupies, a man wheeling a giant fridge from the suburbs into downtown so he can get his damage-deposit back, sound violations of various degrees and the usual sex, drinks and rock and roll.

It should be mentioned again, though, that the enjoyment of emus is not just in what happens (and a LOT happens as, according to the author, this is largely a collection of several years wroth of real-life band stories crammed into one year and one house), but in the characters and how they tell their stories.

The band is made up of 4 members who each take quick turns narrating the book from their point of view. George Jah, Theodorable, Alexander Depot and Funnybear. Chapters are divided up as one might divide up a song (with an intro, several verses, a chorus and a coda) and on top of this, several bit characters get a quick ‘Middle Eight’ in the middle of each chapter, offering funny (and rhyming!) insight into aspects of the story outside the main characters’ viewpoints. The splitting of the narration up into four people really helps drive the story. Due to the episodic and loosely-plotted structure of the novel, the multiple narrators really helps keep interest in the piece, and provides a lot of nice tension to keep the book moving.

I’m sure the book was written to be just fun, but it would be a mistake to take it that lightly. In between all the rampant tom-foolery and chaos the characters offer up a number of clever, insightful and original views on the world. More than once I found myself pausing in the middle of yet another example of band-debauchery to ponder aspects of feminism, capitalism, homosexuality, pornography, world politics, before being pulled right back into rocking out and having fun. This aspect of the novel gives the book a great realness. Just as one might expect in real life, most people are rather intelligent and insightful in their own ways – but 95% of the time they aren’t.

I’m a very critical person and I think the thing that made me most realize that this was a great book was that I couldn’t think of anything really bad to say about it. At worst, the serialized nature of the book takes away from the ‘building tension’ you expect from a novel. There’s no real climax, or mystery as to where all this is leading. But considering that momentum is the biggest trouble with novels about ‘nothing’, PFE did an amazingly great job of keeping my interest. And that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a climax, or, most importantly of all, a satisfying ending. Because Emus does.

Overall the message of Emus is of fun and tolerance. And that, if entertainment isn’t enough for you, alone is a great reason to read a fun book. Highly recommended.

Misti Rainwater-Lites: Mnemosyne's Pool

2007-02-27T21:17:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Pat King

It is not clear whether or not Pat knows Misti. However, Misti sent him her book, apparently. Misti did not send me her book. I'm jealous. What does Pat have that I don't? Well, don't answer that!

Misti's newest chapbook is available on Lulu, just type in her name!

Misti Rainwater-Lites is a super-talented and super-prolific underground writer. I just got her newest chapbook, Mnemosyne's Pool in the mail today and couldn't put the thing down until I reached the end.

Mnemosyn's Pool is a long poem that mixes mythology with the personal. Misti wails for the gods and wails for her humanity.

There's an angry music to her poetry, in short, tight lines. Sometimes one can hear the trumpets, sometimes a soft flute, sometimes a guitar, played slightly out of tune. Her anger is sad and beautiful. Wail, wail, Misti!
And play us some more sweet songs of loss.

Mnemosyne's Pool is available at www.lulu.com.

Blogperson's note: Misti has taken on an awesome project. She is preparing an anthology of poetry to help raise money for The West Memphis Three. Don't know who The Three are? They appear to be three men unfairly convicted of a horrendous crime, one of whom is on death row--Google The West Memphis Three and find out more. And go to Misti's site on Lulu, to contact her for more information about the anthology--or to pre-order copies!!

You can email Misti at ebulliencepress@gmail.com. You can order copies of the chapbook there, I'm sure, and also find out more about the anthology.

Todd Moore: The Name is Dillinger

2007-02-25T08:25:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman

I've never met Todd, but we have periodic email conversations. Todd sent me several copies of his work, "The Name is Dillinger" being the oldest. So I started there.

Where can you get this book (24 pages, all one poem)? The edition I have is from Kangaroo Court Publishing. I could not find this small press when I Googled it--it probably no longer exists. I did check out Amazon, and found one used copy available, for $57.75.

It was a surprise to read “The Name is Dillinger”. First published in 1980, it is the American gangster icon John Dillinger musing in the first person about where he is from, what he means to other people, what he means to himself (what he means to himself seems to be what he means to others). The surprise? The writing style—not lean with very brief lines, but closer to Carl Sandburg with a heavy dose of Walt Whitman and some echoes of Allen Ginsberg: musical, long flowing lines filled with rhythm, invoking a song to America. No, not a song: a chant.

Dillinger is always on the run, “gun hand in my clothes”, both living and running past life (at least, the life the rest of us know). He has no peace except in tiny moments:

Turning my rabbit’s foot between my fingers
For good luck
Turning my lady on her back
Turning down a drink just before a job
Turning my name over in my mind
My magical Dillinger name
Turing the pages of a magazine
w/an article about me
turning my collar to the cold
asking someone to turn the eggs over easy
turning quickly on the avenue
for police
turning over in bed w/handful of pistol
whenever footsteps come up or go down the hall

It is not a peaceful life. He is always on the move, and always seeing people while moving.

The poem is not just about Dillinger, but about everything around him: people, cars, those who hunt him, the women who want him for what they think he is—it’s even about farm animals. He has a mother and father—he writes some about his mother, but it is his father who repeatedly reappears, haunting him. The women he engages in fleeting encounters are phantoms, as are the FBI agents watching for him. Of other human beings, only his father stays in his thoughts, always distant, waiting for his son to come home. His mother is warmth, the sun. His father is his lost life.

The poem is long, 24 pages. At times I would start to think it was getting repetitious, that I had already read these thoughts, but just as that feeling would begin there would be a twist. It was as if Moore was playing with the reader, bringing the reader along to an expectation, then playing with that expectation to show one more side of a man everyone thinks they know, but whom none do know.

The writing style is consistent. At one point, though, the page splits in half, with a line beginning on the left, then being finished on the right, only to lead to the next line on the left. While that may sound tricky, it worked, and did not feel like a “style tricky”. Like Dillinger doing a bank robbery, Moore gets away with it (except he is not stealing anything from us, he is giving to us). So no, not tricky: but then, there are very few poets who could write an extended stanza about urinating on various objects (okay, “pissing”) and get away with it—like a Dillinger getaway.

A man defined by how others see him, by what he does—but the real man himself remaining a dark enigma.

It is a long poem but suddenly it is over, at just the right moment and on just the right note.

Mike James: Alternate Endings

2007-02-20T21:36:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Charles P. Ries

Charles does not know Mike. But can we trust them? Are they hiding something? Do inquiring minds want to know? Do inquiring minds care? Or are inquiring minds still waiting for news on those weapons of mass destruction (you know those weapons--they're called federal electronic voting machines).

As for Charles, if you've read other reviews on this blog, you know this, but if not, it's worth repeating: he lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we have exchanged emails about cheese.

His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over one hundred and sixty print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing, and most recently read his poetry on National Public Radio’s Theme and Variations, a program that is broadcast over seventy NPR affiliates. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory. Ries is also the author of five books of poetry — the most recent entitled, The Last Time which was released by The Moon Press in Tucson, Arizona. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and Pass Port Journal (www.passportjournal.org). He is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore (www.woodlandpattern.org) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most recently he has been appointed to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literati.net/Ries/

Alternate Endings is published by Foothills Publishing, P.O. Box 68
Kanona, New York 14856, www.foothillspublishing.com
Price: $7.00, 32 Pages/ 26 Poems

Alternate Endings is Mike James fifth book of poetry and a nice collection it is. The majority of the 26 poems are thematically rich and well structured; and a few blew me away.

“The Smiling Man: A Children’s Tale” does an eloquent job of telling a complete fable in just 17 lines. I enjoyed its economy of language and image. James also writes a nice batch of message poems. Poems that render a defining and insightful meaning such as “Poem”: “mother called crows / nothing birds // because she did not love them // because she knew / that magic of naming / what she did / note love”.

Another winner is “Homemade Routines”: “i finished the last part of today’s crossword puzzle / by throwing it in the trash // I need to waste some time every day / as surely as I need gossip and sandwiches // this morning i shaved at the sink / instead of in the shower // all day i’ve walked two steps slower then normal // too many days of this and my hair will grow long / I will begin to speak in riddles of broken syntax // too few days of this and not even my shadow / could find me beneath the sun”.

James brings wisdom to the common moment. There were only a few lines in this collection where I felt his work inched a bit too close to sentimentality, but this may be more a matter of my own tastes than any indiscretion on James part.

All in all, a very fine collection of poetry.

Mark Wisniewski: One of Us One Night

2007-02-20T21:32:00.000-06:00

Review By: Charles P. Ries

I should have asked Charles if he knows Mark, but it was excited to receive some new reviews from him, so I posted this right away, and if you don't like it go sue me: my legal name for law suits is Vice President Dick Cheyney (oops, the secret's out). Later, Charles did tell me he does not know Mark, so you can sue Dick Cheyney about that also.

Platonic 3Way Press, PO Box 844, Warsaw, IN 46581
Price: $5
41 Pages/ 17 Poems

Mark Wisniewski writes long prose, short stories, and very short line poetry. He has held two Regent’s Fellowships in Creative Writing from UC-Davis and won the 2006 Tobias Wolff Award. It is exhilarating to read poetry informed and guided by the muscles of a long writer – not just a poet, but a true story teller.

One sees the usual conventions of the long form writing in Wisniewski’s poetry: dialogue, narration, tension, and structure all in a highly compressed form. This compression is further amplified because Wisniewski prefers short lines and limited punctuation. He gives the reader just enough information to hang his meanings on.

There are many gems in One Of Us One Night. His long opening poem, “Nebraska” is a beauty. Here is an excerpt, “a woman pulled over / & let me in // she was as ugly / as that October in Nebraska / & I was thumbing my way / away from myself // trucks full of hope for / sale swishing past // & all around us / were night-hidden wheat / stalks & silos & children who’d never / be rock stars // well this woman smoked & talked / about time in jail // & a man / who’d been hers // about her hatred of him / & all of them // they were all pussy- / sniffing bastards”.

In his four page poem, “Omaha” I sometimes found the short lines and the rapid bulleting of words tiring and making it hard for me to follow the poem. I wondered how this poem and a few others would read if reconstructed using longer lines and stanzas, but each poet to his own devices. One Of Us One Night is a wonderful piece of writing by a poet well schooled in the tools of the trade.

Sein und Werden: An Expressionist, Existentialist and Surrealist Feast

2007-02-18T15:33:00.000-06:00

Review by: Ralph Robert Moore

I have not met Ralph. This review came to me through Charles Ries, who thinks Ms. Kendall's site is so terrific he wants everyone to know about it. Ralph gave his permission to use his review.

I checked out the site myself before posting this review. Normally we don't review zines, but Sein und Werden is something else. It really does deserve a wide audience--although it is edgy enough, bless its heart, that the 'mainstream' would probably never be interested. If you like horror with a surrealist bent, and bent is the word, Sein und Werden is a treat--in the trick or treat vein!

I read only some of the pieces, as I have just finished my first week back at work after six months' medical leave--and that's been 'surreal' enough, hahaha. But what I have read of it pressures me to read more, and I think you might feel the same. I'll tell you one thing: after reading one particular story on the site, I'll be DAMNED if I ever go skiing again (not that I ever have)!

After reading the review check out the site itself, which is easy. Just go to:

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/eleven/index.html

It's free. What are you waiting for? Godot?

If you want to purchase the print version, which would support art, it is available to purchase with Paypal or cheque/check, through Rachel Kendall or Spyros Heniadis, the print editor in America. Go to:

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/print.html
It is also available through Shocklines.com.

Meanwhile, if you're wondering about Ralph Robert Moore, he's never met Rachel, but emails with her, following her accepting one of his stories in an issue of Sein und Werden. Ralph's own fiction has been widely published. "The Machine of the Religious Man", a short story he wrote, was nominated as Best Story of the Year at the 2006 British Fantasy Society Awards. "Father Figure", a novel, was published in 2003. He is also an editor of the literary magazine Decoy. His website is www.ralphrobertmoore.com--check it out!

The goal of Sein und Werden, as stated on its website, "is to present works that evoke the spirit of the Expressionist, Existentialist and Surrealist movements within a modern context," an approach founder Rachel Kendall refers to as "Werdenism." In late 2004 she created an on-line version of Sein und Werden; and in 2006 added, with Spyros Heniadis' help, a separate print edition.

The third issue of the print version of Sein und Werden is called The Collaboration Issue, in which two writers (on one contribution five writers), or a writer and an illustrator, work together on a project.

The collection opens with The Birth of Athena: Redux by Paul Bradshaw and Peter Tennant, the best tale in the issue, and in fact the perfect beginning for this collection, since it signals by its extreme language and imagery that "everything is permitted" in these pages. The story starts with a son beating his father to death, then deciding to have sex with his girlfriend while both are virtually on top of the corpse. Things get more depraved with each new plot twist.

Part of the game of reading is trying to imagine what will happen next, but in this particular game, Bradshaw and Tennant are so far around the next corner before the reader, you go down the pages with one surprise after another popping out of the paragraphs. Athena stands as an excellent example of how an idea, no matter how bizarre, can be developed into a full plot. It should be required reading for all aspiring authors.

The idea of collaboration is carried forward in an ingenious way in the next selection, Adam and Eve. Here we have Matt Williams transforming one of Juliet Cook's prose pieces into a poem, after which Cook turns one of Williams' poems into a prose piece, two writers' different talents entwining around each other, braiding; the dual triangular heads flickering with some terrific lines: "I had to force myself to look at her breasts and see them as evil apples."

The poem Ghazal, the product of five authors, is a meditation on Cleveland, effectively ending each couplet, with a 'Nevermore' constancy, by using the city's name: "your past industrial might, now just a shadow/the river is healing as in a fog you creep, Cleveland."

In the pair of poems that follow, Witches of the West by
Ellaraine Lockie and Gypsy on the Boards by Patrick Carrington, the theme of collaboration is carried forward in a less traditional manner, each author creating their own poem, set side-by-side on the page, collaboration here meaning two poets who both write poems with a strong sense of place, and who are now working on a joint collection based on their shared approach to poetry.

Career Path by Dominy Clements and DF Lewis is a short, haunting piece about a brother and sister who suffer separate misfortunes. He falls off stage scaffolding, becoming paralyzed, after which, wheelchair-bound, he gradually gains a great deal of weight; she, while snow skiing, pushed by the angle of the slope against a razor fence all the way down the mountain, is lacerated beyond cosmetic recovery (giving us the charming image of her, post-recovery, "smoking cigarettes and puffing the smoke through the perforations in her cheek.") This story can in fact be seen as a metaphor for the issue itself, in that both protagonists then create a third person, collaboratively.

To me, the best-written story in the collection, on a sentence level, where you admire each word choice made by the authors, is Atom Bomb, by Willie Smith and Paul Kavanaugh. Here's the first sentence: "'Leche fesses,' sings this queer mellifluously, dressed in lederhosen, extremely tight shirt, count the ribs in his chest, nipples erect belly button like a little clit, still reeking of Dresden." The observation "belly button like a little clit" reminds you, after so many 'like' and 'as' atrocities by others, just how powerful and apt a simile can be, and how graceful alliteration can be.

Along with several other stories and poems, including part three of Cameron Pierce's Keeping Angels, the issue also features a number of collaborative efforts between writers and artists. The best of these is editor Kendall's collaboration with illustrationist John Brewer, which plays with the idea of the exploration of a lover's bare back expressed in terms of cartography, producing a hush of words spread across a rear view of a torso and what looks like a reversed image of Great Britain.

Spyros Heniadis is the Print, Layout and Design Editor of the print edition. His vision contributes quite a bit to the "feel" of the magazine. The design of the previous issue, with its black brick wall, reminded me of something dangerous that might be rolled-up and slid into a pipe in a public bathroom, to be retrieved by someone looking over their shoulder while they needlessly flush the toilet. The present cover is a pale swirl of blue and white, like wallpaper in a hotel bedroom, in which faces and out-reaching hands can be discovered in the quiet patterns, every number dialed on the bedside phone producing an unending rhythm of unanswered rings.

Rachel Kendall is clearly trying to do something different with Sein und Werden. Of all the genres, horror has consistently been the one that achieves its best effects through the distortion of "reality" (the one word in the English language, according to Vladimir Nabokov, that should always be encased in quotes). Her exploration of the exaggerating techniques of Expressionism and Surrealism is exciting and, as evidenced by this issue, worthwhile.

I highly recommend the magazine.

Steve Dalachinsky: The Final Nite & other poems

2007-02-18T15:01:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by Alan Catlin

Alan does not know Steve. Not really personally anyway, but he has exchanged emails with him. Apparently they have never met. Maybe they should meet. Good poets should meet. Send Alan and Steve money to finance this meeting. Don't you want to support the arts; or, in this case, the Alans and Steves?

Alan, by the way, is a very good writer. Google him. You can email him at thecatlins@msn.com, provided you will not tell him he has won a Swedish lottery he never entered, or that you have twenty million dollars in Nigeria to invest but need his bank account to do it. Instead, you should send those emails to georgewbush@gov.us.

Ugly Duckling Presse, www.uglyducklingpresse.org, (distributed by Small Press Distributor's) ISBN 1-933254-15-17, 247 pages, 2006, $16.00

Jazz is the subject, permeates the sensibilities, the words, the poems/meditations in this substantial collection by NYC poet Steve Dalachinsky. This is a life's work, spanning twenty years of concerts in select small venues around the city listening to jazz artist Charles Gayle.

"I stand outside
on the edge of my shadow
at the edge of the doorway
& the nite is crying
small tears
for me"
(from "poem 1 7-12-89")

Pick a page, any page in this collection, and you will find highly impressionistic, personal reflections on the music and the man, that is the primary focus of this work. As the poems are unedited, they do not have the feeling of polished gem making, of something honed to perfection and thereby deprived of life. Instead they have an improvisational feeling, fresh as the music that inspired them. The poet is willing to take the risk of originality at the expense of Art; as he would say, "It's about the music."

"& he said on the 4th day-
blue
he simply said "blue"
& little else followed
& all around him
things swam like the blue
as if
blue were a new thing
which it was
as was swimming"
(from "god 3 (addendum blue) melody")

If there is such a thing as an approximation of music in poetry, this would be poem, all the poems in this section, would be among the best examples of one art rendered in another form. In addition to the well over 240 pages of musical musings, six color paintings of Gayle in his element, are included with the text.

Todd Moore: Dillinger's Thompson

2007-01-30T08:42:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman

Victor has never met Todd.

But there is a story about why he wrote this review.

After a review by Christopher Robin (who else?) on a book of poetry co-authored by Todd, Victor sent Todd his standard email. It is longstanding ULA Book Review Blog policy (since three months ago) to send authors an email that their book has been reviewed. The idea is, respect authors enough to let them know their book has been reviewed.

However, I was told after sending the email that Todd wondered if it was some sort of spam, was a sneaky request for money, or whatever—spam on the internet can lead us to believe that an email from an unknown person is an attempt to get our money, one way or another—either by selling us penal enhancements, the opportunity to help someone from Nigeria invest twenty million dollars, or to let us know we have won a lottery we never entered. I was offended by the idea an author thought I was asking for money, although why I was offended is hard to say, since Todd is a total stranger and my emails can be even stranger. Like that last sentence.

Anyway, I decided I should read something of Todd’s as one way of showing my good faith, and found a used copy of Dillinger’s Thompson on Amazon. My, this is a long paragraph.

Where can you find this book? It's out of print, and thus available only in used bookstores (or through Amazon's network of bookstores). I found it through Amazon.

When Elliot Ness was shooting his hot seed from his Thompson sub machine gun, was he masturbating?

Todd Moore sees the 1930s’ weapon of choice--for both criminals and police—as erotic. In seeing the Thompson as erotic, he’s making a statement about how Americans see violence and power. What counts is indeed size, and how you use it—as the narrator basically says to J. Edgar Hoover while ridiculing him, the narrator’s Thompson is bigger than Hoover’s.

This book is short. I got it a few days before writing this review. I thought I would take a look at it before going to sleep. I figured I'd glance at it. Instead, I read it through. The poetry was instantly compelling, probably because it went straight to the heart of the dark side of the American dream.

The book is 53 pages. 12 of those pages are an introduction. The rest is a single poem whose individual lines are rarely more than three or four words.

In the introduction, Todd writes of the romance Americans have had with the Thompson sub machine gun, and then relates that romance of violence to his own childhood. He did not have an easy time, a street thief living in a sleazy hotel full of “marginal underworld toughs and amiable sociopaths”, finding escape in movies which reflected his life: “I remember shoplifting some stuff out of a five and ten just to get enough money to see The Asphalt Jungle. I remember putting a scar on a kid’s face right after coming out of The Big Sleep.”

In the context of American violence, automatic weapons are erotically charged, the ultimate. They spit out the lead without stop. And, of those automatic weapons, the Thompson is the classic, both from reality and the movies. “Maybe the marriage of Dillinger and the Thompson sub machine gun is the most subversive of all American couplings. It is one of the most extreme metaphors I can think of because it depicts the dark side of this country and it is a vision which will not go away.” In reading those sentences, I thought of the the coupling of America's foremost criminal with America's foremost romanticized violence, and then I thought of the current US President, who enjoys the image of himself as a quick draw cowboy, but who would never allow himself to get within miles of a shoot-out.

The poem that follows the introduction is part of a longer work Todd has been writing for thirty years (this book was published in 2002) and, at that point, totalled 50,000 lines.

There are four main characters: the narrator (at times Dillinger, at times perhaps Todd himself), Billie (his “woman” whom he sees only in carnal terms--they don’t talk about books), and Lester (a fellow criminal). And the fourth character: the Thompson sub machine gun.

The book begins with the gun.

Todd describes the weapon in erotic terms, unable to resist it:

…I can’t or don’t
want to resist
it knows the shape
the precise curve
the tight feel
of my trigger
finger the way
my mouth knows the
geography of a
woman’s breast i
want to hold that
gun in my lap…

The lines quoted above also help illustrate why the poetry is compelling. The language is direct to the point of being stark. The lines are short, and they are broken up in a fascinating manner, with “sentences” beginning part way through a line, or ending on the first word of the next line. It is not just a way of keeping your attention or making you read. There is a remarkable rhythm the writing establishes, pushing the reader along (not dragging, not pulling, pushing).

The writing is full of stark images that do not have any affectation, a mix of poetry with prose. In one section, getting shot by a Thompson is compared with being on the receiving end of having sex--getting fucked, not making love, with the bullets entering victims like a penis enters a body. In another section, Al Capone’s Thompson is described in loving detail.

This is poetry with intent and power, not poetry where the poet is desperate for the reader to whine with her/him about her/his navel. There is a lot more that I could write about this book, but this review already feels remarkably long, given it is about a single poem from a relatively short book. But Todd’s poem has that onionesque quality: the more you look, the more layers you see. Though unlike an onion it didn’t make me wanna sob, it was way too in my face for that—this poem is not a emotional kleenex you cry about, it is a dare.

Stephanie Hiteshew: Addiction Poetry

2007-01-29T18:32:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Christopher has now written enough reviews that I feel profoundly inadequate. I have not written nearly enough reviews! Talk about setting a high standard! Anyway, Christopher does not know Stephanie, and Stephanie has said nothing at all about that important issue--although if you read the review, you'll find a link to where you can hear Stephanie's voice--but not about whether she knows Christopher--what is she hiding?

Stephanie Hiteshew, PO Box 2325 Ellicott City, MD 21041-2325. Or try: poetofrage2003@yahoo.com. Or, how about James Michael Ward 13263 Spruce St Southgate, MI 48195

As a former addict, I found these poems to be thought provoking while mildly self indulgent, as addiction by its very nature is very self absorbed.

Once in awhile they attempt transcendence: “I’m talking about Iraq/I’m talking about 700 thousand dead/I’m talking about the needle in your skin/it’s madness,”(‘Madness’), and addiction is often a spiritual quest: “I believe in prayer/as self-meditation/the cure of my disease/begins with me/take your burnt lips/and black fingertips/rejoice in the beauty of the cathedral/knowing Christ a pauper who reveled in life,” (‘A Connection’); but mainly these are poems of struggle, poverty, and deep psychic pain.

The references to Jim Carroll and Bukowski are few and far between, as they don’t seem to be attempting “literary-cool,” via self destruction, which this reviewer has personally grown tired of.

The two authors run the gamut from complete obliteration: “fuck those politics/I’m feelin’ fine/ain’t that sweet/just one more time,” (‘Heroin’), to the euphoria of a few dry days: “I want to live to see my novels published/to kick around the script writers conference/can’t say I’ll never drink again/but a nice vacation from it/may help the health,” (‘A Vacation From It’).

This is poetry that is attempting to bring about salvation through the written word. This is poetry that is reaching out.

To hear Stephanie Hiteshew read out loud click here: http://cdbaby.com/cd/hiteshew

Blogperson's note: as an old hippy, I can note we all have addictions, albeit of differing types. Some of us stick needles in our arms, some of us smoke, some pop pills, while others drink too much coffee, and still others watch too much tv. These poems sound very interesting, and I'm gonna buy a copy, to check them out. One point: any writing done while you're stoned is usually crapola...you gotta be as stoned to read it as the author was when writing it, usually. On the other hand, writers are observers, and see a lot of pain, and feel that pain. Anesthetizing themselves is understandable, even if regrettable and counterproductive. I refer readers interested in 'recreational drugs' to a post on my Hypertension blog, at http://victorhypertension.blogspot.com, where I write about a time when tests were conducted on samples of Mescaline to see how good the stuff was. You may be surprised when you read the post...

Mark Wisniewski: One Of Us One Night

2007-01-29T18:25:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Christopher Robin has not met Mark. By inference, Mark has not met Christopher. For that matter, we can infer that neither Christopher nor Mark have met Robert Frost. And it is highly likely that Robert Frost never met Aristotle (who did not write poetry but was allegedly pretty good at math). Christopher is a reviewing madman! He just won't quit! Nor do we want him to! Give this fellow a gold star!

$5, Platonic 3Way Press, PO Box 844 Warsaw, IN 46581. Or, why not try: www.Platonic3WayPress.com

The second in the Platonic3Way Evil Genius Chapbook series, Wisniewski writes deliberate prose-like poems of observation and funny circumstance, evocative of William Taylor Jr or Bukowski. Poems that create sparse images allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions: “& I’d keep standing& watching & she’d/dance/we’d never share/words/or money/or disappointment/it was a kind of celebration/generally impossible/in the world,” from ‘Waiting for the Elevator’, a poem about seeing a belly dancer in his hallway.

In ‘Mute,’ he finds fear in common with “rich whitey/on my ass in that Hummer,” in regards to the “leak in the nuke plant 10 miles west.” Over the years I have observed Wisniewski to have a gift for telling funny tales about being a somewhat hapless writer, in “An Office, Tons of Pussy, & Sabbaticals, Too,” and while describing a break up in ‘California Girl’: “but she didn’t deserve my computer/or printer/or monitor/so I carried these out/one at a time/placing each in the trunk/then slamming/it shut as I thought: there/but I’d just brought groceries/so again I returned/irked by how easily she could/leave me.”

Wisniewski also has a knack for making himself the butt of the joke, of surrendering to things he can’t control, like ants: “& I keep waking at 3 a.m./descending the stairs/to eat unsugared cornflakes/after kneeling on floorboards: a civilian forever/on watch,” (‘Sectarian Violence’).

