| Poetry Book Reviews by Ralph Haselmann Jr. Lucid Moon Poetry Website (April 10, 2001) A Journey Up The Coast Mini poetry travelogue chapbook by R.D. Armstrong. 1999, 48 pages, 2000, $6 ppd cash, check or m.o. to Lummox Press, P.O. Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. Part of the charming Little Red Books series, this recent mini-chapbook chronicles Armstrong's road trip up the California Coast, from the Los Angeles area to the San Francisco area and back, in diary-like chapters with cities as chapter headings/titles. One Oh One reads: "Then it's the rush to merge the mad race of the city. Sudden and surprising The City (old hippie name) rises up through cracked concrete--as if by magic--and compels me to face it on its own terms play by its rules. But is this really SanFran or just more development? Could be part of L.A. easy Then the towers rising out of trees as green as the eyes of envy the reddish-orange towers of The Golden Gate a visual password as familiar as Hewell Houser confirms that this is definitely The City." R. D. Armstrong, or Raindog, as he is known to friends, takes a spiritual journey as well as he takes in the scope and beauty of the land, the beautiful land that is California. I felt as though I was seeing the landscape through Raindog's eyes, that I was making the journey myself. A fine book and a good page-turner, part of a charming Little Red Books series. Collect em all for a mere pittance! Any Abyss Will Do, poetry mini-chapbook by William Taylor, Jr. 1999, 56 pages, $6 ppd cash check or m.o. made out to Lummox Press, PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733. William Taylor Jr. is a young poet who has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry sings in this chapbook Any Abyss Will Do, another in the fine series by Raindog and Lummox Press. He reaches for the stars in his fucked up world and is content to catch a glowing lit sparkler in his hands. We Would Fall reads: "Come away from the window, love. Wishes are not for the likes of us. If the stars should fall down from the skies they would only make great holes in the ground and we would fall in." Taylor adds some humor into the mix with several brief observation poems like America: "Seinfeld holds out for another million per episode while an old man checks the payphones for nickels." This is a meaty selection of Taylor's recent work, and I dug it a lot. I know you will too. Blood On The Floor poetry chapbook by normal, with art by charlotte. 1999, 48 pages, $6 ppd check made out to The Lummox Press, POB 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. Get ready for the perpetually amazed, the poet normal, in his first collection of poetry, part of the charming Little Red Books series. With these powerful poems, normal sings, cries, rants and screams from every rooftop, a voice of social consciousness that begs to be heard. Homesickness without an address reads: "In this sordid wilderness under all this mess it is homesickness keeps us alive / we go because to stay is not / we arrive because we have not found / we move through the mist of indifference / we are egged on by notions of a 4th dimension / we are lost in the theaters / humored amongst the metaphors / ignored in the language of machines & tigers / there is no song of songs, just noise / there is no silence, just sound / it is homesickness without an address / homesickness that urges us on / to be still is to merge with the mire / to move is to be possible / we survive because we are lost / we arrive because we are going." The poems are dynamic in their imagery and each poem has several memorable lines, like Charles Bukowski's writings, but normal is a better poet than Bukowski because he writes about things that matter, war, famine, the Holocaust survivors, the sordidness of life. Normal is a voice that needs to be heard. I urge you to check this fine chap out and to seek out his other collections in the future. The Butcher's Block Vol 2 Fall 2000; Nunzio 1930-2001 (A Gregory Corso Memorial), poetry magazines, various poets, 2000 and 2001, 40 pages and 34 pages, cardstock pages, sidestapled with masking tape over staples, $7 and 10 respectively, cash or check made out to Butcher Shop Press, 30 West St Apt 1B, Oneonta, NY 13820. I received this pair of terrific poetry magazine issues from editor David Greenspan at Butcher Shop Press, and was delighted with the look, layout, typography, and the poems themselves by various authors. Different typefaces throughout each magazine and color photographs add to the beauty of these issues. The poems are wonderful, by the likes of Herschel Silverman, Gerald Nicosia, A.D. Winans, Linda Lerner, Amiri Baraka, and others. The Corso issue is a loving tribute to a fallen angel headed hipster who passed away this January of prostate cancer. Loving memories, poems and color photographs fill this issue and make it special. David Greenspan's mission is to "Bring back the grand tradition of the small presses and the writers it has spawned…" Greenspan does this lovingly and superbly. One of the nicest looking magazines around. Eyes Like Mingus (A Jazz Poetry Anthology Edited by RD Armstrong) (Revised) Various authors, 1999, 48 pages, $6 ppd cash check or m.o. made out to Lummox Press, PO Box 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733. This is a terrific collection of jazz poems by various authors, celebrating Kerouac and jazz legends like Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Monk, and Ella Fitzgerald. The poems twist, turn, jump, shout and soar to heights that are refreshing for any poetry collection. The Power, He Has The Power, by Linda Lerner, reads: "When Benny Russell rode a soprano sax across the East River scaling Manhattan's sky back into an open mouthed crowd before they knew what took their breath knew he had it: not Empire State Twin Towers Wall Street's sound reverberated His…Turned loose a woman vamped & moaned & came in nearly dark, stage lit promenade, limp against the rail: Heart beating drums…bass Now grabbed a tenor sax and went berserk: jumped, stamped his feet, motorcycling off notes, roared up & down buildings…soprano sax screaming higher higher woman/man naked shameless one." This collection bebops and rocks, one of the best in the Little Red Book Series. Hellbent, poetry chapbook by Nathan Pritts, 2001, 28 pages, $6 to Lazy Frog Press, PO Box 41253, Lafayette, LA 70504-1253. This nifty chap comes with a cool cover design by Scott O'Connor. The poems are grouchy and funny commentaries on life in these here United States. The language is softspoken, plainspoken, with bits of wisdom thrown in every so often. Who Could Ask For Anything More reads: "Certain mornings we'd have to leave her apartment early, so while she rushed off to work & her real life I'd head to the diner up the street, sprawl in a window booth & stuff my face. I loved & was loved to the exclusion of all else. On those mornings, snow swirled across the parking lot in blue, early winter light, a detail I liked so much that even now my memory is pretending it was like that every day. But there was just that one morning, really: seagulls circled the parking lot's twin green dumpsters while I tried to figure out why they didn't fly off & leave those landlocked leftovers behind to take a chance at finding the real deal -- salt water & shellfish aplenty. I felt sure they must instinctively know how to get home & where to find food, but maybe when they saw all that garbage they saw a smorgasbord; maybe they thought they already had everything they could ever want." These poems made me smile because of the bits of humour and wisdom thrown in; they don't pretend to be grand or anything other than themselves. "Hellbent on bluffing through life", as the title poem says… A good read. New & Selected Poems 1975-1995, Thomas Lux, poetry book, 1997, softcover, $14, 176 pages. Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Ave South, NY NY 10003 Available by special order at your local bookstore. I met Thomas Lux at the Delaware Valley High School Poetry Festival in Hunterdon County, New Jersey this April. Past poets in this series have included New Jersey's Poet Laureate Gerald Stern and U. S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. Thomas Lux is a distinguished poet in his own right, having received grants from the NEA and the Guggenheim. His poems are soft and graceful, but as you read them he peels away layers to reveal bugs lurking below the surface of a lush green lawn, absurd and gruesome images of life woven into the mix. Death rears its ugly head often. Winter River reads: "It's a cold cold piece of meat, this cadaver's heart, this black gash of a river between white banks. Cold to its center, its molecules repulsed by, but drawing closer to, one another; sluggish, all light cut from its core. Do fish live, or weeds, does the snapping turtle sleep through this? Implacably, it moves, inch by inch, hauling another winter in its soul, hauling grief, the hit-and-run child's blood, drugged insomnia of cancer wards, all the small and bitter dreams of revenge. All that's crushed, numb: cruel glacier, ugly to the silt and sludge. -- And which way, where to, toward which warmer, wider, bottomless gulf does it run?" Lux weaves in a healthy dose of satire and humor as well: in the poem Criss Cross Apple Sauce he repeats his young daughter's grade school rhyme to hilarious effect: "Criss cross apple sauce do me a favor and get lost while you're at it drop dead then come back without a head…" This poetry book is rich in its storytelling and the poems glow with detail and life. A fine read. One For The Underdogs: Selected Poems By Keith Rosson, chapbook, 1997, 16 pages, $2 cash or check made out to Cari Taplin, C/O Kitty Litter Press, PO Box 3189, Nederland CO, 80466-3189. This is a decent collection of poems by Keith Rosson. The typeface is a little blurry and hard to read, which is unfortunate. Kitty Litter Press should retype this. But the poems are good. We Of The Bottle reads: "I put my hand to the wall and I think I feel you out there, the shattered remnants your dreams your lives. Grab on, take hold, this is a gift, a peace, sometimes there are mornings and nights filled with hope and laughter, when a blue flower and classical music on the radio could probably light up the world." Often it is just one image, like the blue flower, that gives each poem an extra glow. I dug this here chap. Remembering Bukowski and Scar Tissue Poetry mini-chapbooks by A.D. Winans. 48 pages each, 1999 both, $6 ppd each, cash or check made out to either A.D. Winans at P.O. Box 31249, San Francisco, CA 94131 or Lummox Press, P.O. Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. Both are part of the charming Little Red Books Series by Lummox Press, and both are a treat to read all around. Remembering Bukowski recalls the twenty year friendship that A.D. had with Bukowski starting in 1972. The poems relate the seedy side of town that Bukowski frequented, the bars and racetracks and the poetry readings where he puked his guts out. The poems are laid out the way Buk wrote his poems, in tall skinny columns, but A.D.'s words are somehow kinder and more wistful, he could never be as hard-boiled as Hank. The final touching poem is a tribute to Buk, simply titled For Hank: "I tried to picture him battling leukemia but still managing just twenty days before his death to send a poem to Wormwood Review filled with life to the end Perhaps a wry smile on his face for the doctor and a hand on the ass of the nurse playing out the game to the end like only the old man was capable of doing." In the second Little Red Book, Scar Tissue, A.D. opens up to reveal an