My favorite poem in this chap is ‘Nebraska,’ a hitch hiker’s nightmare come true: “there’s a pistol/she said/under that sweatshirt/on the back seat/& despite myself I turned to see she was right.”

Wisniewski writes simple poems that are complex with human feeling and humor.

Blogperson says: could anyone possibly ask for anything more than the description in Christopher's last line? You should buy a copy of Wisniewski's chap, and see for yourself!

Robert Pomerhn: Abuse Art, Not Children

2007-01-29T18:18:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Brian McMahon

This review was forwarded courtesy of Christopher Robin, and was originally posted on www.artvoice.com. Christopher says he has permission to do this. He says that Brian is a friend, but that he has not met him. Brian has not said anything. Confused yet? But the book sounds very good & thanks to Christopher, who we believe may abuse art, but not children.

Poetry& Visual Art by Robert Pomerhn
HighestHurdle Press, $10, bradleylastname@hotmail.com, pomerhn.robert@gmail.com
and...Robert Pomerhn 660 Cleveland Dr #3 Cheektowaga, NY 14225 (or Border’s Books)

At once the “cunningly clever” poet trashtalking in rhyme on the basketball court at the public park, the janitor of swirling thoughts, meditating while mopping an elementary school bathroom, and the buttondown poetry teacher, applying a lifetime’s wisdom to the purpose of putting art into action, Robert Pomerhn is the populist poet.

His third book, Abuse Art. not children, is a guided tour through the crumbling American mindscape, with stops at the Gulf Coast post Katrina, the dead-eye glow of TV programming, credit-fueled conspicuous consumption, the stagnant slam poetry scene, the failing 21st-century family, and America’s bedrooms, boardrooms and war rooms.

In “Family Tree,” the poet gathers together postwar Americana in a surreal consideration of domestic violence: “Leave it to Beaver/ to go after Ward/ with June’s meat cleaver.” In “Bush League,” Pomerhn lists the statistics of catastrophe after Hurricane Katrina sank New Orleans, writing, “174 portables pumping an open pit of putrid pampers, pus & piss/ into the Pontchatrain—PRICELESS.”

By deploying the signifiers of American popular culture in the form of rapid-fire rhymes and alliterative tongue twisters, Pomerhn puts our disasters in perspective, often hitting upon the humor and absurdity of contemporary life. But Pomerhn is a poet in transformation. While much of the work in the present volume extends the populism of his earlier books, there are new strands here as well. The intricate collage work, “found poems,” and pieces such as “this hearse doesn’t have seatbelts” and “da da cument” present snapshots of Pomerhn’s evolving poetics.

In “Till Death do Us Art,” he writes, “This is not an unfinished/ but an unfinishable work/ In saying this/ I am setting very/ high standards/… logic strikes me as a boring kind of game.” While logic may bore him, there is nonetheless a method to Pomerhn’s madness.

Abuse Art. not children demonstrates the influence of the poet’s work as a mentor to the teenagers who attend his “Art in Action” program at the Dulski Center on Buffalo’s East Side. The poems that have come out of that exchange express a deep meditation on the boundaries, purpose, and redemptive potential of art.

Joe Pachinko: Stumpfucker Cavalcade

2007-01-28T09:53:00.000-06:00

By: Christopher Robin

Christopher and Joe are both poets, and are also both members of the ULA. I assume they know each other. Me, I’ve corresponded with both, but unfortunately have not met either.

$10. Available through: www.superstitionstreet.com, jpachinko_ssp@yahoo.com/, and http://www.lulu.com/content/407219

Stumpfucker Cavalcade details the freak show horror of everyday urban life when combined with mind numbing jobs, crushing poverty, and a belly full of booze. It is a cacophony of verbal bile from the lowest depths of the human mind, “dog shit and agony,” at the end of the planet.

In “The Garden of Diarrhea,’ he pokes fun at Billy Collins: “Billy Collins/poet laureate of the U.S., has drunk enough herbal tea in his poems to have the shits for the rest of his life.” In ‘Fear Was Always an Unseen Crewman,’ he goes to the local wino mart to buy some Ramen noodles, a story that ends with a gun shot and blood on the counter. In ‘Listen Up DumbFuck’ he challenges anyone who says: “oh, everything’s been done.”

But Pachinko is no cynic, and writes: “saying that everything’s been done is like saying that everybody has already been born, newness comes with every sunrise and every new person, and every dream, every hope and every orgasm…”

These titles will rivet and surprise you: ‘The Caffeinated Falafel Regatta of Wheelchairs,’ ‘Humor is an Orgasm of the Mind,’ ‘The Four Fuckholes of My Inflatable Sheep Love Doll Are Nothing Like A Dead Goats Anus’, ‘The Ballad of Harry the Half Head,’ and ‘Requiem for A Corpse Rape’.

He is the red-faced man on the Midway with a cigar in his mouth, beckoning you in to the real live 21st century carnival of the damned that is dead-end work and a dead radiator in East Oakland, if you dare.

And much like his predecessor Bukowski, he finds the diamonds in the shit, the glory in the muck: “cat vomit is one of the building blocks of existence,” and also throws in some humorous-hard-won-wisdom, as well as the profundity in simple things like a human touch: “a six foot three TGirl once crouched down next to me as I was/barfing between some parked cars/outside Baggy’s by the Lake, and she rubbed my back…she rubbed my back, and asked me if I was O.K. /it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done to me,” (‘Puke for Peace’).

I highly recommend a dose of some of Pachinko’s undiluted reality that may make you laugh, wince and maybe even enjoy poetry again.

The blogperson adds:
It took me a while to read this book, possibly because the title gave me unshakeable images of splinters in the worst place possible.

However, when I did read it--and I agree with Christopher's review--this is one book of poetry it is impossible to breeze through. You can't flip through the poems. You won't go from a description of a sunny blue sky to a field of lovely yellow daisies--that ain't what Joe writes about, nor are the poems that light so you can read one, say to yourself "Oh yeah, okay" and then move to the next.

This is a book where you REALLY should read just one poem and then stop reading for a day. Not just stop reading the book, but pretty much stop reading anything. Maybe you should even stop watching tv (if you can). Instead, just think about the poem and what it is all about.

Then, when you're ready, read another one.

Repeat until you have finished the book.

Don't worry about it taking a while. Life takes a while.

Todd Babiak: Choke Hold

2007-01-28T09:35:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Leopold McGinnis

As you will soon discover, Leopold has communicated with Todd.

Turnstone Press, 237 pages. Published in 2000.

A few months ago author Todd Babiak contacted me about some disparaging remarks I had made on my site (http://www.leopoldmcginnis.com) about his writing.

Apparently ‘his friend’ ‘who has nothing better to do with his time’ ‘got kicks out of finding places on the internet that made fun of him.’ He took issue with me off-handedly labeling his writing inane and then (passive aggressively?) asked to interview me for the Edmonton Journal.

In that interview, Todd told me he’d buy a copy of my book (Game Quest) and check it out. I didn’t believe him of course, but since he’d taken the time to do the interview (and listened to my wild rants, as well as fairly represented my opinions in his article - at least as far as a mainstream newspaper will go with any controversial opinions), and since I had sorta labeled his work inane without reading enough of it to accurately make that call, I decided to pick up a copy of his first book, Choke Hold, to find out what I really thought of Babiak’s writing.

I figured an author’s first book is a better representation of how they
write, who they are, want to be, what they want to say, etc… and the
Garneau Block was too steeped in media hoopla and its apparent ‘gimmick’ (it’s set in Edmonton!) for me to take seriously even if I tried. (In retrospect, my comments about inanity were probably more a reaction to the ridiculous hype and ingratiating Journal adds.) I thought that the premise of this book had much more promise and since it was written when Todd was unknown, I figured I could give it a more preconceptions free read.

So I read Choke Hold, about Jeremy, a martial-arts obsessed young man who returns to his small Alberta hometown after his martial arts school fails when one of his students murders a gay man. Thematically the book is about fighting, about viewing the world through fighting and how that gets in the way of living.

Plotwise, the book works fairly well. Thematically – which should arise from the plot – not so much. Babiak’s writing style is tight, personable and (what I like best) non-phoney. Character comes out very well through the text and he has a unique flair for doing quick ‘scenario’ setting – getting us physically into a scene in a very natural way. By the end of the book I found this a bit overused and unvaried, but I was impressed with it nonetheless.
Something I myself might work on.

The first half of the book was quite good and I had my hat nearby so I could eat it. The plot moved quickly, had a lot of potential, and was relatable. I’m not the sort of person who has trouble putting books down, but I ripped through the first half pretty quick. Yet, with any book you get a better sense of it the further you get into it, and about halfway through I grew less and less interested.

The vast majority of the book takes place in small-town Seymour, even though nothing really important relating to the plot happens there. Halfway through the book, several chapters seem devoted entirely to showing what goes on there (parades, fairs, etc…) without adding to the plot. There’s a friend Jeremy reacquaints himself with who adds nothing to the plot or theme, other than to make it ‘Canadian’ or ethnically balanced--and while one of the more interesting characters, still isn’t quite nteresting enough to be worth having anyway. A few pages are devoted to a couple bozo characters at a fair for no apparent reason, etc… These would be minor pace-slowing issues at this point if it weren’t for the fact that the plot had stalled and it was becoming quickly apparent that the thematic elements were going off the tracks.

Not wildly, but you felt like the train was just kind of meandering, wouldn’t get into the station on time, and you weren’t sure if it was going to arrive at the station you were promised when you got on. The thematic principle of the story is that Jeremy is an angry young man who sees everything in terms of fighting. This manifests itself in his hatred of his father, his failure to live with the woman he loves, to succeed in his business, etc… The problem is that this theme seems laid on top of the plot, rather than growing from it. The characters act as if the above is true, but the reader is never given sufficient evidence to believe it. Jeremy’s hate for his father is disproportionate to the perceived crime – his father dating an older woman Jeremy once had a crush on – and we aren’t given sufficient reason to understand or relate to Jeremy’s hate. Jeremy just seems like a passive aggressive, whiney mope. People who seem just as much interested in fighting, if not more, keep criticizing Jeremy for his interest in fighting.

What?

The big questions that keep coming up are ‘is Jeremy gonna stay in town now that he’s back’, and ‘will he choose to be part of his family?’ These are only questions because the author keeps raising them – not because we’re asking them ourselves. Honestly, the further in I got, the less I understood why Jeremy came back at all. He doesn’t seem to like anybody, nobody is really interesting, everyone is pretty much a loser, he doesn’t like his family, have a job or anything to do. Ok, I guess he’s lost and falling back and that’s ok, but I don’t understand why his returning was a plot-driving question and had no reason to believe this was important. If I were Jeremy I’d hop the first bus out of that bumhole – Boston (where he has escaped from) was more interesting.

Furthermore, I didn’t understand why Jeremy didn’t want to be part of the family in the first place, let alone why he’d then chose (as he does in the end) to be part of it again.

I think my reaction to this can sum up my feeling of the book overall: I understood but failed to be convinced and therefore failed to care. It’s hard enough to accept Saturday Afternoon special endings in books where you really care or feel the outcome, but by the last few pages I just felt ‘meh,’ rushing through to finish. It was a typical ‘literary’ ending – kind of like the taste of the paste they give you in kindergarten to use as glue. The last line, how it’s left hanging, is great. Really great. Strangely satisfying, in its avoidance of a conclusion, but with enough of one to feel meaningful.
But it’s a small comfort after not really caring about what happens for the last 100 pages. Like a tasty burp at the end of a mediocre meal.

The book certainly isn’t bad, though. It gets originality points for being about martial arts. I thought the real potential of the book was here. There was a lot more opportunity to develop and explore this original theme. But the book quickly falls back into the dully dominating feature of all Canadian literature – small town nowhere. A lot of the exciting parts of the book happen in Boston but, because of the non-chronological nature of the book, appear near the end of the book after you already know what’s going to happen. By this point the events are distant and feel like footnotes.

Again, the writing style is good, and the first half moves nicely.
In some ways, until halfway, I thought of this book as a second coming of age story. We always get the first in lit – puberty – but people make a second big stride sometime in their twenties as they start to find out who they are, and what they think. This is rarely written about and was a big strength of the first half, but the book doesn’t take that direction in the end.

Frankly, this book is another excellent addition to the vast canon of well-crafted but passionless books in the can lit scene about small towns and understanding yourself. Choke Hold is mildly exciting, maybe even a little bit new and different, but still very safe within that genre. It’s nothing drastically new and though I’d say my opinion of Mr. Babiak’s writing is better informed and higher than where I expected it might be, it’s still well within the standard realm of Can-mush I expected it to be.

Certainly Babiak is fairly good at what he does, it’s just being done by a lot of people and doesn’t feel very…what’s the word…thrilling. No offense to Todd – it’s not like he needs my approval, you can’t walk ten paces in Edmonton right now without finding someone fawning over the Garneau Block. You can’t please everyone – and I’m hard to please.

Louis McKee: Near Occasions Of Sin

2007-01-25T21:21:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Charles P. Ries

I think we've already been through this Charles knows Christopher thing, don't you? Why do you keep pressuring me?

You can get this book from: Cynic Press, Post Office Box 40691, Philadelphia, PA 19107
Price: $8.00, 44 Poems / 79 pages
ISBN: 0-9673401-6-0

Amazon also has a book with this title, but do not be fooled: maybe it's a good book, but it ain't Louis'.
Review By: CHARLES P .RIES
Word Count: 556

Louis McKee exemplifies the ‘philosopher poet’. From the title of his lasted collection of poetry, Near Occasions of Sin to the content of his poetry we see a writer who is not just good with word, or good with image, or selective about the moments in time he chooses to inspect, but a poet who is capable using his well honed skill with word, image and observation and elevating all of them with a philosopher’s mind.

McKee is rich and textured in his yearning observations, nimble in his rich insights and wise in his conclusions. I felt I was not only being entertained, but learning. I was growing larger because of his clarity and counsel. It is not surprising that McKee has led an examined life as suggested in his poem, “After The Sixth Visit”: “That’s that one / when you lie / back and say no- / thing, everything / having been said / at least five times / already, and she / says well, what / are you thinking / right now? And you / tell her that / you’re thinking you / want to fuck her / and she says why / do you think that / is? but it is / too late, time is / gone, fifty minute / hours, seventy / dollars, and you / know when you leave / that you won’t be / back, you are better / then you have / any right to expect.”

McKee is a man who wants love, who loves love; a man who adores women but has had more then his share of challenges getting them, keeping them, and loving them. He, like all lovers (and writers), is a work in progress. This is illustrated in his poem, “Failed Haiku”: “This evening I took a moment / to indulge a fantasy – you, / walking naked along a Jersey beach, / the sunlight on your lovely ass. / An ancient Japanese master / could work miracles with as much. / I am content with this.”

And again from his poem, “The Reason I Write”: “I like to think she gets naked / and looks at herself in the full-length mirror; / as she does, and with a smile, slips /into soft bliss of soapy comfort, / the almost-too-hot water uncomfortable / for just a moment but then just right. / With her wondrous hair pulled up, / she uses it as a pillow, pours a glass / of wine, then picks up a book of poems. / This is the reason they were written. / The rest of you, get your muses where you can. / I write for this woman, naked in a hot bath / under a modesty of bubbles. This is our / moment. Our poem. You find your own.”

As I read this, McKee’s thirteenth collection of poetry, I could not help but think of the late great small press poet Albert Huffstickler (who passed away in 2002) who, like McKee, had the ability to yearn and observe so purposefully. When I read poets of McKee or Huffstickler’s emotional depth I wish they wrote novels. I wish these short, rich, textured scenes and their meaning could be extended 300 more pages. Many poets write well, but few poets give us work as rich and profoundly meaningful as Louis McKee.

Christopher Robin: Freaky Mumbler's Manifesto

2007-01-25T21:11:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Charles P. Ries

Charles knows Christopher. So sue me. I've read Christopher's book and very much liked it myself. So sue them. Or should it be so sue them and then sue me? Why are you so litigacious? Are you at a tourney (of litigation)? Does sueing suit you?

You can get Freaky Mumbler's Manifesto at: I Press On! Publications,
Post Office Box 1611, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1611
Price: $10
95 Pages/ 48 Poems
You can not, unfortunately, get this book from Amazon. Type in Christopher Robin, and all you get is something about a bear, which I found unbearable.

To one extent or another, poets draw their material from the worlds that surround them. These observations become our window to their soul. How wonderful it was for me to enter into Christopher Robin’s world through his second collection of poetry entitled, Freaky Mumbler’s Manifesto. True to form, Robin gives us a view from the street as he studies his circle of friends, poets, losers, and lovers. His stories are mesmerizing in their own right, but come to life due to his significant gift at creating memorable metaphors and word unions.

As I read Freaky Mumbler’s Manifesto I found myself underlining his odd word couplings. Here are a few examples. From “Who We Kill”: “The service workers who spend their pay / in local bars / and their imaginations on satellite dishes”. Or in “Clown Fish”: “gender mutant / of the sensual circus / lilting ghost radio / in my nerves”. In “Caveman Days (for Jules)”: “My girl friend is full of art and sensation / my girl is soft but wiry to the touch / barks at civilization / scoffs at my little vanities / bleeds on my white things”.

And again in “Butterfly”: “That summer in your lovin bus / in Big Basin / you introduced me to “speaking breathing / standing people” / I use to call them trees / and to the angels and fairies / all things that walk without words”. In this collection we see Robin maturing as a writer and poet. His signature bent-in-the-brain view of the world is still wonderfully evident, but now, more often than not, he elevates humor with revelation and pathos.

Patrick Carrington: Rise, Fall and Acceptance

2007-01-24T08:11:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Charles P. Ries

Charles has met Patrick, but they don't seem to be buddies or anything, the review therefore is not compromised. However, are we not taught in school that compromise is a good thing? Or, do we mean that other compromise? And what other compromise is that, anyway?

For more information on Charles, please see the end of this review. He is poetry editor of Word Riot (www.wordriot.org).

Available for $12, through: Main Street Rag Publishing Company,
4416 Shea Lane, Charlotte, North Carolina 28227
80 Pages/ 56 Poems
ISBN: 1-59948-042-5

Rise, Fall and Acceptance is Patrick Carrington’s first collection of poetry. For a first outing, this is an exceptional work. Its depth and workmanship suggest poetry born over a long period of time and many rounds of edits. This diligence is found not only in the written word, but in the meticulous care taken with line breaks and stanzas. Here is an example from “Brothers On the Crossed Hill”: “Do you forget who lies / under the wild grass, / disgracing with your lips / this hill his horses rode, / their hooves and his / flattening the green blanket, / that mighty rug / that tops him now?”

I asked his publisher M. Scott Douglas of Main Street Rag why he choose to publish this collection of poems. Here is what he told me, “I am often asked why Main Street Rag chooses a particular manuscript for publication. Time and again the deciding factor is the way the words come alive on the page. Rise, Fall and Acceptance by Patrick Carrington was one of these collections that caught my attention not just by its organization, its great use of words—particularly action verbs—but because the poems were alive with experience and involve the reader. Mr. Carrington gathered a collection of sometimes very personal poems in a way that avoids the maudlin and mushy and draws the reader into the experiences that inspired this collection.”

The tone of the poems in this collection is quite formal, and I wondered if Carrington had training as a writer, “I have advanced degrees in English Literature and Education. But for the most part, what I have learned about poetry has been self-guided and self-taught through enormous amounts of reading and research and a good deal of common sense. I do teach writing for a living and have taught at levels ranging from junior high to honors level high school seniors. I also tutor privately. I did this when I knew writing is what I both love most and what treats me best emotionally and spiritually.”

I was surprised to learn that while Carrington was not new to writing he was very new to poetry. He told me, “I wrote and submitted my first poem a bit over two years ago. Four years ago I began reading poetry, and simply fell in love with it. It became my daily leisure activity, and still is. I began devouring everything I could get my hands on. And one night, after reading a poem I fancied very much, a voice popped into my head. “I think I can do this,” it said. He went on to say, “There’s a finished novel gathering dust on my shelf. A first draft, completely unedited. If the mad dog of poetry ever stops nipping at my ankles, I might find time to repair it someday.”

No question but that Carrington is a strong writer, but I sometimes struggled not to get bogged down by his excessive use of metaphor and image. Granted many of these poems are image driven and set upon a delicate narrative framework, but I wanted some of the poems to be trimmed back. I wanted him to weave some straightforward language into these pieces as a way to balance their complexity. Here is an example from “Balancing Pens In Belfast”: “By day the seams and shadows / of their ruin unstitch and steal / my air and crush my bones / their powered hair and homes /that puff and fall in winter’s winds / and hand, the swinging noose / of England choking rough / and tumble songs they sang / in tall and long defiance, / defense of son and land.” And again in his poem “Strawberry Moon”: “Strawberry moon spreads its will / like jam, sweet with sugars / of song and sunfade, and I see / the back of sadness break. // Mockingbirds scoop the music / of a stream and fly it to the trees, / share the throat of that new sisters // as they sing. Rich with birds, // the willows whistle and dance, / waving their fronds like the wings / of their siblings. The tender joinings // of evening call me, / water to wing to willow.” His language is beautiful, but at times slips over the too sweet for me line.

Since his poetry is quite structured I wondered who had influenced and shaped his poetic voice and the choices he makes when constructing a poem. He told me, “There is such a large number of poets/writers, past and present, whom I love to read. Too many to list, but here are a few: T. S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas. Hemingway and Steinbeck, whose prose reads to me like poetry without line breaks. And so many of today’s poets knock me out: Tony Hoagland and Bob Hicok. Kim Addonizio. Mary Oliver. Subconsciously, I’m sure they have all influenced me to some degree. They’re boiling in my head, like a bouillabaisse. My own writing cannot help but be imitative of that stew, to some degree.”

As noted, my reader’s eyes were sometimes distracted, specifically by three aspects of Carrington’s writing. I asked him about these.

I found too much alliteration. Here are a few examples: “Scrubbing MacGillycuddy’s Reeks”: “footprints / ground-frozen fossils that flinch.” Also in, “Inking The Road Again”: "while his neglected wife stripped / skin from a biker, / sucking highways out” He told me this, “ I do think alliteration can be overdone, like anything else. Whatever alliteration I use in my poems seems to happen by itself. I don’t consciously think about it when I write, nor about meter or sound. But sometimes I feel a beat, a rhythm in my head. I think most poets probably feel that, each different from the other, their own personal jazz. And there is no denying that poetry has a long tradition with sound.”

I also began to find line breaks and stanzas jumping out at me rather then melding effortless into the whole. There are very few small press poets I can name who could match Carrington’s precise use of this device. More often then not I see this convention used by poets who have been academically trained. Even the back cover blurb by Harvey Stanbrough, Editor of Raintown Review, notes line break and use of stanzas. Here is what Stanbrough says, “It (Rise, Fall and Acceptance) should be used to teach aspiring poets the importance of word choice, the line break, and the use of stanzas.” Here is want Carrington told me about this aspect of his work, “Unlike alliteration, line breaks are something I take great care with. Enjambment (the continuation of meaning, without pause or break, from one line of poetry to the next) is one of the devices I use to try to make my writing different, and fresh. I have developed some thoughts that guide me. I am convinced that the most important word in a line of poetry is the last one. I think that is where a reader’s eyes settle for a split second longer than anywhere else. I try to take advantage of that phenomenon when I line break, using the end placement to magnify a word, give it importance, or to create multiple meanings, or ambiguity. Unless I have a good reason to do otherwise, I like to break my lines after nouns or verbs, before prepositional phrases (to give the modified word both its own place and a second meaning when later joined by the phrase following it). I have started to break after adjectives also, if I want to “punch” that adjective. For me, breaking lines after unimportant words, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, usually feels wrong. The same can be said with stanzas. It is not only to add lightness to the page, but to give a group of words and ideas their own identity, besides being a part of the whole. It’s a complicated question to answer, since many of my decisions are intuitive.”

And finally an over abundance of language and metaphor (yes, I know we’re talking about poetry here) like in, “Balancing Pens In Belfast”: “By the say the seams and shadows / of their ruin unstitch and steal / my air and crush my bones, / their powdered hair and homes / that puff and fall in winter’s winds / and hands, the swinging noose / of England choking rough / tumble songs they sang / in tall and long defiance, / defense of son and land.” Certainly there is music in his words, and his love of language is noted by the acclaimed poet, Bob Hicok in a second back cover blurb where he says, “I can feel this poet’s love of language and his deep sense of truth in every poem.” While with Hicok, I sometimes stumbled over the abundance of metaphors. Here is want Carrington told me about these choices, “That poem was written specifically targeting a web journal I like very much, Alan Heinrich’s Carnelian. He publishes a lot of rhyme and sonnets. I prefer Popeye to Petrarch, but I thought I’d give internal rhyme a try and submit to him. I’m surprised to see you quote that particular poem, since it is not at all representative of the collection as a whole. It’s the only piece where sound and form are as important as content. As far as the formality of language, that seems to touch the on-going debate as to the value of academic vs. small press poetry. Writing is a 2-person enterprise, author and reader. I do think a poet who gets too far away from the life and experiences of that natural partner is doing both the reader and himself a disservice. Too large a gap may be one of the things that has moved poetry books into the dusty corners of bookstores, and turned poetry into a sub-culture where the only people who read one’s poetry are other poets. But I think there is and should be a natural and wider space between writer and reader in poetry than prose. I find the main difference between poetry and prose to be the degree of the creative process that the writer gives to the reader, prose being a heavily writer-based undertaking, poetry a more even split. Poetry that simply reads like prose with line breaks seems to indeed be prose, to me.”

Carrington’s quick rise as a poet made me curious about whether he felt he had locked in on his poetic voice. Here is what he had to say, “My poetic tastes are wide and cover both ends of the poetic spectrum. I very much like (most of) the poetry I read in Poetry Magazine and academic journals of that ilk, and I also very much like (most of) the poetry I read in the small press. I suppose that fact has created in me a double voice when I write, as I search for the one voice that will eventually become me. I love metaphor, as well as ambiguity and a certain amount of pointed obscurity. When I write from the academic half of my poetic schizophrenia, that personality comes out. I also love the ‘plain speak’ I read in so many small press poets, and when that side of me feels dominant, it’s the way I too speak. My poems have found acceptance in both academic and small press journals, and it is probably for that very reason – that I love and write in two distinct voices. This book reflects that, I think. Both voices are there, the abstract and concrete, the stretch of language and the down-home and real. And I think if I were to totally ignore one side or the other right now, so early in my writing life, I would not be true to myself. Both voices are part of me now. Whether and when one of the two takes over and becomes louder in my ears, I have no idea. Right now I answer both calls, and favor neither.”

Despite my problems with this book, there are still many exceptional poems. I find it remarkable that a writer wakes up to poetry and two years later, has over 100 publication credits, a pushcart nomination, is the poetry editor of Jennifer VanBuren’s very fine e-zine called, Mannequin Envy (http://www.mannequinenvy.com/Winter2006.htm) and most recently won the Codhill Press Chapbook Award. Isn’t that amazing - has ever a prose writer crossed the great divide to poetry as quickly? Carrington has a bright future both within the non-academic small press, as well as the better funded academic world. He possesses enormous heart and emotional depth, but (as a reader) I sometimes could not find my way through his imagery to the purity of his experience. I would ask that as he elevates his game he remember to always keep one foot firmly planted on the everyday.

To find additional samples of Patrick Carrington’s work please follow these links:

Softblow: http://www.softblow.com/carrington.html
Kennesaw Review: http://www.kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/summer2006/poetry_summer_2006.htm Rock Salt Plum Review: http://www.rocksaltplum.com/RSPSpring2006/PatrickCarrington.html
The New Hampshire Review: http://www.newhampshirereview.com/carrington.htm

And, since Charles is so helpful to Patrick, here is a Charles update:
He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over one hundred and sixty print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing, and most recently read his poetry on National Public Radio’s Theme and Variations, a program that is broadcast over seventy NPR affiliates. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory. Ries is also the author of five books of poetry — the most recent entitled, The Last Time which was released by The Moon Press in Tucson, Arizona. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and Pass Port Journal (www.passportjournal.org). He is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore (www.woodlandpattern.org) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most recently he has been appointed to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literarti.net/Ries/ .

Alan Catlin: The Schenectady Chainsaw Massacre

2007-01-23T22:39:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Charles P. Ries

It is not clear that Charles has met Alan. On the other hand, Charles lives in Wisconsin. u gotta watch out fo those chainsaws. You can check out Charles' work at: charlesr@execpc.com or www.bookthatpoet.com/poets/rieschar.html as well as www.pidjin.com/charles_ries.htm

126 poems / 180 pages

Note: the publisher left the business about three years ago, but Alan Catlin can be reached at: thecatlins@msn.com. Alan still has some copies of the book, so email him. The book is available for $15 US, which includes shipping & handling. Other books by Alan are available on Amazon.

Alan Catlin is a very talented and prolific writer. He penned the 126 poems that comprise The Schenectady Chainsaw Massacre in just over two years – that’s an average of five poems per month for twenty-four months straight. Since 1984 he has published sixty books of poetry. And if that doesn’t leave you gasping for air and raising the white flag - over that same period of time his work has appeared in over 500 separate electronic and print publications. And it doesn’t end there – he has also garnered fifteen Pushcart nominations. Without even addressing issues of writing quality, one must sit back and marvel at Catlin’s persistence, productivity and passion. He is a man that was born to write.

Catlin is an astute, tireless observer with a remarkably developed technique. Like all poets, he draws his source material from his immediate environment and filters it through his person. As in “Sober”: “I gave up / drinking for / two weeks” // he said // “I just lost my / son-22 years / old - / he hung / himself” // I wasn’t sure / how that related // to his being / sober a whole / two weeks // other than / looking at him // the way he was / now for 22 years // was what made / that boy // die”. And again in “One for the Road, for Bill Bradt”: “You wanted someone / to slip a / Michelob into your // open coffin / for the long / journey to who //knew where- / it was sure / to be a hot // and thirsty place- / a dry road if you went / the way your // last two wives / had predicted - / I chickened //out at the last / minute-gave the beer / to the bartender // you’d spent the most / time with over / the years as I left // I never asked him / if he gave it to you / or not.” Again, a masterful use of words. Readers not familiar with Catlin’s work may find it interesting and relevant to learn he works as a bartender and draws significant material from the theater he observes and participates in during his day job – alcohol provides an endless pool for a poet’s musings.

In the 2001 interview with Catlin featured in Peter Magliocco’s ART:MAG 24 (POB 70896, Las Vegas, NV 89170), Catlin says, “It’s my job to see things and tell people what I see in the manner most appropriate to the subject. The tone is mostly matter of fact, sometimes bitter, sometimes ironic, sometimes outright nasty, but easily discernable and readily identifiable as a Voice. And I must add a Voice, not necessarily mine in real life time.” Later in the same interview, Catlin explains a bit about his process, “I almost always write my poems out in long hand so I will be forced to rewrite for accuracy and precision later on. I rarely make major revisions. The initial draft of a poem is almost wholly formed before it is written. Looking back on my drafts for the last twenty years or so, I see that they are remarkably clean drafts. Major changes in word selection or order may be in the revision state, of typing them onto the computer. As the poem already has found its form before it is written and has a tried and true (for me) authorial voice built into its composition. All the poet has to do is choose the words to fit the subject! (As if it could really be that easy.)”

The Schenectady Chainsaw Massacre is presented in four sections. These establish a gentle progressive narrative cycle: Poster People for the Village of the Damned, Taxi Drivers of the Apocalypse, Dress Rehearsal for the Village of the Damned. Section Four, Bartending the Merchants of Death, focuses on the sights, sounds and clowns Catlin views from behind his bar while serving jive juice to the masses as he listens to their stories and shares their glories. As in “Whatever He Man”: “school he flunked / out of had a strange / definition for what / exactly went into / becoming the ultimate / Macho Stud he so / obviously wished he / could be-ordered an / extra-dry Vodka / Martini Up with extra olives he would slug / down in two gulps / further impressing / the regulars by slamming / his glass on the bar / & saying, ‘Now I’m / ready to teach!’ / A chorus of ‘Dude!’ following him out / the door was obviously / meant for someone else”.

There are even a few poems written in the voice of Ray Catina a Viet Nam Vet that Catlin created in the early 1980’s. Here is one titled “Coming Home 1968”: “No one had to ask, / “Where have you been?” // nights he broke free / from the compound/house, // parents secured, that is locked / in their bedroom, all lines // of communication severed, / illegal weapon set on lock // and load as he readied himself / for a solitary patrol dressed in // full camo and black face paint / using light of a quarter moon // to lead the way down Garfield / Place to the jungle on Ocean // Ave where Charlie was dug in, / sleeping, just four blocks // from home and half a world,/ half a lifetime away.”

Again, from the ART:MAG 24 interview, “Ray Catina came about fairly simply. I was frustrated with writing swaths, reams actually, of bar poems during one long summer between jobs. I was desperately trying to find something else to do with myself besides sling drinks and consume gallons of white wine, writing about people in bars from the point of view of an increasingly jaded barman. I must have spent a small fortune I didn’t have, on brown envelopes and postage, sending them out to every literary magazine on the face of the earth, to uniform disinterest and outright hostility.” Catlin goes on to say, “so, I decided, rather cynically, but consciously, to take all those poems about bars and set them somewhere else and change the details to fit the new environment. Voila – one cynical, anti-authoritarian, dis-enfranchised Vietnam vet.” With this newly created narrator, Catlin saw his submission acceptance rate catapult.

If you have never purchased an Alan Catlin book of poetry before, I strongly suggest you buy The Schenectady Chainsaw Massacre and add it to your library. It’s full, it’s loaded, and it’s a joy ride down and through the odd alleys, darkened taverns and magical synapses of a master writer. Alan, I hope you never run out of postage stamps, brown envelopes and writing paper. For what will you do with that head full of verse if you can’t write it out?

Jennifer Blowdryer and Lenore Waters: The Revolution of 1964

2007-01-23T22:32:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by Christopher Robin

Christopher advises that he has met Jennifer Blowdryer, but she is so glamerous she may not admit it. He has not said anything about Lenore Waters, which does not see fair, even if she does not have as great a name as Blowdryer. But she is just as hot and plugged in, I'm sure.

$5.95. Available through: Zeitgeist Press, 327 Carlisle Crossing Street, Las Vegas, NV 89138-1514. Website: www.Zeitgest-Press.com.

In these short, untitled, conversational poems Blowdryer sometimes ends with the words: “shit, fuck, what the hell!” as if you were riding a NYC subway with her after last call, gossiping and grousing. “civilization on a dime/that’s us.” “The ones who used to ask me why my hair was blue? It’s blue because the world is fucked up/and I just want a little fun”.

Always clever and to the point, Blowdryer is a damn good writer with the gift to deliver an understated anecdote.

This is a combination chap with her mother, Lenore Waters, who is equally as talented. The coupling of a punk icon and her Beat Generation mother provides great insight into two generations of rebellious women.

Lenore Waters weaves a story well in “Beat Poet,” when in 1980 her daughter tells her about an old drunk Beat hanging around-“never heard of him”, her mother, realizing it is Corso, then reflects on the man she knew in his better days. Lenore Waters' poems are emotionally driven as well as entertaining, a talented writer I hope to read more from.

Blowdryer is witty as fuck and punker than you.

20 pages.

Other new titles available from Zeitgeist: Love Poems for the Wicked, Brian Morrisey, $5.95. The Underwater Hospital, Jan Steckel, $5. Cannibal Casserole, Julia Vinograd, $5. I Want a New Gun, David Lerner, $12.95 (back in print!)

Nicole Henares: The Bitch You Love To Hate

2007-01-23T22:22:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Christopher has met Nicole. Whether he loved her, hated her--that has not been recorded for posterity. Nor is anything known about their posteriors.

$5. Available through: Magenta Press, 575 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA

Henares' poems may evoke colorful melancholy, brooding nostalgia and laughter. She uses a wide range of poetic techniques and her discipline as a writer is very evident in this chap. She also has an unpretentious, wide-openness that invites the reader into her vivid imagination, something that is lacking in most poetry that considers itself “well-crafted,” poetry that often loses its soul in an attempt to follow form instead of heart.

This chap includes her dedication to the history of her hometown of Monterey: ‘Cannery Row 21st Century:’ “Cannery Row/really now just a faded memory/of gray hit yellow/souvenir keychains/glossy real estate/and machinated dreams/against the slop of waves/kelp stink and exhaust;” to mockery of the pretentious hippie-fakers of nearby new age Big Sur: ‘White Boy with Dreadlocks:’ “I wear clothes from Tibet/and organic Patchouli. I smoke American Spirits/and see lotus flowers when I walk. I never fuck fat girls or fags.”

‘Mopey Boy’ is dedicated to every black clad skinny boy in every trendy coffee shop: “Oh, woe, boy; chew on the sleeves of your black wool/sit in the back of the bar/cry with your beer/scorn the dumb, the pretty, the fat, the baseball capped; write sarcastic poems: I get you, you the epitome of lonely, so tortured, so misunderstood/so real.” In ‘Bye Bye’ she delivers a verbal punch to the archaic institution that is the Miss America pageant: “like duh, Miss America/we want halter tops and navel rings/low-rise jeans and booty bling.”

And from the title poem: “I was a princess/and I worked at McDonald’s/I stayed faithful to Ken all those years/even without anatomy/he still pleased me. (You never knew because great sex doesn’t need to boast)”, from the title poem, a statement from Barbie herself, where she declares that she: “wanted to be your best friend,” and “was never a Brat.”

I also recommend her other books: Kelp & Cotton Candy, Lush, & Duende.

Blogperson's note: When Nicole writes of not fucking fags, she is obviously referring to cigarettes, i.e. that she is a nonsmoker. In the Didja Know This Department: The use of the term "faggot" to describe a gay person stems back to the Middle Ages, in England. Back then, when villagers found a gay person, they had a tendency to get fired up. They captured the person, put him on top of some rather dry wood, and started a bonfire. The word "faggot" originally meant a burning stick of wood (and, similarly, has since been used to refer to a cigarette). Hence the application of "faggot" to gay people, bringing back those times when men were men, women were women, and sheep were afraid of them both.

Don Winter: On The Line

2007-01-23T22:18:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Christopher has not met Don. Ergo, Don has not met Christopher---in this universe or dimension.

$4. Available through: Bone World Publishing, 3700 County RT 24, Russell, NY 13684

Don Winter has spent many years in the small press establishing himself as a bard of the working-class. Think of empty beer cans, dreary clothes lines, cold winters and forlorn diners. Though I have to say the forward to this chap, written by Anne Caston, is poetry in itself: “I want the corner mechanic shop back, its heat and smell of grease and oil and the man who owned it who took a break every afternoon to sit out back in a tipped chair with his old bag-of-bones hound. I want the corner service station where a boy in “overhauls” pumps the gasoline…”

Indeed, the America of the plastic-sheen, convenience driven Wal-Mart is actually deserted city centers, closed schools and crumbling rooftops. This is the America that gives birth to Winter’s poems. In ‘Roofing,” a brief quote from the foreman in this three stanza piece sheds light on the world of dispensable labor: “I’d get monkeys/to do your jobs/if I could teach them not to shit/on the roof,” boss yelled. In “Cleaning Up At The Hamtrack Burger Chef,’ the monotonous, workaday life is transcended, albeit briefly: “most nights I turn up/the radio/and sing my own words/Something about being in this business to stay alive/Something like that.”

This is poetry for the real America, as Winter dwells in its shell, as drained and irrelevant as a beer can on a dead lawn.

Jonathan Penton: Blood and Salsa/Painting Rust

2007-01-23T21:51:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Christopher is a fine poet. So is Jonathan. They have met. But, have they met enough? Poets should get out of the house occasionally--shouldn't they? We will be conducting a CNN Poll on this issue.

$7. Available from Jonathan Penton, P.O. Box 930092, Norcross, GA 30093. Jonathan Penton runs http://www.unlikelystories.org/.

A split-chap containing 2 separate books in one.

In Painting Rust, Penton takes aim with biting pen, challenging poets in a time of war and in the face of American collapse; challenging the relevance of everything we as artists do. In ‘Regarding Your Career,’ he informs: “your rice-paper handcrafted signed and numbered achievements/ are worth less than the formaldehyde stuck/to a dead poet’s balls;” ‘In the Company of Them,’ follows a similar vein: “while the talking heads keep talking/and the bloggers keep on blogging/and the artists keep pretending/there is something left to say.” In ‘Post-Coital Depression’ he goes deeper, still questioning: “today I think of stacks of burning bodies/dictatorships established in the name of democracy/and the motherless sons who will come back to America/and do everything they can to bring it down/and what does that means to anyone, anyway?”

Penton establishes himself as a relevant, political poet without being the least bit preachy, boring or one-sided. He uses clear, direct language and never tries to resolve himself of blame.

In Blood and Salsa he writes about lust, love and loss. “I tire of such intricacies. I retreat to the childhood world of rock ‘n’ roll/childish, transparent, Oedipal—boy meets girl, boy fucks girl, boy bashes father-in-law’s head with a baseball bat/Simple, pounding rhythms, brainless ballads of loss/the sort of thing I can relate to. I seek simpler sexualities. I turn my back on majestic music and briefly wonder/what other people hear.”

Cynthia Ruth Lewis: Piss On Your Parade--Poems From A Disillusioned Pessimist

2007-01-15T08:11:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Christopher has met Cynthia, but I do not think she would piss on his parade. Maybe she'd throw him a beer though. As long as it isn't her handbag.

Piss On Your Parade--poems from a disillusioned pessimist.
It's available for a mere $5, from Cynthia Ruth Lewis, P.O. Box 232984, Sacramento, CA 05823-0433

The introduction to this book reads: “Enjoy the contents or die!! Any complaints? Cram ‘em!”

Like Misti Rainwater-Lites, Lewis is not afraid to make anger and sexuality a staple of her poetry with only the rare instance of apology. And where some female poets hollowly court self destruction, Lewis does not.

“The Difference Between A Blowhard and a Diehard: “one positive thing I can say towards drinking: I don’t drive recklessly/commit crimes, or sleep with strange men while under the influence—I do enough of that while sober.” She is not a Courtney Love clone, though she certainly has the attitude. In the title poem she writes: “I don’t usually carry handbags/but I’ve got to conceal the hatchet with something/I’m not purposely out for blood, but should the urge strike, which it usually does, it’s nice to be prepared.”

In ‘Outcast,’ she makes her stance: “I’ve never rushed out to see a “hit” movie/I don’t “do” the mall/I don’t pay attention to or/participate in gossip/I enjoy being on the other side/because if being different/is deemed wrong in this fleeting/fuck of a world, I don’t ever wanna be right.”

These poems are filled with rage and not the least bit melancholy. This is the sort of inspired anger that may make one want to rally for the author. These are poems you can get inside but will have to claw your way out.

In ‘Images,’ one of the few poems in the book that is not pure anger, she writes about her dying dog: “finally pulling you roughly from the car/to pretend I didn’t care, not feeling the sun warm on my back, or your tangle of fur soft in my hands…”

A very good first chapbook.

Shane Allison: I Want To Fuck A Redneck

2007-01-15T08:06:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin.

Christopher has not met Shane. It is not known whether Christopher knows or has known (in the biblical sense or otherwise) any rednecks, or even tannednecks.

Some of Shane's work is on Amazon, but not this one. I Want To Fuck A Redneck is available through Scintillating Publications, 21 Russell Street, Burlington, VT 05401. But you can order it from Scintillating Publications at: Mustiis@aol.com. Order it now for only $5, and you will get a free new envelope around the book, plus genuine used stamps! Want to contact Shane Himself? His email is starsissy42@hotmail.com. Neither Chris, Scintillating, Shane or myself know who the 41 other starsissies are--but it might be fun to find out! Anyone have some free time for a research project?

Shane Allison writes no holds barred-shameless truth about being a gay black man in the south.

The title poem describes not fucking, but fantasy rape, and could make even the most enlightened queer squirm: “as I yell take off that fuckin’ shirt/motor oil beneath the fingernails/of those king kong hands/his butt tips up for a nigger queer fuck.”

Aside from sexual poems, which are his forte, he also uses word play to have a mind fuck with popular culture: "No one talks about Tonya Harding anymore. I don’t know anyone who talks about Tonya Harding. nor do I know anyone who likes Tonya Harding. Know one I know talks about Tonya Harding. Know one I know who knows someone talks about Tonya Harding," and the poems goes on like that, repeating the same words around and around until the irrelevance of the subject matter is humorously clear.

But, mainly, Allison uses his pen for sexual catharsis. ‘In the Event of My Dildo’s Demise,’ ‘masturbation poem,’ ‘Kiss Me, John Before Your Wife Comes Home,’ ‘My Fuckbuddy Has A Girlfriend,’ are some of the titles, detailing clandestine gay sex, loneliness, infidelity and raw cruising in the dirtiest, seediest of places.

The only complaint I have about this book is the layout. The poems are in a very small font with very light print. It seems like poems of this nature would warrant more distinction. I happen to know that the original cover art for this chap was censored by the printer, thus holding up production of the book for quite a while. So the cover art chosen is not sexual at all and more subtle, which is fine; but his previous chap, “Black Fag,” by Future Tense publications I found much more artistically pleasing to the eye.

This is Allison’s fifth book of poetry and is outsider writing at its best; tender, humorous and raunchy. I highly recommend it.

Andrew Scott: Modern Love

2007-01-12T19:30:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Christopher has not said whether or not he knows Andrew. Not that he's refused, he just hasn't said. So, is this a secret kinda thing we should look into, or is he rebelling? Maybe it's because Christopher is a poet and zine creator. Zen Baby is his baby, and the latest issue is hot off the presses. You can order it from Christopher himself for $2 (please add postage!), free to prisoners Zen Baby is usually published twice per year. Order info:Christopher Robin, PO Box 1611, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1611. You can also check out Christopher's available work on the ULA website, at: http://www.literaryrevolution.com/products.html.

As for Modern Love, it is a well-worth-it $10.
For a copy: Andrew Scott, Sunnyoutside Press P.O. Box 441429 Somerville, MA 02144. Or, www.sunnyoutside.com.
The book is also available on Amazon.

Sunnyoutside’s 2nd fiction chapbook, Modern Love is a short story about a young couple: a failed band promoter and his girlfriend, a bartender, determined to leave Indiana and get rich on the music scene in California. Together they cut loose of their small town, sell everything, and jump into their Chevy Cavalier, headed for Los Angeles.

On the way there, they discuss their dreams and learn that they have very different musical tastes, which sets the tone for their whole relationship. Their car breaks down and they encounter a strange but helpful person in Tucson that changes both their lives forever.

This story has many synchronistic overtones about fate, destiny and choice. The ending may surprise you.

Sunnyoutside is one of the best small presses to come out in the last few years. The publisher has a unique sense for finding quality work. Not only are the chapbooks themselves works of art, his choice of authors never seems to disappoint. This a great story and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

The book includes illustrations by Ed Herrera.

Neal Wilgus: The Leakoids, "Newsalizing The Nation"

2007-01-12T19:26:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by Christopher Robin.

Christopher has met Neal. Christopher wrote this review despite his working hard on the latest issue of his zeen. So, give Christopher a gold star! But maybe he could use a sandwich and a nap even more. Some Neal Wilgus books are available on Amazon (if he's the same author), but not this one.

$10. To get a copy, try writing to:
Neal Wilgus, 927 Camino Hermosa Corrales, NM 87048.

Wilgus has been writing and publishing for over thirty years and it shows.

He has fine tuned his literary sense of the absurd, influenced by the Discordian movement, and these stories are more original than what you would find in the satirical Onion Newspaper, though certainly in the same vein. These “spoof” stories (whether they are spoofs or not should be determined by what sort of reality you live in, and there are many, according to Wilgus) are inspired by the subconscious, a deep imagination, a finger on the pulse of Coyote Magic.

You may want to ingest these stories like medicine in dire times, as humor may be the only refuge we have at the end of the world.

My favorites are: Dog Sues for Divorce, (the Kanine Liberation Organization seeks an injunction against mankind on the grounds of mental cruelty and physical incompatibility), IRS Out for Boffo Laughs where the IRS vows to tax people every time they smile, so humor has to go underground (“blackmarket jokesters”) only to be thwarted by the Laffswat team whose mission it to is “to keep bootleg humor under control.”

I also enjoyed: Allegiance Pledge Found to Be Fake, Cuba Arrested for Speeding, Invisible Man Disappears, (“we’re not sure what to make of it,” Lost said, “but somehow all the computer records relating to Inviz have been erased and even the hard-copy files have been misplaced. At this point, we don’t even have a picture of the Invisible Man to give out to police agencies and the general public. Whether or not this is a deliberate act or just a coincidence is not clear at the present time.”)

Wilgus is keeping the spirit of the Church of the Subgenius alive. In the 80’s this sort of devious disinformation would find itself in my mailbox, the ONLY place to find “alternative realities,” or anything subversive, as there was no internet, ONLY mail-order. For those of you who miss Reverend Bob and get tired of all the bad, droll news, treat yourself to some belly laughs in this delightful book.

Neal Wilgus does NOT have a MySpace! Nothing should stand between a surrealist and his mailbox.

New American Underground Poetry Vol. 1:

2007-01-05T16:19:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Charles P. Ries. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literarti.net/Ries/ and you may write him at charlesr@execpc.com

Does Charles know any of the 32 poets in this anthology? Well really: he does not live in California to begin with, and if he spent all his time meeting other writers, when would he have time to write his own stuff? Give the guy a break, eh? You really are way too demanding!

Author: New American, copyright 2005. Alan Kernoff. Anthology issued by Trafford Press. Distributed by Zeitgeist-Press. (http://www.zeitgeist-press.com/) 323 Pages / Price: 23.00
TO ORDER GO TO: http://www.zeitgeist-press.com/

Context, talent and emerging form are the co-parents of art movements. When these three aspects of great art collide (as they seldom do) a child is conceived. A creative voice so unique in its character that when it is seen, heard, or read it guides the reader unmistakenly back to its place of origin.

As I read the thirty-two poets whose works comprise this expansive anthology entitled, New American Underground Poetry Vol. 1: The Barbarians of San Francisco - Poets from Hell, I welcomed the raw honest energy I found in these long narrative poems. I felt as if I was there with them, listening to them. They called themselves the Barbarians. Every Thursday night from the mid-late 80’s through about 1994, their home was a tiny wine and beer tavern located on twenty-second and Guerrero in the Mission District of San Francisco. For just under ten years it was the home of a perfect storm - a Thunder Dome in which spoken word poetry of high emotion, insight, and humor was delivered and refined. This excerpt from David Lerner’s, “Mein Kampf” addresses the objective of their collective efforts, “all I want to do / is make poetry famous // all I want to do is / burn my initials into the sun // all I want to do is / read poetry from the middle of a / burning building / standing in the fast lane of the / freeway / falling from the top of the / Empire State Building // the literary world / sucks dead dog dick //I’ll rather be Richard Speck / than Gary Snyder / I’d rather ride a rocket ship to hell / than a Volvo to Bolinas.” And indeed this desire to raise poetry above its lost status as a mainstream literary art colors many of the poems in this collection. These writers wrote and spoke words that could not be confused. They were metaphor lit and smash mouth rich.

Context: The back room at Cafe Babar. A tiny performance space of only about 30' x 30', with wood bleachers and corrugated aluminum siding stretched over the walls. At critical points, the poet could hit the walls and the entire small room would vibrate. Often, there were 75-100 people stuffed shoulder-to-shoulder, crowding the halls and every spare inch of space, hungry for what the poet could do. "The Babar crowd was pretty merciless," says Zietgeist Press Co-Founder and Café Babar regular, Bruce Isaacson. "There was no polite applause or lukewarm response. If they loved you, they let you know, and if they didn't, they really let you know: hoots, whistles, heckling. Even beer glasses would sometimes get tossed at the stage."

Talent: In the forward to this anthology, co-editor Alan Allen described the odd mix of tribal members to this scene, “The barbarian poets were broke. Won the west-coast slams but couldn’t afford the tickets to go East to compete. Lived only to write, to perform, to read. Many were without jobs (with notable exceptions), or disabled, or addicted, or worked in the sex industry. Most struggled to pay the rent, or eat well, wore thrift-shop clothes. IQ’s were the highest, hearts the biggest, poems what mattered most. Was all about feeling their voices, their words, their lines, their lives.” This collision of wild and diverse poets, writers, musicians, and performers created the ethos of that moment including: Laura Conway, Joie Cook, David West, Eli Coppola, David Gollub, Vampyre Mike Kassel, Kathleen Wood, Zoe Rosenfeld, Sparrow 13 LaughingWand, Q.R. Hand, Alan Kaufman, and numerous others who would go through the baptism of fire that was Café Babar. These writers and many more are featured in this exceptional collection of poetry.

Emerging Form: Richard Silberg in his introduction to The Babarians of San Francisco - Poets from Hell says, “As opposed to movements that have centered on magazines, a college, a writers group, the Babarians have forged their work in a performing space.” He goes on to say, “Barbarians focus on that performing voice. The Barbarian voice goes for personhood, somewhat like the voice of Bob Dylan’s lyrics, or a comedian’s voice, or the voice of a TV newsman. Emphasis is shifted from the page to performance. The poem on the page is more like a script or a score.” Berkeley Poet Laureate Julia Vinograd told me, “This period was an explosion of poetry and Café Babar was at its epicenter. The work was unlike anything that had been done before; we fed off each other. New things were being said in ways that were forceful, serious, and funny. The best of the young poets of their time read there along side total unknowns.”

The November 4, 1992 issue of the San Francisco Bay Guardian described the poets reading at Café Babar as, “The Best poets working in America today. The cradle of the American avant-garde tradition. Formed in the crucible of real economic despair & political threat. Poets of lowered expectations & political rage. Café Barbar is the symbolic crucible of the spoken-word scene where gather the keepers of the flame – the poets doing poetry before it caught the public eye.”

All the poems in collection were written to be heard and grasped quickly. They speak to the world in which the writer lived. Here was a tribe and a moment in time that personified what is best about poetry – raw, straight forward revelation. Emotional honesty delivered in a manner that demands attention.