intimate portrait of his childhood, his parents and their deaths. Childhood Memories reads: "When I was a child I used to sit and watch my mother knit from patterns bought at the local five-and-dime store. We would gather in the living room with the radio for company in days before tv listening to The Green Hornet watching her work at a quilt Her fingers moving in perfect stitched time each color a rainbow hue of love." Saying Goodbye reads: "Death travels a lonely road creeping up on you like a mugger a black crow poised in its nest waiting for the human soul to be laid to rest Neither words nor stones detract it from its mission. I see you laid out for viewing given over to the undertaker's art the family rarely together paying their last respects Lady death casting her net across a river of invisible tears." A.D. writes memorable poetry and makes it universal to everyone's life experience. These are poems to treasure and visit again and again like meeting an old friend. Still Dragon, story chapbook by Dan Buck, with a cool cover art drawing of a dragon by Cari Taplin, 1999, 16 pages, $2 cash or check made out to Cari Taplin, Kitty Litter Press, PO Box 3189 Nederland, CCO 80466-3189. This is a short, pithy collection of one page fairy tales, most winding up with one liners about lawyers and stock brokers, for some reason. I don't know if Dan Buck knows whether or not he is being facetious and unintentionally funny! Under Inside reads: "The monster under the bed attacked Dave while he was kissing the maiden, Ann. It scratched his legs and scraped his back. He howled and screamed with all his horror, grabbing it casting it in the closet. It screamed and howled. "Now we're in trouble," Ann shrieked. "What do you mean?" Dave asked. "You woke up," Ann hollered, "the lawyer in the closet."" See, I warned you about the lawyers. I don't know what to make of this and Dan Buck's other writings, he's a real gas! Street, poetry chapbook by Oberc, 1995, 40 pages, $2 cash or check made out to Cari Taplin, C/o Kitty Litter Press, PO Box 3189, Nederland CO, 80466-3189. This is a raw, visceral, real collection of "street" poetry by Oberc, with plenty of foul language and coarse imagery. The repetitive cursing wears you down after a while, like watching the black comedians on Russel Simmon's Def Comedy Jam. The poems stay in your mind though, and occasionally pure poetry seeps through, as in the poem You Talk About Love: "You talk about love loyalty brotherhood and whores like it means something you act you scream you cry you back up too much when the shit is coming down and don't get none on you somebody kills you later you don't win or lose but go on running fast to nowhere wondering what happened to the things you thought you would have if you played the game right wondering what happened to all those prayers you used to say when you thought god would back you up when you thought there were lightning bolts at your disposal…" An interesting meaty chapbook for a low price of $2 from the fine publishers at Kitty Litter Press. The Inside-Out World Of B. Z. Niditch (with drawings by Claudio Parentela) Mini poetry chapbook by B.Z. Niditch. 1999, 48 pages, $6 ppd cash, check or m.o. made out to Lummox Press, P.O. Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. Another charming edition of the Little Red Books series by Lummox Press, this poetry collection (with a short play included) reveals the author's fascination with the perplexing question of our existence and how we are connected to others. The longer poem Graduation paints an empathetic portrait of B.Z.'s student, Gene, who has a troubled home life. Strange Times reads: "The highway sings and the prince of this world is without sorrow the aerialist falls to earth and becomes an angel and winter gents having no obligations talk to the moon the street angel hears the devil's tune and invalids are sick of being sick the isolated poet even has a celebration of his mortality." A lovely collection of thought-provoking verse, filled with wonder at life and relationships, and man's relationship to life. Worth checking out, collect all of the Little Red Books in the series. Whispers Of Generations, poetry chapbook by Bettye T. Spinner, 1998, 32 pages, $4, The Luke Press, PO Box 281, Southampton, NY 11968. I met Bettye T. Spinner along with Thomas Lux at the recent Delaware Valley High School Poetry Festival. Bettye was the best poet there. This is a beautifully written, heartfelt, illuminating chapbook of Spinner's memories of her childhood, growing up on a farm, and thoughts on the passing of generations and her slave roots in Africa. The title poem reads: "Sometimes when days are quietest-- or most filled, when I am most content with life--and least, when all my profits seem to tally up in dark columns of loss, I hear whispers of the fifteen million who lay chained, diseased, and dying in the dank holds of slave ships; I hear rich purple song rising from a Georgia field where heads wrapped in bright rage are bowed low among rows of cotton; I hear the humbled voices of my parents, that last generation of the colored who knew how to keep their place, and I thank Martin, Malcolm, and God." Touching, sad yet beautiful, these poems echo throughout with humanity and dignity. A fine chapbook effort. Please send poetry books, chapbooks, cds, broadsides or whatever for review to Ralph Haselmann Jr. at 67 Norma Road, Hampton, New Jersey 08827. I will review them within 2 weeks and send you a copy of the review. Publishers have my permission in advance to reprint any part of my reviews as long as they send me a copy of what it appears in. The reviews go out to several small press discussion lists, after which they will be archived on my Lucid Moon Poetry Website. Ralph Haselmann Jr. HOME PAGE & ARCHIVES
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