Here are two short excerpts from The Barbarians of San Francisco. The first is from “I Was a Teenage Godzilla” by Vampyre Mike Kassel. “When I was ten / I was hit by a very small nuclear warhead / which slipped out of a torpedo tube / while my cub scout pack was visiting / the Navy submarine U.S.S. Caligula / on a field trip. / The incident was hushed up. / The other cubs perished / but I mutated into a Teenage Godzilla / just like in the movies. / Only I was still only five feet ten inches tall / Just a friendly li’l two legged radioactive Komodo dragon / It wasn’t so bad / My parents were pissed / but the government paid them off / and they just had to kind of live with it.” And another from Sparrow 13 LaughingWand entitled, “Larry Said”: “Oh the filthy chalice of his skull / blown apart in New York / Oh, his razorback heart and his lead sugar mouth, / Larry said his mother died in a house fire / while he was in the joint / Larry said it was political. / Larry told / the dumbest arrest story I ever heard / how he broke into a liquor store and got too drunk to escape. / The Nevada beauty of his tomcat ass could / scratch your eyes out. / Larry said he was an honest thief. / Larry said I wasn’t queer / because he love me. / Thanksgiving we had lentils under my tarp / in a storm at Davenport. / Larry wasn’t a queer / because I really wasn’t a man.”

They stood stripped naked before a crowd of true believers and had to sell it. They had to make it real, and they had to make it work or they were shouted down. Posers were persecuted at the Café Barbar.

Alan Catlin: Thou Shall Not Kill

2007-01-04T15:39:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by Christopher Robin.

Christopher has apparently not met Alan, so it should go without saying that Alan has apparently not met Christopher. Maybe they should meet. Send donations to The Christopher and Alan Should Meet Committee c/o this review blog.

$5, Chiron Review Press
522 E. South Ave
St John, Kansas
67576-2212

21 pages

A long poem delivering matter of fact lines attacking Bush, specifically during the time of Hurricane Katrina and also against the war, etc. A meaningful and original piece, though the subject matter has many times been written, a news-poem of this sort is a necessary archive.

On Katrina: “now that the avenging angel of doom in the form of a force 5 hurricane has invaded our borders/has landed dead center in the below sea level city of NOLA”. Throughout he attacks religion & capitalism and lashes out at current state of the apocalypse in a litany of doom reminiscent of a political treatise by Hirschman or Winans.

“Protest is what keeps America free/not your america/your America is an illusion/a delusion of isolationism & ignorance.”

This is a poem I will not soon forget.

Todd Moore/Gary Goude: Blood on Blood

2007-01-04T15:31:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Paranoid reader alert: Christopher has met Todd! However, he apparently has not met Gary. So does this not balance out? And is not balance what we should strive for in life and art? And while Christopher, a fine poet, has met art, it is not clear whether he has met Art. We are not sure who Gary has met.

$5
St. Vitus Press (2006)
www.saintvituspress.com
stvitusfan@aol.com or:
moorebt@spinn.net

If you are a Todd Moore fan you will enjoy Gary Goude, and vice versa. Goude’s poems are cut-throat, matter of fact images about those who live trapped in the everyday horror of the human condition.

Goude is an outlaw poet, and by that I mean he’s been places a lot of readers may rather not go. He also uses an economy of words, in the style of Moore. You may imagine through his poems that he has probably woken up next to the train tracks more than once in his life. Like Moore, he has lived hard and close to the bone.

These two poets fit perfectly together in this outstanding chap, which includes a color cover image taken from the film Reservoir Dogs. Goude takes us through the depths with tight lines: “I believe in the destruction/of everything man has touched and created,” (‘I Just Sit & Wait’); and from ‘The Bitter Life:’ “your teeth will begin to fall out/one by one/ your dreams will haunt you/with visions of ex wives/faces of your children/memories of dead love. Welcome to Hell.”

This is definitely not poetry one might read while sipping herbal tea in the garden. This is blood and guts writing while living in a world full of humans and rats, with not much distinction between the two.

The 2nd half of the book will not be disappointing to long time readers of Moore. If you light a match the poem will have ended, but the scent will linger in the air and you may feel like you narrowly escaped having your flesh singed. Moore’s section is entitled: “Lost in America,” and he is speaking for the forgotten: ‘benny always:’ “ask benny what the war was like/benny smiled/sd what war/then tapped his temple/steel plates/no pictures in my head.”

Each poem he writes is a unique story, a flash, a quick movie, a jarring of the senses, unforgettable. Moore has by now mastered the long poem (“Dillinger,”), and no one else can deliver a short poem like he does. I prefer to read his shorter poems, but no matter the length, the delivery is always clean, sharp, delivered with dangerous style.

I also like the inclusion of old black and white movie posters in this chap.

t. kilgore splake: Backwater Graybeard Twilight

2006-12-29T11:28:00.000-06:00

Review By: Charles P. Ries
Charles has recently been appointed to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. Holy smokes!! Don't you think you should check out his own work at: http://www.literarti.net/Ries/ ?

Thunder Sandwich Publishing
191 Pages/ Poetry, Short Stories and Photography
Price: $17.50
Order directly from Splake at P.O. Box 508, Calumet, Michigan 49913. Make all checks and money orders payable to t.k. splake.

As you will read below, Charles and t. have embibed a beverage together.

Thomas Hugh Smith was 44 years old when he wrote his first poem in 1979. Now known as t. kilgore splake, he has become one of the small press icons. His work and name appear everywhere. The self-proclaimed “graybeard dancer” told me, “Early one l979 morning while nursing a modest hangover and drinking a cup of coffee brewed from the coals of the previous night’s campfire, I felt compelled to write my thoughts about the past several days living in the pictured rocks wilderness outback. I collected several additional poems over my summer of camping, and upon returning to Battle Creek after Labor Day, they were published in my first chapbook edition titled pictured rocks poetry.”

Until that day Splake had never written poetry, “I taught political science at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan, for twenty-six years. I lectured on the dynamics of a federal system of government and outlined the characteristics and functions of the American political party system. However, outside the world of academia, my job status was at best anonymous. If I was in with a strange group of people and asked what I did for a living, I might as well have replied I was a brain surgeon for the understanding most people have of what is political science. Now, I declare myself a poet, and it still seems I am anonymous to the average individual.”

Backwater Graybeard Twilight is the magnum opus of Splake's work. It is a comprehensive collection of both his word and photo art. The 150 pages devoted to his writing are dense and word filled; word overflowing, words everywhere; for Splake puts to paper what comes to his mind in what he calls stream of consciousness prose. I asked him about this and he told me, “What initially attracted me to poetry, and later writing stream of consciousness prose, was the absence of necessary writing rules. In a doing contest with the ever elusive damn-dame lady muse, I seize a passion and redline it. I still compose my writing works in long hand, scribbling between the lines of quill econo legal padlets. With the rough long hand drafts, I then key a poem or a story into a word document and turn to the fine-tuning the writing into the best shape possible.”

One of the characteristics of the writing in Backwater Graybeard Twilight is its sheer volume. I often felt like I was drowning in a tidal wave of images and metaphors. This machine gunning of words often left me feeling lost and falling; not an altogether unpleasant experience, but even numinous falling needs nuance and direction lest we shut down the sponge in our head that reads and absorbs. Here is an example from, “homeboy escape”: “small town, womb nurturing captive population of fascists / and losers, hometurf where acting like a man is all important, // a few basking in fleeting, momentary athletic glories, awash / in school colors, cheers, the rest settling for spectator status, small // value for sadness of beating nobody, // small numbers move on town the highway, seeking college / education, others off to a career, some branch of the military service, most quickly back at home, armed and relieved, convenient excuse,” and on it goes for two more pages. Image on image, metaphor after metaphor, with only commas to give my mind a breath.

I asked Splake about this volume of words and whether themes get lost in the word pile. He sort of answered my question, “I believe in a pizza theory of poetry. Imagine being on a date and discussing what kind of a pizza to order. If I might suggest a pizza with anchovies, my feminine acquaintance might reply, “Ugh, I can’t stand those slimy little fish.” Where if she would suggest a pineapple pizza, I would not find pineapple agreeable to my culinary palette. Yet neither anchovies nor pineapple are bad, they simple represent a difference in individual tastes. I think the same analogy holds true for poetry. There are no good or bad poems, and what is good in poetry simply appeals to one’s aesthetic sensibilities. I can, and do not believe that the poems and stories I write will be liked by all those who read them. An anchovy lover will not win over a pineapple devotee.” I can’t argue that all art is loved by someone and finds a home, but does poetry lose its power (brevity) when it becomes overloaded? I think it does, but this does not diminish Splake's achievement or skill in accomplishing it, it just means his audience will be filled anchovy lovers who welcome his form of word art.

Backwater Graybeard Twilight is broken into titled, Being, NonBeing and Becoming - I was most drawn to Becoming (can I say the pineapple section) where Splake delivers more then a few poems I could read, digest, inhale such as this excerpt from, “the mountain beyond”: “mournful foghorn elegy / chuck spires vanishing / gray dying light / san fran bay / union street hill / below Washington square / bro brautigan / bench shadows / ben franklin statue / brown sipping sack / bard blood a-hummmmmm/inviting Alcatraz gulls / to carry him home / musical wings / through vivaldi’s season / escaping / life’s surface mirror.” Splake’s gift is his facility with image, his challenge maybe mitigating the blinding speed with which he lets these images fall to his paper.

I asked Jim Chandler, whose Thunder Sandwich Publishing published Backwater Graybeard Twilight what drew him to Splake’s work and he told me “I believe Splake is unique because his style is unlike that of anyone I'm familiar with. I suspect that most people who have read any Splake could pick his work out of poems by 10 (or 20 or 100) poets by reading a line or two. I know I can. The talent obviously speaks for itself, since one doesn't bother to interview untalented people. Splake is the most dedicated writer I know; perhaps driven is a better word. He sets goals and he doesn't rest until he achieves them. “

Indeed, he is a Type-A poet if ever there was one; a volcano of productivity. In an interview conducted by Peter Magliocco of ART:MAG Splake describes himself as a proverbial over-achiever who TRIES HARDER and I would agree. I asked him if, as he nears his 70th birthday, if he has enough time to get it all done and he told me, “ NO! I do not have enough time in the working day to bring my attention to all of the works that I currently have in progress. What I call “rat bastard time” has truly become my primary adversary. I often hear some of the truly geezer gents at the evergreen café sigh over their coffee mornings and whisper “what am I going to do today.” I feel, how sad I cannot allocate a couple of their unused hours, and possess twenty-six for a day’s lit-laborings. It is obvious they would not miss them.”

Splake has published over 70 chap books of poetry and if that weren’t enough, he is also an excellent photographer. Backwater Graybeard Twilight has over forty pages of his photos, and these are exceptional. His subjects are common and clear. They are lit on the page and easy to assimilate. I asked him if he had to choose poetry or photography, what would it be? In characteristic Splake fashion he didn’t exactly answer my question, but rather the associations my question prompted in his mind, “At present I am moving away from writing poetry and short stories and into the field of movie making. However, note, I am not abandoning poetry, but incorporating a poetry on human “being” into the camera footage that I work with. To date I have produced three DVD movie-length productions: “Splake poetry on location i,” “Splake poetry on location ii,” and the most recent film creation “Splake: the cliffs.” In regards to my filming perspectives, I have been greatly influenced by the work of Jim Jarmusch, and particularly his early movie “Permanent Vacation.” I have also learned a great deal of cinematography from the works of Richard Linklater. His experimental movie which is part of the criterion film package for the movie “Slacker,” has had a strong effect on my movie making attitudes.” Can you hear a man sprinting toward his art? I can.

In less then 20 years Splake has created a lifetime body of work. I asked him about his legacy, “If I flatter myself, I think that t. kilgore splake writings and photographs “might” still be remembered l0 days to a possible full two weeks after I pass on to that “quiet darkness of nothing.” However, I still continue to post my work and daily correspondence to Marcus C. Robyns, archivist for Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. I do entertain the remote possibility that I possess an Upper Peninsula artistic consciousness and regional identity. So, maybe some future NMU literature or writing students will study the works of Splake. I would like that.”

Jim Chandler is right. Here is a unique voice, talent and personality. Splake is a small press original. While anchovies are not for everyone, even a pineapple lover like me can see the glory in an anchovy. I strongly encourage you to add Backwater Graybeard Twilight to your library.

To Find Additional Information on Splake Go To:
http://www.thundersandwich.com/tspublishing.html = Order More Splake Books
http://www.tksplake.freehosting.net/ = Sample Splake Poetry
http://poesy.org/tkilgore_splake-kerouac.html = Splake Photos
http://www.geocities.com/bmorrise2/tk_splake.htm = Splake Photos
http://www.mipoesias.com/mipoprint/volume2issue16.pdf = MiPo Print
http://www.mipoesias.com/mipoprint/volume3issue1.pdf = MiPo Print

Angela Consolo Mankiewicz: An Eye

2006-12-29T11:21:00.000-06:00

Review By: Charles P. Ries
Charles is the Poetry Editor of Word Riot, and a fine poet in his own write. You can see his own creative writing at http://www.literarti.net/Ries/ .

13 Poems / 37 Pages / $9
Pecan Grove Press
Box AL
1 Camino Santa Maria
San Antonio, Texas 78228-8608

As you will read, Charles has actually spoken with Angela.

AN EYE by Angela Consolo Mankiewicz is the third book of poetry by this very fine writer whose work appears throughout the small press. Her previous two chaps were CANCER POEMS from UB Press, and WIRED from Aquarius West.

Mankiewicz walks the gracious line between pure narrative poetry and image poetry; this lends a transcendent aspect to her work. Here is excerpt from her poem “The Cell” which illustrates this quality, “I found him in his cell / not as in jail, as in catacombs. // He smiled but did not look well, / frail, in a thin, pinstripe suit. // He stepped down, almost fell / but righted himself, winking.” And later in the same poem, “He stopped, climbed / onto the sun and swooned // while flames brushed his lips red / and painted his face // like a middle-aged whore, overfed / and grinning. I carried him // back to his cell, into his bed, / where I watched the dust // fill his nostrils and blot / his spotted cheeks.” I asked her about the tone of the poems in AN EYE, many of which I felt had a personal journal aspect to them, “Yes, I'd characterize these poems as both narrative and image-driven. I don't see or hear the "journal aspect" - which certainly doesn't mean it isn't there! I learned early on that I'm more an explicator than a good story-teller - perhaps that's how that combination developed in my work.”

These poems are reflections on motherhood, love, age, memory, regret, and time. A few poems in this collection that didn’t seem to fit this flow – “The Lady Livia” and “The Cell” in particular seemed to be poems for another collection. I asked Mankiewicz to explain this thematic discontinuity. “Yes, your perceptions are accurate, although I would include political in the mix. “The Lady Livia” and “The Cell” also fall into the same areas you note – “The Lady Livia” began as a piece about the historical figure and dovetailed into a reflections on my mother. “The Cell” began with a dream of my father and blended into a memory of Rome. When I considered groupings, I didn't consciously have a theme in mind. I saw AN EYE and “Young Girls” as bookends, “Sleeping with Nietzsche” through “Armchairs” as introspectives. The other three, with “Caiti”, as externals - assuming that makes any sense.”

I asked her how Pecan Grove Press came to publish this collection. “Pecan Press published a little magazine called "Chili Verde Review" which printed a few of my poems over the years. Its publisher/editor, H. Palmer Hall also ran a chapbook contest, judged by someone else. I would submit, and though Palmer was very encouraging, I never made it. The press and magazine seemed to disappear for a while, and then I saw a review in Small Press Review of one of Palmer's books. I wrote to him, and he invited me to submit a manuscript which became AN EYE.”

Many of these poems gain their power from the personal, and from the skill and willingness of Mankiewicz to disclose. Here are three endings to poems in the collection that illustrate this. From “The Girl Who Loved Armchairs”: “I’m told, love will outlast passion’s appetite - / then may it rage as it slips into that ungentle night.” From “Dinner Party”: “She turned off the sound, let herself drift / on the tremble of purring on her lips, / steady, with an extra beat // here and there, to remind her of / who she is.” And finally from “After All These Years”: “Later, we will meet, face-to-face and embrace like paper dolls. / We’ll bob our heads and flap happy little arms in the wind. / We’ll rush home to draw big black remainders to call on / our calendars / for old times’ sake.” Mankiewicz’s ability to write so personally is her great strength.

I asked Mankiewicz about her writing process, “Basically, it's a matter of shot gunning everything a particular thought or series of thoughts brings into my head and setting that down on paper/screen. Then, I start discarding, inserting, re-inserting, read a little, put on Callas if I want to indulge myself, Beethoven if I need to escape. I may sweep the kitchen floor or play at preparing to wash the car. I do put poems aside into "In-Process" folders if I don't like what's happening or not happening and I will go back to a piece, but not that often. Sometimes I revise a lot over many weeks, sometimes hardly at all - it depends on the piece of course. Sometimes I force a completion because I can't deal with the piece anymore - and because I don't know if I ever feel a poem is "done." Occasionally, a poem comes in a sitting. Rarely is it a really good piece, but it can be satisfactory, and if so, I'll keep it.”

AN EYE is a strong and varied outing for a poet who does not blink in the face of emotional tension and confusion. Mankiewicz stands firm and reports what she sees through an eye that is painter, poet and philosopher.

William Taylor Jr.: So Much Is Burning

2006-12-29T11:01:00.000-06:00

Review By: Charles P. Ries
(Charles is a fine poet. He is the Poetry Editor for Word Riot. Check out his work at http://www.literarti.net/Ries).)

16 Poems/5 Photos/$10
Sunnyoutside, P.O. Box 441429
Somerville, MA 02144
www.sunnyoutside.com
www.williamtaylorjr.com

Charles has met William, as this review indicates.

The eyes of a poet often find beauty in rubble, and hope in a sea of sadness. So Much Is Burning by William Taylor Jr. is a study of poetic transcendence, an examination undertaken by a writer well suited to seeing common miracles. Taylor’s work conveys longing as well any poet writing today. I first encountered his work five years ago when I discovered his wonderful poem “Being Lonely” in Zen Baby. It was such a remarkable poem of searching sadness that I have never forgotten it. So Much Is Burning demonstrates why Taylor has attracted such a devoted following in the small press.

This collection is grounded in place and set on the humble stage known as the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. I asked Taylor why he wanted such a sharp thematic focus. “I had the idea of publishing a collection of poems and photographs all about a particular place, or city. I originally had the idea while living in Santa Cruz. Nothing came of it until I moved to San Francisco and the Tenderloin about a year ago. A lot of poems came from just walking around and hanging out in the neighborhood. Most of them were written in maybe a six month period. I would just send batches of them to David as they were written, and then we’d [David McNamara, Editor of sunnyoutside] usually discuss whether or not a particular piece fit the mood, or theme of the book, and go from there.”

Taylor’s ability to find beauty and hope in this sad town is demonstrated in his poem titled, “At the Corner”: “It is mid afternoon / and I am already tired of the day / Just another thing wasted / another sad mistake / and at the corner of Geary / and Leavenworth / the sky is perfect blue / high above the bus stop / where the strung out / red-haired prostitute waits / her crazed eyes almost / but not quite / beautiful.” And again, in his poem titled, “Like the Dripping of Rain”: “The 4:00 a.m. sound of the / tranny prostitute’s heels / click clacking up and down Post St. / beneath my window / is strangely comforting, // like the dripping of rain / it lulls me to a gentle sleep.”

Only a few lines in this collection step perilously close to becoming melodramatic such as in, “The City”: “Some days the city is a beautiful / as anything that’s ever been // and some days the city is a living thing / whose only purpose / is to devour you slowly / and completely, body / and soul // with jagged / poisoned teeth. // Some days the only victory / is to be alive enough to feel it.” Taylor’s gift is restraint, and in this poem I feel he may have chosen other words than devour, jagged and poisoned teeth to describe this city.

I asked him about what he does to walk this line between pathos and the melodramatic with such agility? He told me, “In much of my work there is a certain mood or feeling I want to convey and I simply try and use the best words possible to do so. I don’t know how else to explain it. I do believe there is sadness in beauty and sometimes beauty in sadness. When I am affected in some way by something I try and write about it in a way that will make the reader feel whatever I felt at the time of the experience.” I also wanted to know if Taylor was filled with as much pathos as his poems often depict. “I don’t think so. I’m generally relatively happy in my everyday life. I tend to release my dark side, if you will, in my writing. Most happy stuff tends not to make interesting reading. To quote old Thomas Hardy, If a way to the best there be, it exacts a full look at the worst. Meaning, the dark aspects of life must be confronted and accepted before any real peace of mind or happiness can be achieved. A kind of peace must be made with the darkness.”

Here is another poem from So Much is Burning titled, “Sucker’s Bet”: “I imagine most of the / people in my neighborhood / don’t believe much in poetry / and I’m not sure if they should / it’s a sucker’s bet / to look for beauty in these / sad broken streets”

I believe the roots of the writer’s voice can be found by looking at his or her life. Since Taylor used “Jr.” in his pen name, I asked him to tell me a little about his father. “My father was a WWII veteran. I think there was a lot he experienced in the war that he never really talked about. His father, from what I gather, was an abusive alcoholic and a preacher. My dad had nothing good to say about him. All of my life my father was a devout atheist, bitterly critical of organized religion of any kind. My mom was, and still is a practicing catholic. It made for an interesting relationship. My dad generally was a quiet, decent man, prone to fits of violence when provoked in a certain way. Now that he’s gone, of course, I wish I’d known him better.”

I also wanted to know about Taylor’s training as a writer, “Right after high school I attended a junior college in my hometown of Bakersfield for a few years. I mainly took art and literature classes. I did well in those, and not so well in the classes that I wasn’t as interested in. I’ve never had much discipline for the classroom setting. I’ve never liked doing things in groups. At the time, I didn’t have a job in mind that a degree in literature would help me get. I didn’t have an interest in being a teacher. I was rather directionless, as far as school went, so after a few years I dropped out.” I asked him when he began writing, “I’ve been actively publishing probably about 15 years now, since my early twenties or so. I told myself that when I had written what I thought to be 100 good poems, I would start submitting. I got a fair amount of encouragement early on; a lot of my work was being accepted by the little zines and such, so I just kept at it.”

When he told me his two favorite dead poets were T.S. Eliot and Robinson Jeffers I began to see Taylor’s writer’s soul come into sharper focus for me. “Eliot was probably the greatest poet writing in English in the 20th century. A true poet’s poet. You can read his best work over and over and never tire of it. There is always something new to discover. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is probably my favorite poem by anyone, ever. Jeffers was the last great poet of the epic tradition. He captured the natural beauty of the earth like few poets could. He found comfort in the fact that the universe and the great beauty of things will continue long after humankind is gone, when there is no heart left to break for it, as do I.”

It’s such pleasure to read Taylor’s work and meet his city. He is a writer with a long future, and an audience that will grow. I was pleased to learn that Chuck Nevismal’s Centennial Press will be publishing an expansive collection of new and selected poems by Taylor called, Words For Songs Never Written. No date has been set for that release, but it is about time this fine poet got a book large enough to showcase his considerable talent.

Fawzy Zablah: Ciao! Miami

2006-12-27T22:12:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Available on Lulu (www.lulu.com), $9.18 paperback/$2.53 download. It is also available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other sources.

Christopher Robin is a member of the ULA. He does not know, to the best of my limited knowledge, Fawzy Zablah (who has a fabulous name). It goes without saying that Fawzy, therefore, does not know Christopher--but should we make such assumptions? And, if it goes without saying, why am I saying it? And, have you noticed, I have not said anything, I am writing? Is this any way to end 2006?

Ciao Miami is a book of short stories set in the late 90’s about Miami’s marginalized population. The characters include immigrants, prostitutes, and transsexuals. The writing is strong, well developed and full of surprises, while the dialogue is realistic and believable.

There is so much intrigue in this book, in even the most simple of premises, I found myself lingering so as not to finish them too fast.

My favorite was a long piece called “The Women’s Army” about a mentally ill man who think he’s an angel and is obsessed with a Cuban boy who was “saved by a dolphin” (Elian Gonzales). Some other stories include: an Egyptian busboy mistaken for an Afghan after September 2001, (“The Existence of Nabil”), a man who falls for a crack whore who he is determined to save; but instead nearly destroys his own life in the process, (“Darling, It Was An Uphill Battle Loving You),” and a young man dying of Aids who tries to fulfill the wish of a former high school ugly duckling, (“Post Bug Billy Flint.”)

I found myself drawn to the characters who were sometimes not the least bit likeable but who had a certain sad appeal. There is also humor in the dreadful lives they inhabit, whether the author intends it to be so or not. These are portraits of many different types of people who are all at their wit’s end, against a backdrop of the headlines and popular concerns of the 1990’s.

These are examples of what happens when people break, either trying to do good, or deluded into thinking they are doing so. Folks who are holding on to what’s left of their humanity, and those that have given it up. These stories are every bit as good as what you would find in Charles Bukowski’s very early short stories. I highly recommend it.

Joe Ollman: this will all end in tears

2006-12-18T23:39:00.000-06:00

"Tony, it's taken me 37 years to get this fucked up. I'm betting it will take more than a week to make me okay."

Reviewed by: Brady Dale Russell

Brady was sent this book in the mail by its publisher, Insomniac Press, in Ontario, Canada. Brady has never met Joe. And, in terms of hunting trips and shooting either deer or lawyers or even good friends, it is unlikely that either Joe or Brady have met Dick Cheyney. With luck, they never will.

Insomnia Press published this book. You can find more of their books at www.insomniacpress.com). The book is also available on Amazon. You can find Brady Russell's site link in our links section. Joe's personal site is located at www.wagpress.net.

Lately I've been talking about things in terms of whether or not they are good for America or bad for America. Usually, I prefer identifying the things I see as "good for America." For example, if I see a movie in which an anti-hero type takes an amusingly sadistic pleasure out of beating the crap out of some government functionary, I say: "that's good for America." Or, if I eat a donut that somehow hits me just the right way, I say it was "good for America." Or if someone gets really, really drunk and makes an impressive ass out of himself by hitting on a woman who's totally out of his league only to take a sweeping bow that everyone can see after she (amazingly) grants him the digits, I say, with great reverence, that that it's "good for America."

The point being that I never really like to say anything is good or bad for America if it actually does have any clear or meaningful link to nation, nationhood or our political moment. In fact, you could even argue that I don't usually tend to say anything is good for America if it might be possible to make any argument under any circumstances that the thing actually did benefit America.

Because if you could it wouldn't be funny to say whatever-random-ass-thing was good for America.

It's only slightly more ironic, then, that I found myself trying to decide un-ironically whether or not Joe Ollman's collection of graphic short stories, this will all end in tears, was good for America, since Ollman is Canadian and probably finds America pretty annoying. I mean, we could get all technical about it and say that Canada is also part of America, depending on how you define the thing, but we all know that no one thinks about Canada when they think about America. When they think about America they think about Jazz. Okay, they think about NASCAR and guns, but the point is that whatever you think about when you think about America, it probably doesn't have anything to do with Canada because we are two pretty different states of mind.

In fact, no one thinks about Canada when they think about America because, let's face it, no one really thinks about Canada.

Unless you're talking about comedy. Then we're pretty much on the same
page. Canucks can be pretty funny.

Not that this will all end in tears is exactly funny. John Candy was funny. this will all end in tears is mostly depressing and disturbing. But it's depressing and disturbing with a comic sensibility, sort of like the movie Happiness, only the book strays a little too far in the grotesque and ugly to really maintain an ironic comedic tone - plus it doesn't have a dorky little kid who can't jerk off. If nothing else in this world is funny anymore one day, little kids who can't jerk off will still make me laugh.

What's not funny are chubby near-middle-aged women who have crushes on guys with bad skin only because maybe Mr. Bad-skin-spare-tire-belly
might sleep with her once he realizes that he's not exactly Tom Cruise. Well, I guess that is sort of funny, especially when Ollman shows his porcine main character all bug-eyed as she kills herself on an exercise bike in her basement so she can drop a few ounces that she never manages to drop. That's funny. Only you feel guilty laughing because this character is one sad girl who hasn't done anyone any harm. So you don't exactly laugh but you do sort of secretly giggle and it's not like anyone will blame you because they see you're reading a comic, and comics are supposed to be funny, right? They don't know you're laughing at a lonely girl.

What I'm saying is that it is nice to see that Canadians also share the darker side of American humor. The more sophisticated brand of our macabre tastes that we inherited from the Brits but improved with guns like we do everything. The sort of humor that makes you laugh when little kids go to talk to their dads about the fact that they can't jerk off because you know that the kid's dad is a pedophile and the kid doesn't. That's funny. Only that's Happiness I'm talking about again, because, like I said, no impotent pre-teens in this will all end in tears.

There are guns, though, and God bless America for that. This one character has the lamest little rifle, a .22, but somehow in the story he's managed to kill this deer with it. It's his first hunting trip ever and he kills this great big buck with one shot from a .22, hitting it somewhere in the back no less. Now, setting aside that a kill with this sort of shot is pretty much impossible with a .22, this is one of the darkest pieces of humor in the whole book. You have to love a story where a guy goes to move a deer that's been dead in his garage for almost a week and its front legs come off.

Now, I know a little something about dead deer in garages. I've lived in a house with a dead deer in a garage, after all. Through this whole story, the main character keeps having more and more trouble with the deer he never meant to kill in the first place, and, knowing a little about dead deer, I know that all the problems could have been prevented if he'd just done this, or he'd just done that.

Then I realized that the point of the story was two-fold: first, that no one in the story really knew what to do if any of them actually did manage to kill a deer and, second, that Ollman wanted to do a scene where this guy accidentally pulls a deer's front legs off.

And who can blame him*?

So there I am on page 66 and the main character of the book's third story (of six), "Oh, Deer," accidentally pulls off the legs of this deer and I think to myself, "Yeah, okay, this book definitely is good for America."

* Note: I didn't read the endnotes of this book before writing the review, but then I did afterwards and it turns out that Ollman pretty much did write this story for the purpose of showing this guy unintentionally ripping a deer's front legs off. Wow.

[Victor notes: okay, now I gotta read this book! However, I must note that one of my dear movies is Bambi. And I have to wonder about what Brady keeps in his garage...besides Joe Pesci...]

Cristy C. Road: Indestructible

2006-12-10T19:16:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman

This book was published by Microcosm Publishing (http://www.microcosmpublishing.com/). Cristy C. Road’s website is http://www.croadcore.org/.

Victor has never met Cristy. He found out about her when he received a compliment about this site from Brooklyn Frank. Brooklyn Frank is a person and not a New York hot dog. Victor thanked him for his comment and asked Brooklyn Frank which books should be reviewed on this site. He mentioned Cristy. Victor contacted Cristy. She had never heard of Brooklyn Frank. But Cristy lives in Brooklyn, and Victor grew up in Brooklyn, so it all seems somehow connected, kind of like the circle of life from The Lion King, but without Walt Disney (who probably would not have liked this book).

It ain’t easy growing up in Miami as an Cuban overweight adolescent girl who starts out bisexual and eventually grows into being gay, at the same time an outcast in but a member of her high school, community and immediate family. It isn’t easy growing up, but Cristy had more than her share of crap to deal with.

This novel (that is not a novel) comes out of the zine world and looks it. The font is typewriter style, the layout cut and paste. The spelling and grammar would occasionally make White and Strunk fidget. The look of the book matches the troubled early life of the narrator, who appears suspiciously similar to the writer/artist, and whose name is, uh, Cristy Road.

The writing style can be awkward. At times the vocabulary does not match an adolescent’s—but then again, the story is told in retrospect and the awkwardness provides a realistic edge. Reading it feels like you are in the same room with Cristy as she tells you her early life story. The edge in the writing is matched by her bold black and white drawings—in your face art, using a blunt and somewhat cartoony style that effectively matches the writing style. The combination of words and art works nicely, playing off each other.

If you want a plot you should read another book. The book covers Cristy’s high school years, her ‘coming of age’, with that being an operative phrase in so many ways—she is obsessed with sex, along with punk rock, being oppressed, stupid boys and interesting girls. More a collection of memories tied together chronologically than a novel, the book has a genuine narrative power stemming from Cristy’s growth.

It is easier to show than explain:

One day, Cristy asks her high school biology teacher, Mr. Rodriguez, to discuss birth control. He is not pleased.
“’The basis of sex is procreation.’
‘No, it’s not. The sex you’re teaching us about only talks about the pleasure of dudes. Ya’ll know dudes gotta cum to make a baby, and girls don’t. Teaching this way only feeds to the idea that a girl’s pleasure isn’t as important as a dude’s. And hell knows everyone in this classroom wants to know how not to make babies as opposed to how to make them.’
‘Christy, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna ask you to leave the class.’
‘Awesome. The drugs are kicking in right now, anyway.’”

Or,

“’You’re a sell out. Last week you weren’t wearing fucking khakis and loafers. What’s your fucking deal?’ I asked Roberto one day.
‘Whatever Cristy. In the future, when you’re moshing in a pit somewhere, drunk off your ass—I’m gonna have a family. I’m gonna have money. I’m gonna be successful.’
‘Who are you to measure success? You’re just gonna end up fucking poor people over. You’re just gonna start shitting competition from the hole in your brain your CEO job is gonna drill. You and your imaginary family can suck it.’”

Or,

“On some nights, I found that girl-solidarity when this one girl, Marietta, sat on my bed until 3am talking about how useless facial masks and pussy deodorant were. I shared my room then with relatives, but sectioned off my side with yellow caution tape and a wall-collage of posters, flyers, and strategically placed crap. I was into dim lighting and denying others’ intrusion so I could achieve a private space for writing zines and jacking off. We talked about fucking, punk, metal, crank, and weed. I didn’t smoke weed at the time; I only wanted to be sociable and stay awake, mostly. On some nights, I also wanted to be skinny; but only Marietta knew this.”

Or,

“In my home our tone swerved by way of narrow traditions and belief systems. We went from talking about politicizing our choices to talking about how to raise baby parrots and make flan. At home there wasn’t a space for anything remotely sexual. While my culture welcomed that political progress that entailed fighting for fair pay and abiding by self-sufficiency—the revolution wasn’t very gay. Queerness seemed ten times more repressed in my cultural boundaries than that of white commercialized America.
’Why can’t queers just be a hot commodity?’ I asked Marietta. ‘You know, the way homos are in white people culture.’
‘Because you want to be respected for who you are, not your novelty.’
“Fake respect is better than none at all.’
“No really, it’s not, trust me.”

Cristy’s sexual growth mirrors her community situation as an outlaw. She hides who she is from her family, but can not abandon it: “It became okay that I couldn’t share my innermost feelings on oral sex, fisting, and Selene [a woman whom Cristy admires] with my family. Because we could talk about other things. We could talk about our formative heroes selling out, and about cast aside neighborhoods. We could talk about dismay and how it’s sometimes followed by deliverance.”

“We learn a lesson from every mistake, very apology, every assumption at love, every new friend, every lost friend, every reconciliation, every death, very bout of belligerence, every bad decision, every kiss, every fuck, and every failed attempt at starting that stupid punk rock band…. And it wasn’t invincibility, but we were surviving outside of those conditions we had fought off for years. In the end, we remained poised while doing what we were never meant to do. And people often told me that teenagers were never meant to love themselves.”

The book concludes with autographs and comments from her fellow students, as in a high school year book.

Cristy has graduated.

Gail Sidonie Sobat: The Book of Mary

2006-12-03T01:32:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman

Published by Sumach Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (www.sumachpress.com). Available on Amazon.

Victor does not know Gail. Gail is not a ULA member, and maybe has never even visited Philadelphia.

See, there is this fourteen year old girl. She wants to taste life. Although independent, she still defines herself in terms of how men see her--she is a product of her times. To spread her wings, she starts hanging out at the local “bad girls” place. Soon enough this guy comes along, a sweet-talker, who has trouble remembering her name. They fall into the sack...frequently...he starts to remember her name...and she becomes pregnant.

Then he tells her the truth about himself, at least some of it—he is married. He agrees to run away with her…only, he never shows up. The girl is in crisis. Where she lives pregnant single women are stoned to death. To save her life, she makes up a story and agrees to marry a jerk. Her story? That she became pregnant not by her boyfriend, who turns out to be a drug dealer, but by God. And that she carries the son of God.

By now in the girl's story, it is around six months B.C. The girl lives in a hick town called Nazareth. Her name is Mary.

And so begins “The Story of Mary”, a wonderful, controversial, thought-provoking novel that takes Christianity and shakes the hell out of it. Literally.

At first, true to the spirit of a rebellious teenager, the writing is snarky and often hilarious. Mary’s description of riding across the desert with her new husband, Joseph, who is not terribly bright: “I have a pain in the ass from riding one and being married to another.” In Bethlehem the three wise men she meets are characterized as the three “wise guys”, straight out of a Martin Scorsese film, complete with Brooklyn accents.

However, as the book progresses and Mary ages, the tone matures with her. One of the lovely aspects of this novel is how it not only grows on you, but that it grows, period. As Mary would say, just like a person already. The hilarity of the opening third of the novel evolves into a more deeply felt narrative as Jesus is born and grows up believing the crazy story mommy spread about him being the Son of God. Meanwhile, it is Mary herself who is the healer. In fact, she opens up a hospital, becomes a midwife and….

This book has too many enchanting discoveries to give you spoilers.

Gail Sidonie Sobat has written a remarkable novel. It is like its human narrator, growing from adolescence to maturity as it progresses. Yes, you already know how some of the book ends. Her son Jesus’ story is well known, the meshegunner rabble rouser. What you do not know are the funny, insightful, dramatic twists she creates to make the reader think about what religion is all about, what responsibility is all about, what—well, pretty much, by the time she is done, what pretty much everything is all about.

This is what “underground” literature should be and what mainstream literature all too often avoids. Sidonie Sobat takes on patriarchy, Christianity, medicine, life responsibilities, family relationships, commercialism, social politics, political politics--you name it--—and turns them all on their ears stunningly, leaving the reader with a lifetime’s experience to think about. But this is no polemic (although, it gets close at times, and, frankly, guys don't turn out to be that wise). It is very entertaining, funny, dramatic, profoundly involving, and certainly worth the scheckels.

The Urban Hermitt's Fanzine #18

2006-11-21T15:33:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Steve Kostecke

Steve is a leading ULA member. He probably has never met the Hermitt.

The zine can be had for $3 cash at: The Urban Hermitt POB 460412, San Fran CA 94146

In case you are not enlightened, the Hermitt regularly puts out a zine which describes his unbelievably adventurous and happening life, usually set in way-liberal settings like Hawaii or the Pacific Northwest. This time around, he astounds us with an issue that describes his road tour (as spoken word artiste) with a punk Scottish Oi! band (not Cowboy band) and a group of anti-monkey-lab-testing activists. And as if that isn't unique enough, everything about this journey through America outdoes itself.

The shows they perform from Texas through the South, the East, and the Midwest are full of black-hearted skinheads who either boo our beloved Hermitt, give him the dreaded slow death-clap, or throw various harmful projectiles towards his person. How he manages to climb the stage for each performance is beyond human comprehension.Even though his art is trashed time and time again, the Urban Hermitt keeps at it, as a true word-artist should.

This zine reveals a slice of life of a real American poet. Even with so much working against him, the Hermitt keeps the humor up. Every page is filled with laughs and smirks. Like when he gets sick:

Where are you going? Peter asked me as I tried to sneak across the street to the hospital. Um! Yeah Hermitt, where are you going? Braxton asked in his cocky-British accent. I'm going across the street to get antibiotics at the hospital becuz I have strep throat, I said, on the defense. It was the West Coast liberals versus the West Coast liberals. I can't fawking believe you, Hermitt! Braxton yelled. Cuz I'm like dying? Why are you getting evil corporate animal torturing drugs and you're on this fawking tour? It's all relative. No it's not Hermitt! And what about the monkeys? What about the fawkin monkeys? You disgust me Hermitt! I regret letting you on this tour! I had nothing to say back, just some eye rolls. Guilt tripped by the liberals, I didn't get antibiotics and continued to go on dying."

The Hermitt also digs deep, as usual, in his perceptions of the world around him (his writing is one natural flow of organic expression nterpreting the social phenomena constantly bombarding him). Here's what he says while at an arrival gate at an airport:

"At the airport, a flight from London landed. There were loads of Arabic families walking through the gate, mothers completely covered in black veils taking care of the children. Fathers in suits, acting as if they ruled over their wives. Man, that's so sexist and messed up, I thought to myself. Those women being covered up! But then a bunch of Euro-white ladies came through the gate. They too took care of the children while their husbands in business suits or polo shirts acted like they were ruler of the wife. The thing that I began to notice was that the Euro-white ladies were no more different than the Arabic ladies. Instead of a black veil, they had shaved legs, make-up, feminine hair doos, and pink clothing. Sure, maybe some of them chose and liked to be that way, but not all of them. Just another prison in exchange for another."

So if you want to know what's up on the 24/7 in the 99, yo! in American Lit, you better get your hands on a copy of this zine and all previous issues, for that matter. The Hermitt's writing is one of the clearest cases why underground writing makes corporate lit look long dead and gone.

Joel Priddy: Pulpatoon Pilgrimage

2006-11-20T23:04:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Brady Russell.

Brady is a ULA member. He probably does not know Joel Priddy.

Ad House Books, $12.95, 160 pages. Available on Amazon.com.

The problem with writing about comics is that you can't pretend like you aren't writing about comics. Comics have their own baggage that come around with them. Polite people say things like "I'm just not into comics," but that's just a way to prevent talking about their prejudices. Lots of art orms come with prejudices. Symphony music is thought of as boring. Theater is thought of as pretentious. Modern Dance is incomprehensible.

Come to think of it, I don't really disagree with many of those prejudicial statements. Maybe that's why I wrote them. Comics, though, I give comics free reign. Comics are in the middle of an historical moment right now. Once upon a time, the novel was simply a vehicle for bosom heaving love stories, but then writers came along who broadened its scope and depth and now very boring people in very expensive buildings sit around unpacking the layers and layers locked within novels and bringing different theoretical formulas to bear on ripping them apart, which is thought of as serious, and important work.

Which is part of how you can tell an art form is dying: when boring people in expensive buildings become deeply, deeply interested in it.

Well comics aren't anything like that. Boring people in expensive buildings want no more to do with comics than they want anything to do with rock-and-roll, and both art forms are very much alive, changing and well. The difference is that the public has a pretty good handle on what rock-and-roll is, even when it gets pretty strange (such as when groups like The Cure and The Decemberists come along). Comics, though, people think comics are a vehicle for superhero stories, that's it, that's flat, baby - done.

If you get out there and have a look, though, the comic underground is really moving the form in new places. Take Pulpatoon Pilgrimage. I'm in part so excited about this book I can't quit thinking about it and also afraid to invite anyone I know to look at it for fear that they just aren't prepared for it, that their prejudices will get in the way and they won't like it and they'll insult it and then that will force me up onto a high-horse where I'll say something condescending that I'll regret such as, "Well clearly you just don't get it or even understand how to enjoy it."

See, when you've got comics you have this crazy marriage of the visual and the narrative. Painting, you know, is pretty much all visual. We forgive painting for all kinds of quirks. Its a one shot deal. It's one image. I almost never have any clue what a given painting is trying to tell me, but it's cool. It's cool because I like the colors or the line or I think the thing has an interesting impact on my subconscious.

Then stories are even cooler when you get into them. They really grab you. They work just like our brains work.

Well, with comics you can do a lot of both (where as you can just do a little of both with stories and painting, but let's not quibble too much here - all art is pretty fungible and the boundaries are hazy. That discussion is done.). It's the sheer amount of both the visual and the narrative that you can do with comics that make them so exciting.

The point I'm getting to is this, I love Pulpatoon Pilgrimage. I really, really love it. It's so simple and short and enriching and mystifying that I'm going to read it again and again (this writing follows the third reading in two days). That said, if someone handed me the prose version of Pulpatoon Pilgrimage I'd read three pages and throw it across the room. It just wouldn't work. I wouldn't care. I would be like, "what the hell is the point?"

I'd want to know where the heck Bull even comes from. Where are they?
Where the hell are they going? Who are these freaks?

So what is it? Okay, I guess I had to get to that question eventually, but I don't want to go into too much detail here. Pulpatoon Pilgrimage is the story of a sort of Minotaur, Bull; a walking plant, Delaware Thistle and a robot with a goldfish in his head, Rowbot. We meet the three of them walking across a barren landscape. The first few pages suggest that they have previously walked through forests, rolling hills, woods and jungles before we even hear a voice for the first time. They are on some sort of quest. We don't know where to or why. For some reason, they need to go in a group of three.

They all seem to like each other.

Along the way, we get small character vignettes. We learn a little about each character's sadness and we learn a lot about each character's charm. There is an enormous amount, perhaps an epic amount that we don't learn. Joel Priddy has shown a remarkable restraint here. You get the sense that he could talk about each of these three characters and the world they are walking through (or away from?) for hours and hours.

You'll finish reading the book in twenty minutes if you go slow. He doesn't tell us where we are. He gives us just enough so that we know the three have some sort of reason to walk and enough that we want to go with them.

Or I wanted to go with them. I can't speak for you. Like I said, this isn't your normal story. It's more visual than narrative. It's more mystical than logical.

I'll say this about the characters: you get the sense that Delaware Thistle is the most worldly and the most forlorn of them. He's the smartest of the group. Rowbot is the most mysterious. He suggests the most about the world. His very existence hints that this is not some ancient story, but maybe something in the far off future. Not that I can imagine a future in which they'd put goldfish in the heads of their androids, but I'm not as wise as Joel Priddy, either.

Bull, though, is my favorite character. Perhaps because he reminds me of my best friend back home. He was a big guy I have known all my life who didn't say a lot and didn't take on any airs. When he did act like he knew what he was talking about, though, you usually realized that he did and if you listened you realized he had a pretty good handle on more than you'd think. Bull's like that. Priddy makes it a point to show us that Bull gets the workings of the world on both an analytical and a gut level. Bull doesn't go into a lot of detail and what he says takes a while.

Which is not a bad description of how the story in Pulpatoon Pilgrimage gets told.

If you want to believe that comics can be art, then check it out. If you just want to meditate for twenty minutes, try it for that, too. If you want to understand what it means when people say "still waters run deep," then that's another good reason to try it out.

Just don't complain to me because it's slow or meandering or doesn't make a very clear point or doesn't really seem to end neatly (especially when you still don't know why it began). I warned you, didn't I? I told you that's why I love it. So don't cry to me when you're more mystified at the ending than you were at the beginning? Because, I'll wager, that you have a pretty good idea of what it is that's mystified you. You probably weren't the least bit mystified when you started reading Pulpatoon Pilgrimage, but now you are. You wonder what the hell was going on? What happened? What's going to happen? Most of all how? Better yet: why?

And if you're thinking right, you realize that mystification isn't a problem. It's Priddy's gift to you to leave you mystified, wondering, flummoxed. It's better to have a nice set of questions in hand than it is to have answers, especially if the questions are good ones.

Pulpatoon Pilgrimage will leave you with good questions, and you'll need to read it twice or even three times to find them all (and answer a few). I hope you won't mind. Priddy's haunting muse and lovely, graceful, gentle lines will be glad to take you through the questions again and again.

Steve Kostecke: Seoul In Slices

2006-11-20T09:35:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Leopold McGinnis

Leopold and Steve are both members of the ULA. So?

Can be purchased in the zeen store at www.literaryervolution.com for $3.

Steve Kostestke lives in Japan. He is also the author of Auslanders Raus and Azian Kix. And he is the editor-and-chief of the ULA website and the ULA's communal zeen Slush Pile.

Seoul in Slices supplies a first person view into what it means to be an American in Seoul. Seoul in Slices doesn't give any grand tales of being
imprisioned in third world jails, feeding the starving, or trying to find his grandmother who died there fifty years ago. It's a zeen about guy who has some good, bad, and weird times in Seoul and thought the world might be interested in what he did and what happened to him there.

There are four sections in the zeen, I'll go through them one by one. In the first section called, Seoul in Slices, Kostecke gives small sketches of Seoul life. He shows the little things about Seoul that if you were just a tourist you would miss like describing what a Ppikki is, a runaway whose job it is to stand around the happening night spots and get you to come to a certain bar or dance club (where he'll get a commission).

Or, Motorbikes on the sidewalk. Revving and threading through the crowds. Getting on People's asses. The way that Koreans get out of the way. The way that they accept it. One time a motorbike gets on my ass. I'm with two friends. I say to them: One of these days I'm gonna hook one of these guys. The motorbike guy miraculously speaks English. Gets up along side me and says: You don't like it, get out of Korea!

Which I think shows to the reader that Kostecke isn't just some lame rich kid backpacker, but a real resident of Seoul. He has learned the city as a person living in it, not as a tourist passing through. Kostecke also gives anecdotes of his times with other foreign teachers living there which are really funny, British guy I know is gay. Speaks Korean. Knows Seoul in and out. Gets sex whenever and wherever he wants it. Gay culture plus a
sexually-curious-about-foreigners culture. When he gets drunk he gets obnoxious.

As we weave through the crowds he blurts out in English to passing boys: Would mind terribly if I sucked your dick? Does this for an entire stretch of road.

The next section is called, A Sketch of my Last Days in Seoul. In the section he tells stories about a woman named Lexa he went out with one night and who got completely drunk and got into fights, hit on twenty guys, and screamed Queen Mother at everybody. Then he told a story about how the places he was teaching at were trying to fuck him out of pay. Then he goes to a club with a friend named Jeff.

Then Kostecke did something really cool, here's the quote, Jeff heading over to a neighboring lounge which he had to two weeks before and now heroically to "save" one of the girls from her life of degradation. Note that he put quotations around save, that showed to me that Kostecke tried to emphasize the absurdity of that without making it a big deal, no rant was needed. Because with Kostecke either you are going to understand what he meant by that, and if you don't a rant won't make you understand it either. Either you been there, know, and understand. Or you're out of touch and aren't going to get it no matter what he says. I thought that was really cool.

The third section Kostecke titled Hyperfiction which he described as, A prose style in competition with tvs, vcrs, cable, the internet, computer games, surround sound cinemas, top-forty radio stations, and a whole lot more.

The Hyperfiction section is a collection of tiny stories written in very terse
short sentences. He achieved this by not adding any fluffy dumb shit to the lines. The story One Tiny Sec was used for The Underground versus Professionals experiment, and was enjoyed by everyone that read it. In the
story, Tits he talks about having an anorexic girlfriend he doesn't actually
like but stays with anyway and says this great line anyone can relate to, The summer ended as did everything else. Barbie kept accusing me of things that were true and I kept denying them.

The final section of Seoul in Slices has a review of Douglas Coupland's
Girlfriend in a Coma where he calls Coupland's book Primetime TV and
deconstructs the book to show that it is unworthy of the praise it has received by the media. Kostecke says about Coupland's prose at one point, It floats up into the air and becomes puffy little clouds that never rain. Kostecke Seoul in Slices is a great read if you enjoy travel literature that is more about a person living in a certain part of the world that grew up in a completely different culture and circumstances. And not just some person visiting a certain place and having wild obviously exaggerated adventures while there.

Ian Verchere: General Delivery V0N 1B0 Whistler B.C.

2006-11-11T20:30:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman

Victor has never met Ian, has never been skiing, and runs this blog.

Introduction by Douglas Coupland.

Published by Douglas & McIntyre (Vancouver/Toronto/Berkley): www.douglas-mcintyre.com. Available in the U.S. through Publishers Group West.

A review of a guidebook to Whistler, an expensive ski resort near Vancouver, on the Underground Literary Alliance review blog? Huh? Whazzat about?

Because it is an underground guidebook. An anti-guidebook. Because it is more interested in delving into how Whistler was turned by multinational corporations from a great place to ski into a Disneyesque theme park. Because it remembers how things were and analyzes why things changed. Because although it is a pretty book, it ain’t pretty—it is ugly—in the best way possible.

“General Delivery VON 1BO Whistler B.C.” was written by Ian Verchere. He lived near Whistler, skied there religiously, and ‘grew up’ to be, among other things, a video game designer. He does not write like nor appear to be an elitist. He just really liked to ski. That is perhaps too healthy a lifestyle for the ULA, but so be it.

His book superficially resembles a guidebook. It is handsomely produced, yes. The writing in each chapter is short and easy to read, yes. There are many photographs, yes. There is information about Whistler’s history, yes. The book is very attractive, and masquerades nicely as a coffee table book, yes yes yes.

BUT. There are no street maps. No lists of hotels. No recommendations about where to stay. No pandering. Instead, Verchere looks at his personal connection with the Whistler that was, and the Whistler that is...and you get the feeling it makes him want to puke.

To wit: about naming ski slopes: “As for Blackcomb, it supposedly looks like a rooster’s comb, except black. The mountain originally went with a logging theme for their run names: Catskinner, Springboard, skid Road, Undercut. They changed the name of the run Hooker, a legitimate logging term, for reasons of propriety. That doesn’t explain why you can still ski Climax, Cougar Milk, Zig Zag, Angel Dust and Spanky’s Chute. To get to these runs, you’ll run the Wizard, a lift allegedly named after the 1986 porno film The Wizard of Ahh’s.

“Nowadays, no chairlift, run or new development would be named without extensive focus tests, marketing meetings and a legal sign-off somewhere deep in the Whistler-Blackcomb boardrooms. And probably a quick check with the Internet Adult Movie Database wouldn’t hurt either.”

Or, look at how he writes of Whistlerization, which is “the sudden appearance of multi-million-dollar second homes, escalating real estate prices and prohibitive living costs… One sure way to recognize a place trying to come to terms with being Whistlerized is a prevalence of handcrafted, sandblasted signs. The thinking is, if you can’t keep big multinational franchises out, then at least make them blend in. The way to do this is to pass strict bylaws dictating how your average franchise corporation can announce its presence. As a bonus, this invigorates the handcrafted, sandblasted sign segment of the local economy. The fact is, Whistler itself faced up to its own Whistlerization long ago. It let in the Gap, KFC, Micky D’s and 7-Eleven (as long as their signs are sandblasted)…”

Or his listing of “Whistler Locals and Pioneers, Santa’s Reindeer and Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs; In No Particular Order”:
“Donner
Rabbit
Franz
Blitzer
Myrtle
Vogler
Cupid
Dopey”…and so on, down a whole page. Not to mention his including a comic book he wrote and drew about Whistler, including outer space aliens.

The book ends with a sad regret, the closure due to “a real estate developer and the relentless expansion of the Whistler Village footprint” of the Boot Pub, the “last remaining vestige of authentic local life… At the end of the day, no tourist or second homeowner in Whistler is going to miss the Boot. But its closure says something to a big chunk of Whistler locals: it’s a signal that what they want doesn’t matter. For me, it’s the end of a book, and a fitting coda to my younger years living in Whistler.”

Well, pal, have a last drink on us.

Richard Grayson: Highly Irregular Stories; And To Think that He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street and Other Stories

2006-11-07T14:28:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Jack Saunders

Jack Saunders has met Richard Grayson, and Richard has met Jack.

Highly Irregular Stories (2006) and And to Think That He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street and Other Stories (2006), by Richard Grayson. Dumbo Books of Brooklyn, 72 Conselyea St., Brooklyn, NY 11211-2211. dumbobooks@yahoo.com

And to Think That He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street and Other Stories is Richard Grayson’s 10th volume of fiction. Or metafiction. Or autobiography. Or stand-up comedy. Or short form narrative. He’s published two other books. What are they? Nonfiction? Reportage? I always think of Jonathan Winters saying he is in gar-bahj, when I hear re-por-tahj.

I believe you could call the writing avant-garde. It’s out ahead of the pack. The avant-garde is a tradition, like any other. Like commercial fiction, or literary fiction. It’s anti-commercial. Anti-literary. The literary is a set of conventions an iconoclast wants to bust up.

An iconoclast is aware of his place in the scheme of things. He knows the history of what he’s doing. He is aware, or self-aware, and self-awareness leads to irony.

Irony lends itself to short pieces. You don’t want to be long-winded. That’s for novels, a more expansive form, where you can stretch out. In one sense, you could say the avant-garde leads the way. In another, profounder sense, you could say it doesn’t go anywhere, it just is. It is what it is. Take it or leave it. As it is. This makes reviewing a collection of short pieces either very easy or very hard.

What is the author trying to do, and is he succeeding, on his own terms? Larry wrote the other day that he found himself at looking at books in a rummage sale, and found he was reading them to see what bias they had; not to see what the book was about or to read for enjoyment or to get taken up by it.

What happens when we approach books like that? How do we not approach books like that?

Do collections of stories become something in the aggregate they were not, separately, as lone stories, in magazines that pay in copies and go belly up, or self-published chapbooks, issued in editions of hundreds of copies? Are they clever, amusing, cute? Do they hold up? Do we see a design to the works, over time? A pattern? Is a collection of them more impressive, more authentic, does it have a gravitas scattered fragments cannot demonstrate? Are we impressed? Are we surprised? Did we disremember? Do we see things we didn’t see the first time through?

You can buy the books from lulu.com for $12.95 or $16.95. Highly Irregular Stories is a collection of four chapbooks, which are out of print, and rare. A copy of Eating at Arby’s was recently listed online at $350. It’s good to see the stuff back in print. The stories in And to Think That He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street haven’t been collected before. It’s nice to see them in one spot.

What is One Life in the Short Form Narrative Business like? We get a good feel for it, in these two collections, which span three decades.

What is America like? It’s like Richard Grayson says it is, it’s how Richard Grayson sees it. He’s a Jew from Brooklyn, I’m a cracker from Delray Beach. We have different accents, different life-experiences, different expectations, about life. I’m older than he is, and was in the Air Force for eight years. I boxed. I went ten rounds with Bukowski. I fought the Creature from the Black Lagoon underwater, at Wakulla Springs.
Now I just sit around and watch my boot turn blue, from mildew.

But his America rings true, to me, a deep and eclectic literary sensibility in a pop-culture milieu of glitz and flash, the shallow and the hyped, pinball-machine moths, attracted to the light, the noise, the buzz. Love-bugs, smashed on the windscreen. In the throes of their mating ritual. Up around Gainesville on a two-lane blacktop. Harry Crews afraid to leave his writing studio because he might miss something. And Harry Crews ain’t afraid of death or taxes.

A reader said he kept my books on the back of the crapper, and he started every day with a good old country shit and a belly laugh.

That’s a good thing to do with Richard Grayson’s books. Keep them on the back of the crapper and read them every day. They will make you laugh. The stories are short enough you can read one at a sitting.

My theory is that we are attracted to a writer’s voice, and every time we find a writer we like, we buy everything by him or about him we can find, regardless of genre. If he’s any good, he has invented his own genre, conflated one or more genres into a form of his own, which we recognize, because of his distinctive voice.

Bud Powell had small hands. Mary Lou Williams had hands that looked like $10 worth of spareribs in 1937. They’re not going to sound the same. Why should they? If the short pieces have a unity of form, a consistency of vision, a continuity of effort, a tone, an outlook, when do they begin to be less self-contained short pieces and constituent parts of a longer work composed of short pieces, if they do? If they do, was it an accident?

Public taste is fickle. A writing career is a tradeoff and a crapshoot. You can make a fortune writing but not a living. Not even the living you’d make at more mundane tasks. You have to have a sense of humor about it.

A sense of black humor, like the old comics Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Shelley Berman. The writers Woody Allen, Richard Brautigan, and Terry Southern. Would you choose writing for a career? You don’t choose it, it chooses you. What if you choose it and it doesn’t choose you?

Can you be funny about that? For 30 years? It’s not as easy as Richard Grayson makes it look.

The stories in the second book are newer and darker than the stories in the first book. Branch libraries are closed, movie houses shut down, neighborhoods gentrified, people moved away, friends died, what was not there, then was new, and ugly, is now shabby, with people hanging on, because they have no choice. There are constants. The stock market rises and falls, real estate goes up, people have careers, careers have an arc, not all careers have the same arc.

Richard Grayson once observed to me that writers advise you to do what they did. If they teach writing, they advise you to teach writing. If they are some other kind of professional, they advise you to be some other kind of professional. He was a lawyer. Journalists advise people to write for newspapers or magazines. Or television. I was a paraprofessional. A technical writer. Not an engineer or a programmer. On a par with a draftsman or a logistician (supply specialist). A white collar job, but not a full-fledged profession.

What is true is you need a job that pays enough so you can live comfortably, and are not so tired by your work that you are too tired to write, after work. And that can mean too tired emotionally. Then you just do your job and write before and after work. Or during work.

Maybe you’ll have a year off now and then, when you win a grant, inherit some money, or, in my case, once, are able to draw 49 weeks of separation pay, unemployment, and extended unemployment benefits, plus social security, or, another time, cash in the retirement you rolled over into an annuity when your last corporate employer laid you off and live on that for a year. Or mortgage the house you inherited when your grandfather died and run up the balance on a line-of-credit home-equity loan.

I’m always curious about how a writer supported himself when he wrote the books, and think that should go in the books. I think a reader has a right to know that.

Did he kiss a Stalinist’s ass in Macy’s window?

I enjoyed reading these books and I think you will too. I think they’re worth going to some trouble to find out about and buy. And tell your friends about.

And tell the author about them, if you liked them.

Upton Sinclair: The Jungle

2006-11-01T23:58:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Leopold McGinnis

Penguin Classic Re-issue, U.S. $14, CDN $20, 388 pages

Leopold has never met Upton Sinclair, but that's because Upton died before Leopold was born. Otherwise they certainly would have met, as they share similar world views.

Leopold McGinnis is a great Canadian writer. His novel, "Game Quest", is a very funny, very deeply felt tale of corporate morality v. individual ideals. It is set at the time when computer gaming companies were in transition from games which wanted you to think to games which wanted you to shoot things (the switch from Sierra games involving puzzles to be solved, to first person shooters like Doom). I know of no other novel about that part of modern life's history. Aren't you curious?

To see more of Leopold's work, please consider checking out www.redfez.net. This is an excellent literary site which Leopold runs. It features some wonderful poetry, prose, and even, in its archives, two chapters of my own graphic novel! (Yes, I've met Leopold, and he is a friend--what's it to ya?) On the site you can also order Game Quest, which you should.

It's hard to review a book of such immense scope, ambition and craft. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is arguably one of the best American books of the 20th century (not so difficult a distinction to achieve, it would seem, considering the dearth of quality fiction in the latter half of said century), it's also, sadly, one of the most forgotten.

Written like fiction, Sinclair's book ostensibly follows the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian who, with several members of his family, come to Chicago on the tail of the American Dream and find themselves working in the nightmare of the Slaughterhouse district. But in effect The Jungle is an epic look at the obscene cost of unfettered capitalism run rampant in the early 20th century. Sinclair's book is a muckraking expose of the institutionalized inequality, corruption, privilege, sickness and slavery needed to keep the machine running that runs beneath he thin veneer of the American dream of freedom and success. A fascinating and incredibly thorough indictment of the out-of-control capitalist structure at the turn of the century The Jungle, sadly, rings true in a number of areas today.

Jurgis starts off firmly believing in the American dream, even while working in slave-like conditions for the meat packers, brushing off the arguments of broken men and unionists that the machine will eventually crush him as the bitter ramblings of lazy and weak men It's this stubborn arrogance that carries Jurgis through the unceasing volley of injustices that make up the entirety of the book. The Rudkus', due to their innocence and desperation, get swindled into 'buying' a 'new' house where they pay an exorbitant amount every month, but never own the house until it is all paid off. If they miss one payment the house, and all their payments go back to the landowner, who repaints the house and sells it as 'new' to the next batch of immigrants. The threat of losing their house becomes the greatest chain their carry and in service of it every member of their extended family, including the grandparents and children, works to survive.

It's a losing battle, of course, and work in the packinghouses brings poverty, disease, death, injury, injustice, rape, jail and exploitation to the Rudkus family. With no other options and a thousand men clamoring at the gate for their job, the Rudkus family works endless hours in mind-numbing, incredibly dangerous work. Here Jurgis gets first hand experience of the inevitable 'short-cuts' that arise from profit-driven enterprises. In the drive for even a half-penny of profit spoiled meat is bribed past inspectors, men are crushed and killed, waste is driven wholesale into public drinking water and, like the meat the process, every ounce of worth in a human being is taken before being discarded in favor of fresh meat. Early on Jurgis is impressed with the way in which the packers have set up their enterprise to squeeze every possible amount of wealth possible from a pig. Jurgis also is glad that he is not a pig – only to realize at the end that he and all the working men were treated as cruelly and as senselessly as the animals, driven to the point of death to churn out meat faster and faster and then discarded.

Work in the Slaughterhouse district covers most of the book and the novel is currently being sold as an expose of the meat packing industry. This is a simplification and probably stems from, in the current timid literary circles, a fear to mention the dreaded word 'socialism' or believe that the entire system may be corrupt, rather than just where the wound festers most. The second half of the book follows Jurgis after he escapes from the Slaughterhouse, a shell of the man he once was, his family, wife and son dead in service to the Packer's profits. The book is quite uplifting when he finally leaves to hobo it across the country on trains. The first day he spends in the woods, washing in a lake and sleeping in the sun is probably one of the most uplifting scenes in the book and an unforgettable illustration of how it is better to be a homeless vagrant than in service of the Trusts. Jurgis, for a while, is free. But the nature of seasonal farm work, leaving him without a home in the winter, eventually drives him back to the city.

Jurgis scrapes by at first by begging on the streets. Eventually he finds himself working on a massive secret underground railway being built by the Packers Trust to break the Teamsters union! But an accident at work puts him back on the street. Starving to death, Jurgis finds himself in Jail. By this point Jurgis has adopted an attitude much more likely to achieve the American Dream: looking out only for himself. Jurgis becomes involved in crime, eventually moving up into the very corrupt political and Trust circles that run the wage-prisons of the slaughterhouse district. He helps fix an election, crush a strike and generally be on the operating end of all the corruption and sleaze he once suffered under. But like everything else, once his purpose has been served, he's back on the streets again.

Perhaps the biggest weaknesses of this novel are the opening and ending. The first chapter is an overly long description of a wedding ceremony. Although it serves to introduce a lot of the characters and their hopes and desires, it's too much at once with little reason for the reader to care or understand the significance of this event at the time. The book could have easily started at chapter 2. The book ends with Jurgis finally understanding the corrupt system in all its parts (indeed, we do too as through Jurgis Sinclair has hit upon every nail and exposed every interlinking thread of corruption) and becomes involved in the growing socialist movement to overthrow the corrupt two parties of the two-party political system and begin with a system that is actually fair. This end of the book, though I mostly agree with it, is a bit preachy and, with 100 years of foresight, perhaps a bit naively optimistic. The book also ends somewhat abruptly. It's a thematic book, to be sure, and so it's ok to end with the theme rather than the end of Jurgis' story, but Sinclair does such a fantastic job of getting us into the story of Jurgis, it's hard to see him dropped at the end for the point to be made.

But these are slight weaknesses in an otherwise amazing book. The Jungle is the type of novel no longer made. The book has teeth and a point to prove, right from the onset. It seems that it is now taboo for analysis or criticism of society to come from works of fiction. If anything The Jungle is the perfect example of a fictional story illustrating a point much more clearly than non-fiction could hope to. The novel isn't didactic or polemic anymore than a documentary is and the reader is smart enough to understand that this is both a work of fiction and an incredibly insightful and truthful expose of the devastating pitfalls of unfettered capitalism. Sometimes studying was is possible provides more insight than what is.

Sadly, due to a lot of interlocking commercial and class interests in the literary industry similar to those documented by Mr. Sinclair, books like this are unlikely to be found in the mainstream circles anymore. Though the problems outlined in The Jungle have been lessened in the century since its publication, there is still work to do. Authors of this day have many equally important things to write about and we too can hope to make continued change through our writing and activism. To tweak the phrase that closes Mr. Sinclair's book, “We shall bear down the opposition, we shall sweep it before us – and [literature] will be ours! [Literature] will be ours! [LITERATURE] WILL BE OURS!

The Jungle is a fantastic book for anyone interested in social criticism, or just a good read. Certainly it will be inspiring to writers who hope to achieve something by their writing.

The Jungle does what far too few (if any) books these do these days.

Christopher Robin: Freaky Mumbler's Manifesto

2006-10-30T22:45:00.000-06:00

I Hate Microsoft Word But I Love Christopher Robin

Reviewed by Misti Rainwater-Lites

Misti acknowledges that she knows Christopher! You got a problem with that?

I. Hate. Microsoft Word. I have published several of my books at lulu.com and each time the process has made me tear my hair out strand by strand. Santa Claus, bring this bitch a Mac for xmas!!! Just to illustrate how strongly I believe in Christopher Robin's poetry, I spent two days cleaning up the manuscript he e-mailed me and braving the wilds of Microsoft Word to put Freaky Mumbler's Manifesto together in the best possible way. I own the original edition of Freaky Mumbler's Manifesto which Christopher compares to a coloring book due to the size. The freakishly large size does not detract from the pleasure I experienced reading Christopher's poems. Christopher Robin is a true survivor. His poems were not written in an ivory tower but on the road, in a Section 8 apartment, at the carnival, in the depths of hell. You will not find a poetry book of this caliber at Borders or Barnes & Noble. If we lived in a more progressive society, a society that did not reward mindless mediocrity and overt sexuality with nothing behind it (hello, Britney/Christina/Fergie/Beyonce/et al!!!), Christopher Robin would be a billionaire. Bill Gates should not be a billionaire, by the way, because MICROSOFT WORD SUCKS!!! Buy Freaky Mumbler's Manifesto and become acquainted with a man who is famous but not rich, a man who knows how to heckle the hecklers right back, a man who embodies my favorite word, eBuLLieNCe. Christopher Robin is an ebullient son of a gun and I'm very glad to know him.

Joseph Parisi: 100 Essential Poems

2006-10-29T11:41:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: G. Tod Slone

Tod does not, to my knowledge, know Joseph. Nor, is my guess, does he want to.

100 Essential Poems. Selected and Introduced by Joseph Parisi.

Ivan R. Dee, Publisher. 2005. 305 pp. Hard cover. $24.95 US/$31.95 CAN ISBN: 1-56663-612-4. Ivan R. Dee, 1332 North Halsted St., Chicago, IL 60622, www.ivanrdee.com

“the work is secure in the canon.”
—Parisi (about his book)

This review is dedicated to all the college students in English classes nodding out during mandatory readings of anthology poems. This reviewer can relate to you. Indeed, the poems by Yeats, which begin the anthology, put me in an immediate state of nutation (i.e., nodding off—one of Alexander Pope’s words of predilection RE the poets of his time). As a professor, this reviewer always requests English students to define terms when they use them. Parisi's definition of "essential [and ‘greatest’] poems" is not up front but rather scattered in the obit/bios throughout the volume. Mostly it is the poet, not the poem, contrary to the title of this anthology, who lends definition to the term. Prize-winning, knowing the right people, coming from a wealthy background, and attending “prestigious” universities tend to characterize the poets. No doubt, Parisi has fallen for name-brand bards, as opposed to great poems. Not far into this anthology, one will notice, that is, a keen somewhat independent observer will notice, just how utterly pretentious the title is, even though backed by the most famous names in poetry.

The following, written by Dorothy Parker, according to this anthology, is one of the “greatest poems of the 20th century” (words written on the front cover of the book) and, sadly, there are a number of others like it in this volume:

Resume
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Sure, it’s cute, but how can it possibly be “essential”? How can “the most popular comic poet in the United States [in his time],” Ogden Nash, be essential with his “genial nonsense” (the words in quotes are Parisi’s)? And what about Auden’s “fun to read” “Wise about Mores and Witty on Manners; ” Stevie Smith’s “slight, humorous, whimsical “ “Nursery-Rhyme formulas”; and “Manners” by Bishop, “one of the most esteemed of twentieth-century poets”?

Why are the poems in this anthology “essential”? Are they essential for highbrow entertainment? The term witty is used over and over to the extent that one might conclude that highbrow wit is indeed the principle determinant of great canon poems… as if such resulted from mere intellectual games. Certainly the poems in this volume are essential for understanding the canon and for anyone wishing to strive to be accepted by the canon. But who has dictated them to be essential? Well, in this case, one bourgeois, poet, Joseph Parisi, former editor of Poetry magazine, amongst other things. In this volume, the names, almost each and every one of them, are recognizable, but why do we recognize them? Perhaps most poets today lack the ability or inclination to even ask these essential questions. Never are we encouraged to question and challenge the canon, in this case, as dictated by Parisi.

Why are Sandburg’s “Chicago”, Stevens’ “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” Robinson’s “Minerver Cheevy,” or any number of other similar poems in this volume essential? Many of the poems seem to manifest an absence of passion. If indeed they are representative of the greatest, then clearly the past century was not at all a good one for poetry. To establish a great literature, we need more convincing criteria than Pulitzer Prize, Guggenheim, published in Poetry Magazine, and “wide popular acclaim” (the publisher’s jacket blurb). So many honors and accolades are listed in the obit/bios, yet so few courageous, risk-taking, activist poets are amongst the recipients! This does not speak highly for poets of the canon, which might explain why so many poets endeavor to spread the romantic myth of the poet. It is thus interesting to examine the diverse accolades, then to compare that with the naked product, the poems. Sadly, too often in this anthology do the latter fall short of the former. Bishop is perhaps the best example.

What saddens this reviewer is that our university students are fed canon, rather than encouraged to question and challenge it. Yet doing the latter would make it stronger and more credible in the long run. Rare are the students and professors who do question the Pulitzer, for example, and ask who the judges are and how they’re appointed. Rather than literary-prize recipient, what is needed as criteria is passion and fire in the poet… and the poem. Far too many of these poems seem as dead as our “great” living poets on the university lecture circuit and on the dole of grants, Guggenheims, and MacArthurs.

“The selection is properly catholic, a fine representation of Mr. Parisi’s sophisticated poetic taste, and, poets and readers of poetry being highly contentious, also controversial,” notes blurber Joseph Epstein on the back cover. Yet almost all of the poems in this volume are inoffensive, do not make waves, do not go against the grain, and unlikely to shock anybody at all. Parisi describes the pre-Pound/Eliot poesy scene as “sentimentality, lofty but hazy notions, archaic diction and tired formulas.” Yet many of these poems might equally be placed in that very category. If you refuse to concur, then why not observe the state of nutation in an average college classroom as students attempt to read the poems? I’m sure some of those students, not yet fully indoctrinated by their comfortable English professors, might actually be dreaming of pushing Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow” right over the cliff where it probably belongs. Williams himself had once declared, “to tell the truth, I myself never quite feel that I know what I am talking about—if I did, and when I do, the thing written seems nothing to me.”

“Above all I am not concerned with Poetry,” wrote Wilfred Owen. “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do to-day is warn. That is why the true poets must be truthful.” Perhaps this is the crux of the problem with poetry this century. Too many poets have been fixated on Poetry per se… not on truth. Interestingly, none of the poems in this anthology criticize the oligarchy and literary establishment.

Can “Recuerdo” actually be the best poem written by Vincent-Millay? How can it possibly be considered one of “the greatest poems in English over the past century, memorable masterpiece” (quote taken from the front cover of this volume)? The same goes for “Helen” (Hilda Doolittle) and “The Fish” (Marianne Moore). As a literary editor, this reviewer would have rejected most of the poems in this anthology. If this book had been titled “Favorite Poems of an Establishment Poet,” I would have had no problem with it at all.

So, what are “superior poems”? You’ll know them when you read them or the mandarins of poesy will tell you which ones? No definition is attempted, except canon-accepted. Do “exceptional technical skill and tonal range” (RE Louis MacNeice) necessarily produce great poems? Does “extremely erudite” (RE Berryman) make great ones? “The Dream Song” is hardly convincing. Many if not most of the poems in this volume do not weather time well and should thus serve more as historical examples, rather than greatest poems. Parisi informs that Roethke, for example, has “secured his reputation among literary historians.”

Stafford is “said to have written a poem a day,” but so what? Does that give “How to Regain Your Soul” greatest poem status? If so, perhaps Parisi should have chosen a poem by Lyn Lifshin, who must write at least 10 per day. Many of the poems in this collection are fancy... and deadly boring. You'd have to pay this reviewer to read through to the end of some of them, though inevitably I did check the endings of almost all of them to see what the "punch lines" might be. Do they use that term in poesy? Many, if not most, of these poems are written by professors, who seemed to have fed passively from the hand feeding them, rather than to have observed that hand with a critical eye. Perhaps more polemics and less "beautifully realized poems" would shake things up and make poesy matter a little more. But often polemics takes guts and nerve, sacrifice of literary prizes, teaching opportunities, grants, and reading invitations. Even Ginsberg, chief of the Beatnik poets, who figures in this collection, came off as a pitiful wannabee of canon. He was not the counter culture at all—that was his masque. No wonder he became a "fixture on college syllabi.” Canon fed him and he chewed and shut his mouth (and eyes) and got a job at Brooklyn College as Distinguished Professor. Carl Soloman convinced him (the words are Parisi’s) "of the poet's political role as outsider, prophet and social critic." But how does an outsider get inside the canon? He does not, unless he sells out. Perhaps Ginsberg would have been more honest if he'd written "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by desire for fame and canonic approval..." On the surface, Ginsberg comes off as a token outsider in this collection, but only on the surface thanks to his extensive image marketing. Parisi oddly fails to mention in the bio that Ginsberg was a proud proponent of sex with male children, not teenagers, but children. Why the omission? The Beatnik myth is perhaps a billion-dollar industry in the USA. Myth of course implies burying truths and contradictions. Canon itself is a myth. What to say about “Howl” today? Some of it is of interest but most of it is tedious and verbose and somewhat unintelligible.

One has to wonder just how much Parisi likes “We Real Cool” (Gwendolyn Brooks). Most likely he threw it in for political rectitude’s sake… as he did for Ginsberg. In fact, one has to wonder if he is really suited as a judge, bending here, there—but what does he really think? Maybe he doesn’t even know any more. Frank O’Hara’s two poems remind of Charles Bukowski’s style. So, why was the latter omitted… because O’Hara “was the life of the party”? Well, wasn’t Bukowski also “the life of the party” and didn’t he receive a Guggenheim, whereas O’Hara did not?

Why did Poetry Chancellor Philip Levine, also selected for this anthology, who wrote about the spiritual costs of the toil of working class people, never write about the spiritual costs of rampant intellectual corruption in academe and the literary scene, something he must surely have been even more knowledgeable about since that was where he spent most of his life? Finally, Parisi seems to have made safe, as opposed to wise, choices. Establishment poets get so used to making safe ones that they probably confuse them with wise ones. Why is Eliot’s “Wasteland” not included? Parisi notes how it shook everyone up and, more or less, began modernism. Why is it not essential? Copyright problems? Too long? Where are the poems of our great Poet Laureates of the U.S. Library of Congress, Pinsky, Gluck, Hass, Kooser et al? And what about the other “great” Beatnik poets, Waldman, McClure, Ferlinghetti, Corso et al? A blind panel might be a solution to poor choice, unless of course all the blind panelists turn out to be canon indoctrinates.

A few powerful poems are included in this anthology, but only a few, including Anne Sexton’s “Wanting to Die” and, of course, Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est.” Many libraries already possess similar volumes. So, why purchase yet another one? This reviewer does not recommend this book.

G. Tod Slone, Editor
www.theamericandissident.org

Robert Crumb/David Mairowitz: R. Crumb's Kafka

2006-10-26T19:31:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Tom Hendricks, Musea Review Service

Tom Hendricks is a ULA member. He has probably never met Robert Crumb, but might want to. I'd like to meet Robert Crumb.

What is it? : Franz Kafka's biography with text by David Mairowitz, and illustrations by celebrated underground comic artist Robert Crumb.

Technical Quality: High. Book is a well made, 175 page, trade paperback. Note the somewhat chilling cover with an orange Prague cityscape drawing , with a green insert of Kafka writing.

Innovative Quality: High. The book uses the graphic novel approach to tell the life story of the troubled but brilliant Franz Kafka. Crumb illustrates the main biographical events and portions from some of Kafka's most celebrated works.

Review: Three parts come together to make this a memorable and notable read: Franz Kafka's life and works, Robert Crumb's illustrations on every page, and an informative biographical text by David Zane Mairowitz.

Mairowitz writes: "Before ever becoming the ADJECTIVE (Kafkaesque) Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a Jew from Prague, born into its inescapable tradition of story-tellers and fantasists, ghetto-dwellers and eternal refugees. His Prague, "a little mother' with 'claws' was a place that suffocated him, but where he nonetheless chose to live all but the last eight months of his life."

That well sums up a lot of the main threads of Kafka's life too. He was a Jew in a country that more and more hated and persecuted the Jews. He had an oppressive and abusive father that, like Prague, he could never escape. He had troubled relationships with all the women he was attracted to, and he never got the respect for his writing in his life time that he deserved.

The book goes into detail on all these issues and lets us see his world - a depressing world where it seems his only escape was his writing. And what writing he did. Throughout the book are illustrated excerpts of major Kafka works including: an early story 'The Judgement', the famous "Metamorphosis' where Gregor Samsa turns into an enormous bug; "The Burrow" an animal fable; "In the Penal Colony" with the new killing machine invention; his best known work, the novel, "The Trial" where 'K' is arrested - but for what?; "The Castle" the 2nd of 3 novels; "A Hunger Artist" who is a sideshow freak for his ability to starve himself, and "Amerika" his last unfinished novel.

At the age of 39 he retired from his insurance job (one that by improving safety standards actually saved many lives) due to tuberculosis. Kafka instructed his friend Max Brod, to destroy almost all his works upon his death. Fortunately for us, Brod did not carry that wish out.

The bio is fascinating, and the excerpts cover some of the best of Kafka's work. Now add to that the superb black and white illustrations of Crumb and we get a very great book indeed.

Crumb, known for his underground comics, has taken that style of art to high art here. His drawing style is the technical equal of any illustrator. Yet beyond that he has a gift for characterization , an eye for detail, and the ability to illustrate any scene. Had the bio and excerpts been any less compelling, the illustrations would have still been notable. Each page was filled with drawings and many of them are minor masterpieces on their own. An example are the illustrations on page 64 and 65. Kafka wrote many letters to Felice Bauer one of 4 women that he had important
relationships with. On the left side we see the couple up to their chests in pages of letters. On the right side of the page, we see Kafka writing at his desk in the bottom right corner with letter after letter stacked through the air, all the way up to the upper left corner.

Wisely Mairowitz, who wrote the text, does not try to embellish his work, instead his comments are sparse and to the point , thus better allowing Kafka the classic writer, and Crumb a world class gifted illustrator, to shine.

High marks all around in this new classic .

Contact Info:
www.ibooks.net

(Blogperson's note: I was not able to locate this book on ibooks, but perhaps you will have more luck, as you are smarter, cuter and have better breath. It may be available through your local bookstore as it was reprinted in 2005 (my local store seems to have found a distributor--maybe), and it also appears available online at Amazon. So you may have trouble locating this book, but that is no reason not to try. Don't be lazy when literature is involved!! And support your local bookstore if possible!)

Aaron Cometbus: Cometbus #50

2006-10-21T21:23:00.000-06:00

Review by: King Wenclas

King is a key member of the ULA. I don't think he has ever met Aaron Cometbus because otherwise he probably would use Aaron's real name.

Aaron Cometbus is the most mythical writer in the literary underground; probably in all of contemporary American literature.

90% of all zine writers over the last fifteen years wish they were Aaron Cometbus. Rick Moody, Dave Eggers, and other establishment writers who pretend to be hip wish they were Aaron Cometbus. Cometbus does it without trying, makes it look easy. As the knowing been-around punk writer he's the prototype.

Issue #50 of his mythical zine Cometbus is one of his best. Much of it consists of interviews with punk musicians, or printed fan letters. Also two strong prose works by Maddalena Polletta. The writings by Aaron are powerful and truthful. No tricks. No creative writing gimmicks. Simple writing which is observant; very much of the world; and human. This is shown in his "New York Journal" at the heart of the issue: seven short tales which convey the diverse feel, smell, and voice of the great city better than other writers do in entire novels. To read this is to know the excitement of discovering authentic literature.

Cometbus is the most imitated zine of all time for a reason. My only question is whether it's for real. Paranoia suggests it's secretly produced by a gigantic corporation, rather than by one guy with the help of a few friends. I suggest this because it outdoes the corporations. Technical questions run through my head. What kind of pen or marker does he use for the handwritten parts? Are they really handwritten? They look too neat, too perfect. Maybe they're done by a computer program.

Cometbus costs two dollars. Two dollars! It's a better read than most $25 books. No address listed. Two dollars if you can find a copy.

[ULA Blogperson's note: the easiest way to find Cometbus is online, at Last Gasp Distributing. The web address is www.lastgasp.com. Check out the site. That site not only has Cometbus #50, it not only has other issues of Cometbus (including an anthology), it also has a lot of other great writing!! If you like underground literature, you will find plenty to love on that site. And, I have now received Cometbus #50: wow! Buy it!]

Misti Rainwater-Lites: Ebullient Vomit

2006-10-21T21:03:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Christopher Robin

Christopher, a ULA member, knows Misti. Misti knows Christopher. They have reviewed each other's books on this site. You got a problem with that? The review is honest.

Misti Rainwater-Lites' poems are deliciously entertaining with stark raving mad, no nonsense honesty that will chill you in your bones; explicit poems that will make you laugh out loud even while reading them on a public bus. They may even turn you on. She has had a fascinating life, struggled with remorse, poverty, depression, and yet still bears a spirited ambition (Ebullience!) to put her whole being, the good and the bad, into her poems.

One thing I look for in a poet is the ability to laugh at one’s self, no matter what the situation. Misti does this. She’s not afraid to be wrong, vulnerable, ugly or sexual, often all at once. Her humorous tirades are directed at skinny women, the rich and the vacant, to name just a few.

“America You Can” should be written on a billboard: The first line of this poem: “America you can lick my pretty pink none too placid pussy until she purrs” is original, sexy (obviously) and political. And it goes on: “tell me that my man doesn’t have to break his back to take me and our children on vacation once a year/tell me that I don’t have to be sweet and pretty and docile like Laura Bush/to have some peace/tell me that I don’t have to run stark raving mad through Wal-Mart showing my thick black bush to zombies/shopping for cheap clothes and bad produce/to prove a fucking point.”

I have never read a poem that mixes politics and fellatio so dramatically. Shane Allison and Joe Pachinko are two poets that come to mind. Her style is as fluid and trashy, and as righteous, as theirs. She is engaged and on fire. Misti seems to have no lack of material at her disposal: from growing up in a small town in Texas, to pop culture, old boyfriends, road trips and bad love.

She holds my attention in a longer poem: ‘I Have a Daughter, Yesterday She Turned Nine,” and her short poems are great as well: in ‘Groupie’ she is unapologetic, plays it easy and cheap, a poem about hanging out by a pool with a drummer in Austin and ends with: “unbelievably wet/and not at all in love.”

Honest and powerfully simple. I happen to be one of the few people I know that has got to hear her read these poems out loud, with a Texas accent and wearing a school girl uniform. That, my friends is how poetry should be served. This is punk, it’s rock and roll, and it’ll make you laugh. As far as I’m concerned, she’s right up there with Jennifer Blowdryer, Joie Cook, Patti Smith, Wendy O’Matik and Chrissy Hynde, so stand back and watch the spitwads fly!

(ULA Blogperson's note: Ebullient Vomit is available through Lulu. Check it out. Buy it. Support the underground!)

Jack Saunders: Bukowski Never Did This

2006-10-19T21:59:00.000-06:00

Review by Tom Hendricks, Musea Review Service

Tom and Jack are both members of the ULA. They may never have met. Tom is proud of his reviews being very honest.

What is it? Three short novels in one by Jack Saunders. Technical Quality: The technical quality of the writer is very good. His writing style is smooth and well honed. He has written over 250 books, about one a
month, and it shows. Technical quality of the book itself is similar to any published trade paperback. Innovative Quality: The writing gets high marks for innovation.

He mixes everything into the work: rants, Q. and A. self interviews, novel synopses, diary entries, poems, even liner notes for a CD.

"Reading one of my books is like surfing the Internet, or reading several library books - and magazines and newspapers - at the same time."... "I write in a variety of genres. Poetry, fiction, drama, memoir, self-interviews, replies to rejection slips, letters to a friend. Sometimes in a single book."

Throughout the work he switches back and forth between a novel with the main character , Brew, a struggling unpublished, prolific writer; and entries from a diary by Brew. He even says IN the novel what it's about - a sort of Catch-22 review/synopsis of the novel within the novel!

"Bukowski never wrote 250 books without selling a word to New York or Hollywood. He also didn't "create a body of work, his stack, and invent a form to present it in, daily typewriting." Nor did he publish his books, himself in real time, daily , and respond to reader comment, in the work, so that his books were not only written, and published in real time, they were interactive, and responded to reader comment after he had had time to think about the matter. The book shows how Art Brew combines writing,
work and family. And fights the nomenklatura, the Retread Mafia the old ennui, out on a quiet spree. The book is divided into alternating sections, Diary, and Novel. The novel is an underground writer procedural novel and the diary is the diary of writing an underground writer procedural novel. And working etc."

The book cover is not as accomplished. It seems disjointed and looks too busy with the sensory overload you see on most website main pages.

Review: FIRST A DISCLAIMER. This reviewer, is a member of the ULA the Underground Literary Alliance, a writers group. Both author Jack Saunders, and publisher Lit Vision Press are members of the ULA. IF you think this is a conflict of interest - stop reading this review now. If not ...

This novel is written in a very free form that oscillates between a writers diary/notes and a novel about his life. The story is straightforward enough. Art Brew has got writing in his blood. All he wants to do is write his novels or talk about them. He writes one each month, sometimes every two weeks. But he can't get published and to support himself and his working wife Brenda, he must take jobs as a technical writer, usually with all the red tape associated with government work. His jobs are always temporary
so he seems to be out of work as much as in. And though he can't get published, (though in reality he is here - another Catch-22) he continues to write prolifically.

And what does he write about? "Stories about the writing life," such as writing, his novels, synposes of them, writers he likes, the Buzzard Cult
- a group of followers of his writing, his query letters to publishers, quotes from other writers, etc. There is some events outside of writing but they're not in the majority. He struggles with low finances at home, his long suffering wife supports him, they both love a band called Dread Clampitt, he sometimes drinks too much, they visit relatives, enjoy good food, and they move more than once to find work.

Here is a sample of his writing on writing:

"Brew's book took him over He was writing what turned out to be a series of related books, about being an underground writer, an underground writer on the worldwide web, a man using the worldwide web to write the
Great American Novel, online, daily, something new under the sun. This idea excited him so much he thought the book would be commercial. He thought the book would sell to a New York editor or agent, and rescue him from his dead-end job. In the nick of time. Here's a catalogue raisonne of what he had written so far..."

And here's a sample of his writing not on writing: "Shakespeare never blotted a line./ Same with Mozart. The music just flowed,? Like he was taking dictation. The paintings van Gogh did/ at the end of his life look sloppy, until you examine them/ closely with a painter's eye. A mistake is existential. Use it./ Ask a Zen master."

Overall it's a rich book that book lovers will enjoy. What you won't find is much emotional depth, characterization, or plot. What you will find is a seasoned writer full of bits of info, sparks of ideas, and totally committed to his writing, even in his writing!

Some more quotes that I enjoyed.

"That's what my book is about. Producing a body of work and inventing a genre to present it in. For a world that's hostile or indifferent to it."

"What happens if I (1) lose my job, and (2) don't sell my book? I write a book about that. I look for another job."

Contact Info:
Pat Simonelli
c/o LitVision Press
7711 Greenback Lane #156
Citrus Heights CA 95610
editor@litvision.org
www.litvision.org

Leopold McGinnis: The Red Fez

2006-10-19T21:48:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by Tom Hendricks, Musea Review Service

Tom and Leopold are both ULA members. Tom prides himself on his reviews being very honest. Leopold is honest, but he has not written this review, so what difference does it make?

What is it? Novella by Leopold McGinnis. 76 pages. Technical Quality: Very high. Attractive looking book has color cover of Red Fez and a Grapefruit (a plot point) in front of a map of Algiers and seen through an Arabic styled arch. There's easy to read type, 9 black and white illustrations and an easy to handle size that is slightly wider than a paperback. Innovative Quality: Nothing here that hasn't been done by others.

Review: Taut, lively story of a stolen antiquity, caught me at the opening and kept me reading to the end. The story opens with red fez wearing Habibi buying extra mustache wax, a sure sign that something big is up.

The author says that his story "is heavily film noir inspired. And it does have that "Casablance" film classic, feel to it. The place is 1936 Algiers, the locals hate the colonial French, and everyone is hungry to make a deal.

The characters are distinctive and crisply drawn. Besides Habibi, there's the police chief Pierre Rensard, cafe proprietor Savid, the evil British gun trader Sylvia Longshot and her hunchback henchman, Afiz.

Like good pulp fiction, the story goes with no stops. Habibi may have something worth a lot on the black market. But who does he sell it to and how does he escape the authorities that are cracking down on illegal sales.

Besides the cast of characters, there's a clear plot, a lively McGuffin - as Hitchcock called 'the thing everyone wants,' - and a menacing hot desert atmosphere that colors everyone's actions.

The story creaks a little when the wily Habibi is caught too much off guard without a back up plan - I am skeptical he would be duped - and he doesn't use the ropes he's tied up with to escape his rope - needing predictament! I'll say no more.

Overall a fun read in a great looking package, with a pulp fiction film noir style that I enjoyed. Perhaps the nicest compliment I can say is I read it straight through and didn't put it down till the story ended.

Contact Info: www.redfez.net, www.leopoldmcginnis.com

Leopold McGinnis: Game Quest

2006-10-19T21:30:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by Tom Hendricks, Musea Review Service

As noted above, Tom and Leopold are both ULA members. Tom prides himself on honest reviews, no matter whether he knows the writer or not. I know Leopold, but don't know Tom--do you care? However, I have read Game Quest and thought it an insightful, funny and penetrating look into a critical point in computer gaming--no one else has written a novel about this subject. Buy it!

What is it? 500 Page Novel on a Computer Game Company. Technical Quality: Above average. The oversized paperback book is well made and well designed. Innovative Quality: Above average. Its subject matter, a computer game company, will be new to most readers. McGinnis seems to know the industry well and gives a wide coverage of most aspects of a start up computer company, named Madre, that becomes almost too successful.

Note the computer style extras: fake logo's for Madre and Che's Coffee revolution, and illustrations in that digital pixel style for both the cover , showing the Madre founder's family, and the illustrations at the end of each chapter.

Review: First novel by Canadian author Leopold McGinnis shows insight and scope in all things related to computer gaming. Main characters Will and Kendra Roberts have started Madre, a computer games company that has helped pioneer the field and made some of the best games anywhere. Their success leads to expansion and unwanted notice by big business corporate raiders, Melfina Enterprises, who just might upset all the good work the Madre team has done.

McGinnis shows us all aspects of a computer game start up company from the annual bar-be-que to the company cappuccino machine, and this reader felt that he must have both worked in the industry, and studied it on his off hours to know all these details.

We see the company from not only the point of view of the bosses, the couple that started it, Will and Kendra, but from Bill, Art, Geof , Tim, and Henry , long time employees; plus new hires, Kathy, and Tom Newman; and even the comical 'cool advisor', Tray Cool. Then too outside the business there's a subplot of charcters that includes the Robert's teen daughter Heather and her online friend Carol.

McGinnis seems to get into the heart of all his characters that range from teen girls to company presidents. The reader sees real insight and personality in the characters here. I had some quibbles with the lack of descriptions of some of the characters. For instance the middle aged Kendra is a main character but I still don't know if she was fat or thin, the color of her hair, tall or short, etc. I would have liked to have had more visual clues here.

The story is vast, and takes time for some side track events and sidetrack issues, that I enjoyed reading about. This kind of thing gives depth and breadth to a story and makes or breaks a novel.

There is the indie coffee shop Naughte Latte that fights takeover by the pushy conglomerate Che's Coffee Revolution. There is the attack on using interns as a way to get cheap labor. There is stock manipulation, and corporate raiders that see dollar signs in their eyes and nothing else.

There is the online world of game players with its own sense of community. There's a computer convention in Las Vegas, and a Hawaiian vacation. And there's the day to day running of a small California company. The story is engaging, and very readable. McGinnis easily switches from character group to character group. It is a well drawn world that any reader can relate to, with contemporary concerns and present day issues.

It's a David versus Goliath business struggle in computer gaming. McGinnis covers the small company side well, but only hints at the motivations of the behemoth on the other side - most clearly in an after the fact interview of Newman. Yet I wonder what motivated that side too. I can't fathom how they could be so cold and calculating. But to do that justice he'd probably have to write a second volume! As it is, McGinnis leaves us wondering, and concerned about corporate abuse of power and how it upsets lives.

Overall it's a fine achievement and a vast coverage of places ideas and people seldom seen in a first novel or for that matter most novelists' mature work.

Contact Info: www.leopoldmcginnis.com

Michael Allen: ...how and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous

2006-10-19T21:16:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Leopold McGinnis

I have no idea whether Leopold knows Michael. Either personally or Biblically.

Book located at: http://www.kingsfieldpublications.co.uk/lisa.html
£9.99 (~$25 Cdn) or FREE! (you decide)

It’s ‘cause of AIDS. In case you were wondering. Or, rather, it’s because Lisa’s dad agrees to participate in a ‘reality’ TV show where he has to convince a woman to sleep with him, unprotected.

This isn’t really giving anything away because the book is more about the making of this TV show, Harry the man with AIDS, than about Lisa at all. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Lisa is little more than a literary contrivance to create the title and motivation for Harry, than and actual character in the book. Actually, I think the book might have been better and more appropriately titled as Harry the man with AIDS. The existing title is a bit contrived and who is Lisa? Who is Lisa’s Dad? Why should I care why he got famous? But you say ‘Harry the Man with AIDS’ and that gets my attention! This would also create an interesting tension in the reader who picks up the book out of morbid fascination only to find out they’ve fallen for the type of shock marketing the book parodies.

But enough about the title. How and why Lisa’s Dad got to be Famous (which shall hereafter be known as Lisa’s Dad) essentially follows Harry, an everyman carpenter who, soon after finding himself diagnosed as HIV positive, is approached by a rather unscrupulous TV exec eager to sign Harry up to star in his new reality TV show – Harry, the Man with AIDS. Harry, being a bit of an easy going simpleton (almost too easy and simple to be believable at some points) agrees. But only so the money can go to his disabled daughter who he hasn’t seen in years.

The rest of the story involves Harry going through the behind the scenes motions of finding someone willing to sleep with him and dealing with sleazy producers and media who’ll pull anything to get ‘interesting’ reality. Throughout all of this, Lisa’s Dad doles out a fair share of satire on Rupert Murdoch style entertainment in contemporary culture and is a recommended read on that almost alone.

Lisa’s Dad isn’t groundbreaking literature by any stretch, but it’s right in all the right places. And in a world full of books stuffed to the brim with boring pomposity, Lisa’s Dad is like a breath of fresh air in a cold, dark crypt. First and most importantly, this book is entertaining. Sadly, too few books of literature these days come close to achieving this golden rule of lit. But no argument can be made that Lisa’s Dad does not satisfy this key aspect. The story moves quickly, is too short to ever get boring, avoids cliché, has an interesting, contemporary and modern-day concept (though I wouldn’t go as far as to call it unique). Overall, it’s just well-roundedly entertaining. And secondly, it fulfills the other golden rule: heart.

Michael Allen makes his book relevant to the reader. It’s coverage of a contemporary phenomenon in contemporary settings, with familiar-yet-unique characters makes it easy to relate to. It’s not your typical glut of literary self-absorption. Furthermore, the book has a purpose. Allen seeks to satirize and examine the phenomenon of reality TV – particularly taking to its extremes a form of entertainment most people don’t spend much time thinking about. Literature is good for this sort of analysis – examining and discussing our world without boring us like a textbook, making it relate. Allen manages this quite well. Though I wanted a bit more.

While Allen makes a lot of good points about the ‘hidden’ truths about this form of entertainment, I felt that, in the end, he kind of pulled punches. The book doesn’t touch much upon why this form of entertainment is so popular, or what it says about the culture that produces and consumes it. We see a bit of the sleazy underbelly of the typical goings on in production (all the shady legal mumbo jumbo), but the voyeuristic nature of this sort of programming, the negative aspects of the sort of media domination involved (ie, the fact that the show that airs the program is owned by the same company that runs the major newspaper that promotes the program, etc…, etc…), are ignored.

In the end everyone gets off scot free. I won’t go into details to keep from spoilers, but the worst that happens is we get a hint that maybe the producer of this show, who makes lots of money, is really not satisfied, but in fact a lonely man. Falls a bit too close to commercial pap for my tastes, but was still, overall, well done.

There are a few other things that don’t quite sit right, including the fact that the main character being so easy going. We’re supposed to believe that he’d go through all this hell, do anything for his daughter and yet wholeheartedly agrees to never see her again at his ex-wife’s suggestion because it might ‘confuse her.’ A few parts of this novel come off as convenient narrative devices before being solidly believable. Harry’s cluelessness is fun and a convenient trick for getting the story across, but sometimes Harry says ‘but I don’t know about that stuff’ at too many things, like TV, Newspapers, anything Michael Allen feels the need he has to explain. Additionally, because Harry’s so simple, it’s hard to understand what the woman sees in him exactly. I wouldn’t say it’s unbelievable, but does bring up the question.

The writing in Lisa’s Dad is incredibly tight. I really admire writers who can put together a story very succinctly and Michael Allen’s is a master at it. I’m am far from a tight writer. I’d say this is a strength for Allen and the book clips along at its own, quick pace. But if you like flowery prose, or stopping along the road for asides, to peruse the scenery, you aren’t going to find much (or any) of that here.

Michael Allen is a bit of a celebrity in the independent publishing circuit. He had several books published big name presses in the 60s and 70s before taking a decade long break. When he came back he found that there was little interest in his work amongst the literary bureaucrats. As he says in an interview at the back of the book, which is arguably one of the most interesting parts of the book – at least from my perspective – they weren’t interested in a writer who wouldn’t stick to a genre or who too old to be hep anymore. So Michael Allen started up Kingsfield publications and has been publishing himself since.

There’s a terrible pall against self-publishing, but us independent publishers are lucky to have someone like Allen in the game. Not only does he show that independent publishing is not just the realm of people who ‘can’t get published otherwise’, but also, with novel’s as craftily written as Lisa’s Dad, he’s surely raising the public’s perception, support and belief in independent writing. Certainly, How and While Lisa’s Dad Got to be Famous is better than a long list of best-sellers lining the shelves or award lists these days.

I’d recommend How and Why Lisa’s Dad got to be Famous to almost anyone. It’s fun, interesting and fairly novel. I’d readily read another book of Mr. Allen’s and, best of all, if you’re hard up for cash, or have extra time at work, you can read the entirety of Lisa’s Dad online at the above address for free! Now that’s novel! With generousity like that, it’s easy to understand How and Why Michael Allen (as Grumpy Old Bookman) Got to be Famous.

Charlotte Webb: Cruisin Central, A Rock 'N' Roll Novel

2006-10-04T22:26:00.000-06:00

Cruisin Central, A Rock 'N' Roll Novel
by Charlotte Webb

Reviewed by Tom Hendricks.

Tom prides himself on his honest reviews. I do not know if he knows Charlotte. I read Charlotte's Webb, but that is not the same thing.

What is it? : A 274 page novel of 50-60's era teens growing up in Phoenix, Arizona.

Technical Quality: Above average. Its a quality trade paperback format with a fine color cover , quality paper, and clear easy-to-read type.

Innovative Quality: Very high. Examples include, but are not limited to: different typefaces that represent different things (see review); using lyrics from rock 'n' roll songs to preface the chapters; a glossary of slang; a bookmark for the novel; and even a mathematical formula for determing the last cool year of rock ‘n’ roll (1963?).

"Cruisin Central" is a complex novel that involves a community of characters - mostly teens - in a concentrated environment - a section of Phoenix, Arizona - during the early years of rock 'n' roll - the late 50's through the early 60's. And it requires some backup information for most readers to understand that insulated world.

Author Webb has supplied those extras. There's a map of Central Avenue where the teens cruise in their souped up cars, indicating all the hot spots. The style of car is very important to status and coolness. There is a glossary of slang including such terms as crewcut, hood, p.t., candy apple red, cherry, church key, lay rubber, rumble, etc. The typefaces are part of the story. There are separate texts for the main body of the story, flashback scenes, typed letters, unspoken thoughts, and lines of lyrics.

The novel is set up as a series of entries, each with the point of view of one major or minor character. Webb introduces each entry with a line of lyrics from a rock 'n' roll song that relates to the action. And in a 10 page separate booklet (available upon request with purchase only), she lists all the lyric lines plus the songs they come from, and the artist that made them. In an additional nice touch, the lyric lines, when read in order, tell a story of their own - a secret novel within a novel!

The music quoted is a vast discography of all aspects of not only rock 'n'
roll of the early days of the rock 'n' roll era, but other pop contemporary songs. Anyone wanting to know more about that era of music, and that has only heard oldies fare, would be wise to study the list for the real thing. The music is all over the map, and includes, Buddy Holly, Kingston Trio, Connie Stevens, Chuck Berry, Frankie Avalon, Johnny Horton, Elvis, La Vern Baker, Shirelles, Beach Boys, Marcels, Jimmy Reed, Cookie and the Cupcakes, and many many more.

The novel opens by introducing us to a bunch of teens from Cinnabar High School, Soon we see what is important in their world: cruising Central Avenue in the coolest cars, avoiding the violent 'hoods', fighting when you have to, keeping up with the newest rock 'n' roll songs, staying away from trouble with the police, drinking, girls 'reputations', dating, and sex.

Gradually one girl, Petey Stoner, becomes the main character to watch. She is a thin girl from an abusive family who is known to steal 45's for her vast record collection. Her mom thinks she's a slut but the boys think she is a cold fish - she crosses her legs in what they call the 'Petey Pretzel'. Petey is also very very smart and has to hide her IQ to fit in with her school friends. The main boy character is Jim Berling, who looks like Rick Nelson, drives the 'Honeydripper', and is a bit of a hood, even though his father is Judge Berling, 'the hanging judge'.

Both Petey and Jim keep files on other boys and girls. Petey notes the cars they drive, and the music they like. Jim notes their SQ, sexual quotient.

Through episode after epidsode the reader sees that everything is here from the 'Happy Days" type world depicted on tv. But unlike that world, this one is seldom happy. It's a very gritty, dark, cold, and harsh world where adults are either suckers or abusive, parents push too hard and have no respect for their kids, teen boys are often extremely violent, girls are either naive or tramps, and most everyone is provincial and living in their own very small narrow world. There seems to be very little chance for a change for the better for anyone.

Excerpt:
Petey and Watson
“Goin to the river, gonna jump overboard and drown”
"I was trying to decide on the method of suicide I would use, because life without Denny wasn’t worth living. No one else had ever loved anyone as much as I loved him. But I was not going to give in to him, and risk getting knocked up, and ruin both our lives. Why couldn’t he understand?”

Later Petey hears Carole say the same thing about Mark, “No one has ever
loved anyone as much as I loved Mark”, and decides against suicide.

My main concern about the novel would be that no one of the many characters seems to get out - to get out of Cinnabar High or Phoenix, with a normal healthy life, let alone an accomplished successful life. The overriding tone is that of everyone being trapped in a conservative 'buttoned down' world. We, who grew up during this time, often forget how conservative it was, and those of a different generation, don’t know how bad it could be. But as bad as it was, some did get out.

Overall it is an exceedingly rich novel with some amazing detail - for ex. we learn the coolest makeup at the cosmetics counter. And it does a remarkable job of bringing that era to life with a mix of excitement, immediacy, and dread: romance , desire, and passion; and an overall driving hope for escape with someone - anyone. And perhaps nothing better expressed all that then the rock ‘n’ roll music that was playing in the background.

Contact Info:
http://www.blogger.com/www.artb4food.com
Cost = $22 for US/CAN/MEX (postage included), Europe $27 + 10.40 postage

Mary Gaitskill: Veronica

2006-09-18T18:10:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Lawrence Richette

I don't know Lawrence Richette, but he has written an honest and excellent review.

MARY GAITSKILL'S FLAWED MASTERPIECE

Mary Gaitskill is, beyond any doubt, the finest short story writer of my literary generation. Both BAD BEHAVIOR and BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO contain stories that will be read as long as people voluntarily read American fiction. I am thinking in particular of "The Girl On The Plane" in the latter collection, which may be the best story anyone in America has written in the past twenty years.

Until now, though, Gaitskill's reputation has rested on her stories. Her first novel, TWO GIRLS FAT AND THIN, came as a severe disappointment to most of her ardent fans. Gaitskill seemed to be doing too many things at once, a not uncommon fault of first novels. She was dramatizing a bizarre, quasi-lesbian relationship between the two girls, while also trying to write a novel of ideas--the book contains a laborious parody of Ayn Rand's Objectivism, which Gaitskill called Definitism.

But last year Gaitskill published VERONICA, which for all its faults, and none of them are fatal, is probably the most beautifully written American novel I have read in the past decade. It was deservedly nominated for the National Book Award in 2005, showing that the literary Establishment is not altogether without taste.

"We were stupid for disrespecting the limits placed before us. For tearing up the fabric of songs wise enough to acknowledge limits. For making songs of rape and death and then disappearing inside them. For trying to go everywhere and know everything. We were stupid, spoiled, and arrogant. But we were right, too. We were right to do it even so."

This is the reflective, grieving voice of Alison, a formel model now living with hepatitis C in Marin County, reflecting on her Eighties from the perspective of the new millennium. VERONICA is brilliantly structured around an ordinary day in Alison's life, during which she remembers her friendship with Veronica, whom she met during a brief spell of office work in Manhattan.

When the book opens, Veronica has already died of AIDS-- a plot point which Gaitskill deliberately reveals as early as possible, so that she can get down to the real subjects of her novel, which I take to be the way memory works and, even more important, the distance between the glittery, empty decade the Eighties turned out to be and the numbed years of the Age of Bush.

Alison runs away from her home in New Jersey and ends up first in San Francisco, where a sleazy catalogue agent more or less rapes her, then in Paris and Rome, then back in New Jersey, where she finds that her family has fallen apart because her mother has left her father. It is in these scenes of domestic life that Gaitskill achieves a new tenderness . Alison has two younger sisters, Daphne and Sara, who react very differently to the separation of their parents. Gaitskill surpasses herself in the scenes involving Alison's kid sisters, reminding me that for all her transgressive qualities, Gaitskill is at heart a realist, and a precise and disciplined realist at that.

Like most Gaitskill heroines, Alison experiences sex as domination and humiliation. Alain, "the most powerful agent in Europe," into whose hands Alison falls in Paris, is also the only man Alison seems to love. He glories in betraying her, first sexually, then by embezzling the money Alison thinks she has stashed in a Swiss bank account. The sex in VERONICA is no more graphic than Gaitskill usually describes, but for the first time she has managed to integrate it successfully into a full-length narrative.

In TWO GIRLS Justine Shade, the narrator, was too much the would-be dominatrix, and the novel ended with a quasi-lesbian coupling that left me wondering why Gaitskill couldn't have thought of a more original conclusion. Here, on the other hand, the sexual passages are not only sharply observed and beautifully written, they are always in service to the larger design:

"Fucking Gregory Carson was like falling down the rabbit hole and seeing things fly by without knowing what they meant. Except I WAS the rabbit hole at the same time...I was on my back and he on his knees; he grabbed my ankles and spread my legs over my head until my pelvis split all the way open...his stomach stuck out like a proud drum and I could feel his asshole alight and tingling on the edge of his spine. His face looked like he was saying, Remember this when they're taking your picture. Remember THIS."

Thus Alison recalling her first, degrading fuck with the sleazy catalogue agent in San Francisco. I am not giving away any trade secrets of fiction writing when I point out that sex scenes may be the hardest of all types of scenes for a contemporary novelist to manage. Gaitskill pulls off the trick beautifully here. As always, she strikes a perfect balance between the ugliness of the action and the exact justice of her observations.

What keeps VERONICA from being the fully realized masterpiece it could have become is Gaitskill's unfortunate tendency to overwrite. It may well be that she labored too many years over this particular piece of fiction. For some odd reason, Gaitskiill's stylistic ear almost never betrays her in her short stories. In VERONICA, however, her well-known love for Nabokov results in over-jewelled sentences like this alliterative clunker:

"(Somewhere the driver is still trying to change his tire while his rotating red light rhythmically drenches the dirt and sweeps the sky.)"

Gaitskill, for all the virtuousity she displays in VERONICA, remains an essentially realistic and quotidian writer, a poet of the everyday rather than a fabulist. I fear she does not understand her own strengths and weaknesses. Nabokov, her god, is the most single pernicious influence on English-language fiction in the last fifty years, followed closely by Thomas Pynchon. What Nabokov did, at his best, is unrepeatable.

For one thing, you need to be multilingual, as he was and no American novelist (to my knowledge) is, to pull off the magical effects he achieved in the English language. For another, Gaitskill--like the infinitely less talented Martin Amis--seems to be a captive to the theory that every sentence must be beautiful or at least striking. This is a tactical and strategic error. It results, in VERONICA, in a novel that demands the sort of patient, leisurely reading that almost nobody except a die-hard Gaitskill fan will give a novel.

But VERONICA, for all its faults, remains the most beautiful novel I or any of my literary contemporaries have managed to achieve so far. There is more thought and feeling in any paragraph of Gaitskill's prose than in an entire novel by Jay McInerney. I only hope that Gaitskill continues to write novels, perhaps spending less time at the word processor and (paradoxical as this sounds) writing faster. There is an energy and a freedom to VERONICA, when Gaitskill is firing on all cylinders, that reminded me of why I had always spoken of her writing with such reverence to my friends.

This elegy to the Eighties speaks to all of us who were young in that decade, whether or not we were female, whether or not we were models. VERONICA avoids the twin pitfalls of sentimentality and banality by the exquisite blend of artful structure (one day in Alison's life and memories) with the precision of Gaitskill's observations. If the novel finally does not succeed at the highest level, it is nevertheless so much better than anything anyone our age has pulled off that its faults are irrelevant next to the surface tension Gaitskill creates.

Reading her for me, as a survivor of the Eighties who did time in Manhattan, was like dipping into a pack of Proustian madeleines. I remain convinced that Mary Gaitskill is the most authentic and gifted writer of fiction under fifty in America.

Noah Cicero: The Condemned

2006-09-17T15:13:00.001-06:00

Reviewed by: Tao Lin

Tao Lin acknowledges he personally knows Noah Cicero. In fact, Noah has reviewed one of Tao's books on this site.

Noah Cicero's The Condemned uses clear, concrete, and concise sentences. The advantage of direct and concrete sentences is that no one feels stupid. Give Noah's book to anyone walking on the street and they'll read it and understand what is happening. When I read it I read one sentence and understand. Then read the next, and so on. Sometimes I laugh. I feel different emotions continuously while reading, instead of feeling no emotions and being removed from the reality of human beings, which is what most books do to me. Noah writes:

I try to make friends.
But I never can.
I can't handle people.
They never stop lying.
I can't think anymore.

Noah doesn't create something from nothing. He understands reality as it is, without preconception or delusions. He doesn't use abstractions. When you use an abstraction you yourself are defining that word or best, better, for example which by itself has no meaning, then forcing that definition onto the reader. Therefore you are saying that in your relationship with the reader you are GOD and the reader is a HAMSTER or something. A dirty hamster. And that's what the reader feels like (or what the reader will feel like if he or she has low self-esteem, does not know how to think for him or herself, or has been raised to believe in things like higher-education, authority, going to college, getting a degree, wearing suits, which is most of the population) if they read something with indirect, abstract language, where the meaning is not clear most of the time because the meaning is not clear to the writer him or herself (which is okay if the writer is sarcastic or self-conscious about it, and lets the reader know that him or herself is confused, which Noah will do sometimes; like if he uses a cliche "belly of the beast” he will bring attention to the meaninglessness of the cliche.)

Here is a random excerpt from something on elimae:

Keep it up with olive
oil soap, just like Sophia

Loren, they call
from their chipped sea

tile stoops, their emblematic
brooms like spears piercing

Some people will read that and feel smart and think, I must be smart to understand that. Some people will read it and think, I must be too stupid to understand that. Most people walking on the street will read it and think, I'm too stupid to understand that, which makes them feel retarded and inferior, which sets them up to be exploited by someone else, because lowering someone's self-esteem and making them feel like an ant is the first step to oppressing them, after which you use them as means to your ends.

Meaningless, abstract, indirect language causes and perpetuates racism, sexism, genocide, war, injustice, etc. and takes away responsibility from actions by way of muddling the links between actions (cause) and effects (Just look at the language of all oppressive governments ever.) But if you ask a Thomas Pynchon reader who is trained by reading Thomas Pynchon, in a way, to be more unconcise and meaningless in his everyday language if they are against oppression they will all say, Yes. I'm a liberal.

With Noah's writing no one will think, I must be too stupid to understand that. Therefore Noah is not contributing to the shit, pain, and suffering of the world.

The more dilute the language is in terms of meaning the more shit, pain, and suffering will exist in the world, because the more meaningless and indirect the sentence is the less people will be able to comprehend the message, which in addition to making some people feeling stupid makes it harder for people to make choices and act based on the truth. For example, if you know that buying Coke causes suffering in the world, and it is proven to you, then you probably will stop buying Coke, in the same way that you won't just punch a homeless person in the face randomly. Direct, factual language can prove that, can link the action to the consequence. But indirect, abstract, and unconcise language does the opposite; it can be used by the Coca-cola corporation to hide facts and muddle the link (you can extrapolate this to everything; government, tobacco, relationships, etc.)

Here is another excerpt from Noah's book:

In a small rented house.
Kathy sits on her couch.
Eight months pregnant.
She bends over.
Using a rolled up dollar she sniffs a line of coke off the coffee table.

You can't delete any of those words. Noah used the least amount of words
possible to convey the information in his head. He was concise. This is compassionate of Noah. When you use more words than it takes it's nalogous to going up to someone you don't know and saying, I'm going to start talking for a while about things that don't mean anything. You're going to listen. Then standing there talking. That's what it's like when you write a 1000 page book.

Look at Thomas Pynchon. Have you ever met a humble, or unpretentious
person who reads Thomas Pynchon? Have you ever heard someone say something about Thomas Pynchon's writing like, I was depressed and alone, then I read Thomas Pynchon and felt good about life, or, I read Thomas Pynchon and then gave away my Hummer, sold my horn-rimmed glasses, and gave all my money to a homeless person?

Besides language there is also tone. Noah's tone is consistent with his language in terms of its effect on the reader. (Mostly consistent. I'm not sure about some of the things, like when Noah starts attacking religion and things like that. Though I guess that's still consistent, because he's attacking specific things that cause pain and suffering.) For tone the equivalent of meaningless, abstract language is confidence, authority, and excluding information if it shows weakness; while the equivalent of direct, concrete language is self-doubt, admitting weakness, admitting confusion, and being honest. Noah does this:

It was hard finding free internet porn that would get me off back in the late nineties. It wasn't like it is today.

But I always persevered.

If it took two hours on my knees in front of the computer, I would do it.

And:

You just sit on your ass staring at your living room.

Looking at what little you have.

I didn't talk much about the subject matter of the book. That is okay. I talked about style. Subject matter maybe does not affect the reader's view of the world as much as style does. If the reader is racist, thinks in preconceptions, and is unable to think concretely, they will interpret all situations with that worldview. They will read a book about strippers and say something cliched and meaningless. They will read a book about trees and say something cliched and meaningless. They will write a book about Buddhism or strippers or Iraq and they'll all have that same deluded, preconceptive point of view. The underlying thing is the worldview. How you interpret things. And this is conveyed through style. You can tell what kind of a person a person is by looking at their style, not their subject matter. And if you convey your worldview through your style you might be able to change a person's way of seeing the world. Maybe. I don't know. If you write factually, directly, and honestly on any subject matter, the consequences of that subject matter will become clear and the reader will be able to act accordingly.

The person who writes without excluding information will, through his style, come to include all subject matter in his books or at least all subject matter that the characters in his books would encounter. Style dictates subject matter to some degree. Because I think style, or worldview, is the underlying thing and so it influences everything. Style is to personality as subject matter is to situation, is what I'm saying.

In conclusion, Noah's book is a good book if you define bad as â€œPain and suffering. Noah is a stylist like Hemingway is a stylist. But Noah and
Hemingway's style is dictated by rules that actually reduce pain and suffering in the world, by way of being direct, honest, concrete, concise, and factual.

[Blog person note: me, I'm kinda a socialist anarchist. I'm an agnostic ('cause I'm chicken enough to hedge my bets). At times even a Liberal. I believe content is as important as style. Maybe more important. Actually, it is more important! But I also believe there is room for everything. Especially on an underground review blog. If not here, where? I hope this review stirs debate, or the bait, or baits you, or at least a phone call from Norman Bates.]

Carol Lewis/Karen Lillis: Magenta's Adventures Underground

2006-09-17T15:12:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Bernice Mullins

Bernice is a ULA member.

ISBN: 0-9753862-0-4
Published by Words Like Kudzu Press, NY

Magenta’s Adventures Underground is an interesting modernization of Alice in Wonderland. It isn’t some cheese-mo psychedelic goth fairy tale, though; just like Alice, Magenta has a political agenda.

There are familiar images from the classic story. Certain images, Lewis left untouched. Magenta curtsies constantly. Other scenes, Lewis gives her own twist and makes them pertinent to the present. For example, a very disturbing game of chess: “The game: The chessmen, Magenta took note, were in military gear: Pawns were combat troops and members of the taxpaying workforce, Knights were soldiers in tanks, Rooks were single-family homes with a full arsenal ofrifles in the basement, Kings were business moguls with their fingers hoveringabove the red button should the market need a nuclear attack to help it along,and Queens were transvestite hookers in full makeup and six-inch heels; ontheir heads they wore nurses’ caps.”

Magenta is already underground when the book begins. She hasn’t followed a rabbit down a hole; she was pushing and shoving down the steps in Grand Central Station. The chess game, being played by a dog, a vulture, and a cat-lizard is taking place in the terminal of the number seven train. Magenta relates her story to this talking animal audience. She expresses her disillusionment at finding New York, once a haven for misunderstood artists, writers, and assorted other weirdoes, overrun by elitist trendy fuckers.

“We came to this city a few years ago from another planet, my brother and I; we were determined to find Bohemia; we headed straight for the East Village. When we got there we realized: we were thirty years too late. The apartment we landed—which once housed spontaneous theatre events and cost its renters $25.00 a month—costs us $2500 . . . There was a time when everyone who wished to could live here for a song.”

Magenta leaves not long after that along with a rat. While on the uptown A train, she sees a wounded Iraqi pigeon, sent by the UN, give a speech, to which no one listens. The pigeon begs the train passengers, (who later throw rotten tomatoes at him) “PRETTY-PLEASE DON’T BOMB MY COUNTRY.” Magenta is then sexually assaulted and beaten by a female security officer. She slips into an unconsciousness clouded with strange and vaguely erotic dreams. When she wakes, she is in an underground cave, surrounded by Discarded Veterans. The book ends with an endless dance with a three-legged dog.

For anyone who enjoyed Alice in Wonderland enough to do more than watch the Disney cartoon, Magenta is a welcomed updated version too dark and complex to be encompassed in a 90 minute G-rated feature. Even if you’ve never read Alice in Wonderland, Lewis’ book is fun and entertaining. It is sadly funny at some points, and it will make you mad about all the right things. Of course, we’re all mad here . . .

C.B. Forest: Chasing Pace

2006-09-17T15:11:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Leopold McGinnis

Leopold is a ULA member.

ISBN: 1894494-86-5Baico Publishing$22.95 C$, 17.95 $US315 pageswww.chasingpace.com

Unlike most books I read, I was a bit privy to this book’s journey to publication. First time Ottawan author, C. B. Forrest, spent a few years shipping the thing around and, at one point, finding an interested publisher who couldn’t decide whether it should be written in 1st or 3rd person had the author re-write it into 3rd before deciding it was better in 1st and then going out of business.

After another series of submissions the book was picked up by a small press just across the border in Quebec and published, after conversion again, in 3rd person. If anything, this highlights how editors, for the most part, should focus on publishing, rather than nit-picking the instincts of the author.

Anyway, knowing all this and receiving a complimentary copy of the book via a friend in Ottawa, I set into the novel. Here is the review:

Chasing Pace is, superficially, about a small town Canadian journalist in his forties, Ben Canon, who has never really amounted to anything. Recently divorced, even more recently unemployed and an alcoholic/self-medicator who boards with an 80 year old ‘captain’ Ben suddenly decides the best way to spend his severance cheque and solve all his and the world’s problems is to drive down to Miami to find the star of a short-lived children’s television show from his youth: Commander Pace. Along the way he runs into a blind barber, a corrupt cop, a cop who’d rather be a Buddhist and a one-legged stripper who all, in some way, help him come to grips with his own demons.

Overall, Chasing Pace is a good read, mostly for the reason that the plot keeps rolling and never really goes where you expect it to go. The characters, as well, all stray far enough from stereotypes to keep them interesting, as well. Chasing Pace is by no means a ‘book you can’t put down’ but is definitely a book you keep wanting to come back to.

The book, however, seems a lot like a Frank Kapra-corn film but with strippers and alcoholics. This is mostly good, however, the scenarios and characters often wade a bit too close to cliché/corn – strippers with hearts of gold, small town corrupt cops, citizens uniting to thwart the mean-spirited schemes of the town’s own Mr. Potter-type and open a drug clinic…

Yet, no character is without his quirks/problems and stay far enough away to avoid being too cliché. In some ways, these are like Kapracorn characters updated for the new millennium and for this reason remain interesting. The end of the novel is satisfying, however, despite avoiding the clichéd happy ending, wraps up a little too cleanly and not exactly believably. Ben Canon comes to terms with his own personal problems finally; however it’s not clear why this happens, exactly. It’s accepted, but the connections and the catalyst to the events in the story aren’t quite solid enough.

I’m certainly not against polemics or saying something in a story and give points to this book for its efforts, however, the points it does make come dangerously close to being preachy (on somewhat tired topics – manhood, war, death, life) near the end. [Another weird thing about the novel is that virtually every character seems to have been involved in a major war (Korea, WWII, Vietnam, Yugoslavia…), yet totally independent of the plot. Ben Canon’s obsessive attachment to his long dead grandfather is also a bit difficult to understand.]

Overall, however, Chasing Pace is an enjoyable novel, better than most you’ll find on the corporate bookshelves. It isn’t snobby and it takes the risk of saying something. The writing and plotting are incredibly, incredibly tight and the storyline intriguing. If you’re looking for something with a solid plot, interesting characters, unpretentious, tight writing while providing something other than the tired same-old then Chasing Pace should satisfy.

Tao Lin: You Are a Little Bit Happier than I Am

2006-09-17T15:10:00.000-06:00

Reviewed by: Noah Cicero

Noah acknowledges that he knows Tao Lin personally, that they are friends and even work together. On this site, they have reviewed each other's books.

Ludwig Wittgenstein said, serious and good philosophical work could be
written consisting entirely of jokes, and that's what You Are a Little Bit
Happier than I am is, it is a philosophical treatise on the emptiness and
alienation on the first years of the 21st Century. You are a Little Bit Happier than I am shows a world where humans are all lost in their internal monologues, so alienated they cannot even speak to each other, everyone is lost- floating.

The title itself, You Are a Little Bit Happier than I am, shows what kind of
people Americans have become, everyone in America is refusing to listen to the sadness of other people and instead reply, I don't care about your shit, you are a little bit happier than I am, what do I care about you. That America has an epidemic of self-loathing and self-pitying people that refuse to help each other because each person views themselves as the most pitiful creatures alive.

The language in You are a Little Bit Happier than I am is not poetic. If these are even poems we cannot be sure. There are a lot of paragraphs, there is no meter applied, no musical voice, just a collection of loosely connected concrete and direct sentences. It doesn't matter if there are poems. Perhaps they are something new, some new 21st Century Language resulting from a person's main use of text coming from instant message chats and emails. Tao Lin writes about emails often, â€œI woke up at 12:30 p.m. and sat on my bed. I emailed people and ate cereal and that took three hours because I took my time. When I finished I didn't know what to do so I emailed some more people.

Tao Lin in I am about to express myself follows Rimbaud's philosophy of saying exactly what he means:

I want to check my email
I want to see a movie
I want to kill people
Feels like I need to kill someone
I want to kill you
I hate everything

As you can see from those lines Tao Lin is not trying to win you over with his knowledge of poetry he received in creative writing class. He is just saying it.

Tao Lin wants to kill people. All Americans want to kill people. If we didn't
want to kill people we wouldn't sit for hours and play video games here we
shoot digital images that resemble humans, we wouldn't watch horror and action movies. Living in America, waiting in all these long lines, having our favorite shows interrupted for commercials, all these 401K plans, our lack of health insurance, our low pay, our idiotic power hungry bosses, our congested highways, the inability of our government to even care that the bottom 80 percent of the population even exists makes us want to kill people.

Tao Lin talks about how there is too much information:

And making choices
about what to Google
what information to exclude
and who to blame

The people of the 21st Century are facing an existential problem, there are too many choices. Back in the day a man would work at their dad's job, his dad would get him a union card and he would go to the factory or become a carpenter. Women would become housewives or work as a secretary. But now with loans and grants and the amount of occupations technology has created even at our local vocational schools there are over thirty occupations a person can pick from. A lot of young people get so bombarded with different occupations they can do, they decide to do none. It is the same way with ideas, back in the day you believed in the King, or you lived in a small town and you were sheltered and believed in whatever small town philosophy it had. But now you can live in a small town and Google everything from Nazism, the Green Party, Eastern Mysticism, Communism, Anarchism, ECO-Terrorism, existentialism, Christianity and
Islam.

Jean Paul Sartre's theory was that man is condemned to freedom. That are main suffering comes anguish which is the fact that we are always forced to make a choice. Back in the day when our worlds were small, there were very few choices, but now because of the internet, television, quick and easy transportation our worlds have become big, and if our worlds are big, then we have an abundance of choices: and that's when Tao Lin's question comes in what information to exclude? How do we settle on one choice, on one thing? If you can't settle on one thing immediately then anxiety comes.

Outside I thought I saw someone I knew and felt afraid. Tao Lin shows how people have become afraid of each other in America. People in America have been taught and showed subliminally that all other humans are trying to take their job, take their lovers, steal their shit, betray them, sell their secrets to the national media, and perhaps are terrorists and are trying to kill them.

Existentially America is in such a state of judging other people, that everyone is looking at each other in terms of are, Are you cool?Are you this political party? Do you believe in saving the environment? Do you eat meat? Do you smoke? Do you condone the sex industry? Are you pro or anti abortion? Do you listen to pop music or indie music? Where do you shop? Are you anti-SUV? Are you for gay marriage? etc etc etc! It has become like Stalinism in the way we judge people here. We judge each other so much a lot of us have become afraid of other people, afraid of their criticisms.

But what I think Tao Lin is talking about in You are a Little Bit Happier than I am is that he doesn't want to judge other people so harshly. Tao Lin in poem to end my head off the masterpiece of the collection results in talking about animals and declaring there is no free will, in my opinion he mentions the animals because at least animals don't judge, at least animals don't walk around making up pseudo identities to fight about and fight wars for. And he declares there is no free will not because there isn't any, because he often in the book talks about choices, but because if there is no free will, then we can't blame each other, and if we can't blame each other, then we can't judge and criticize and be dicks for no reason.

You are a Little Bit Happier than I am is about how silly our thoughts are in the 21st Century, how we don't think straight, how we spend more time checking our email than actually having fun, how we spend our time thinking about getting the best sales on laundry machines than spending time with friends, we are Googling rather than experiencing. Instead of making machines work for us, we let the machines work us, and have become like machines.

Giridhar Veeramaneni: Enjoy The Journey

2006-09-17T15:09:00.000-06:00

Review by Leopold McGinnis

Leopold is a ULA member.

Whenever I attend book fairs, comic conventions etc… I try to pick up one thing. Exhibiting at the Toronto Small Press Book Fair in May I had about the last 5 minutes of the show to look around. I picked up Enjoy the Journey almost purely on a whim. I suppose I felt kinship with an author struggling to sell their self-published work at a somewhat empty fair. Also, I’ve never gone wrong with an Indian author and a few brief glimpses at the text convinced me that this writer would be no different. I don’t know what it is, but I have yet to run across an Indian author I haven’t liked.I’m quite pleased to add Giridhar Veeramaneni to that list.

Enjoy the Journey is a great example of a book that would probably never get picked up by a ‘professional’ press – big or small. Wittingly or not, it breaks all the rules. It’s a collection of 23 stories that are refreshingly sincere, open and unpretentious about everyday mundane things. It’s not about extreme poverty, or the grand bourgeoisie or the privileged artist. Its stories have clear endings, often with a simple moral or lesson - if not the reader, than for the narrator. There are small spelling mistakes and unusual grammar in the book that I’m sure any publisher would point out.

But these ‘incorrect’ (but sensible) aspects really support not only the authors voice, but the fact that this is a real book put together by a real person who lives in real life. A professional editor would probably read a middle-road writing group hack who’ll never make it. I read something quite different from this.

Enjoy the Journey’s stories range from Found by the Sheppard, in which the narrator humorously compares a church (which he tells his wife he is going to) with a strip club next door (which is where he actually goes), to Surviving in Toronto, which isn’t so much a story as a series of tips on how to save money by carrying around free napkins you get at fast food joints, arranging your bus trips to exploit holes in the transfer system, etc…

There is no high art here, no pretension, just simple stories about life. Sometimes they clean up a little too cleanly, are almost a bit too much Reader’s Digest (although the Indo-Canadian immigrant angle helps keep this from being cliché), yet you easily forgive this because reading Enjoy the Journey feels like reading a letter from a close, sincere friend.Nearly every story situates the narrator as an outsider learning a new environment, culture or job, observing, misunderstanding, erring and then finally understanding his surroundings.

I think any undergrounder could appreciate the frank, honest and sincere way Veeramaneni looks at the world. Sheshu the Philosopher is a great story about classism/elitism that any underground enthusiast can relate to. Arranged Marriage provides a really interesting look at arranged marriages vs. the western dating system and provides a strong argument for and against both.

One of my favourite moments in the book comes in Creative Writer when the narrator, who has suddenly decided he doesn’t want to be an engineer or doctor like all the rest of the people in his town in India, but a creative writer instead. He applies for a school in Canada with the hopes of studying creative writing. He is so busy that he barely gets a chance to write and so, at the last minute, cobbles something together for the deadline. He is not accepted. It is a big moment of disappointment for the narrator as it represents a complete failure of his dreams. I, on the other hand, bit my nails in anticipation of this and cheered loudly when he failed to be accepted: Enjoy the journey is an excellent example of all the things a professional writing program would crush out of an author – halting someone from following their own path, making their own understandings, being honest and sincere, characteristics Veeramaneni’s work and characters thrive with. After a while, the author overcomes this and pursues his own path in becoming a writer.

I assume this story is true to Veeramaneni’s own experience and it’s a delightful moment in the book because if he had gotten into that course, I have much doubt that he would have gone on to write these honest, relevant and, most importantly, personally unique stories, nor would he have self-published and I wouldn’t have been reading it or enjoying it enough to review it here.

I really recommend this book if you can get your hands on it.

To order: The book is available on amazon.com, however if you contact the author at giridharv1443@NOSPAMhotmail.com I’m sure you can get a good discount off the Amazon price and a signed copy.

Welcome!

2006-02-15T09:09:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the ULA Book Review.

Of course, it's pretty far down on the bottom of the page for a welcome, but so be it!

The Underground Literary Alliance is dedicated to supporting underground and independent writers. This site will present honest (to the point of searing) reviews of the best books of fiction and poetry around, those from both the lit-establishment and the underground. We will generally review books we think you should read, not books you should avoid.

You can find out more about the Underground Literary Alliance by checking out our website. We publish new essays on timely issues each week in our Monday Report Section. We pull no punches, no lemonades either, and forget that diet crap. Drink us deep and see what literature should be, instead of the mass market pseudo writing foisted on us all!!!

This is a volunteer project by all. Thanks to the reviewers especially, who have donated their time to make this blog special!