| Poetry
Book Reviews by Ralph Haselmann Jr. Lucid Moon Poetry Website (May 1, 2001) Apollo's Motorcycle poetry chapbook by Frank Lonabaugh. 2000, 48 pages, $6 ppd to The Lummox Press, POB 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733. This is a hate-filled, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic piece of garbage by Frank Lonabaugh, too mean-spirited to be called parody, too bland to be called poetry, too boring to be considered at all. Go back to the drawing board, Frank, and come up with something worthwhile of the paper it is printed on. Beseechers, experimental poetry chapbook by Michael Basinski. 2000, 38 pages, Light and Dust Books, 7112 27th Ave., Kenosha, Wisconcin, 53143. See website or e-mail for price and ordering info. Http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/lighthom.htm and lndb@concentric.net Well, this is a chapbook of colorful experimental poetry, and while I didn't understand much of it and couldn't relate to it, I'm sure I know of at least one person who would want to buy it--experimental poet Mark Sonnenfeld! Michael Basinski thankfully explains each poem segment at the back of the book. In his notes for Breathe Song Of The Soil Fungi, Basisnki notes it is a" poem for three voices, Breathe, read, talk, sing, harmonize or otherwise join but always breathe at all double capital letters or double pairs of letters only." City Of Webs is an open poem that can be entered anywhere. The text moves up, down right, left, etc. The text looks like the alphabet with hieroglyphics added. The Wild Elephant is a colorful text which is a sound poem for voices. Venedian Bessechers is a poem based on the proto--Pagan Venedian culture; the words are read from right to left. The Coming Of The Circles has to do with the notion of energy, but it looks like crossword puzzle artwork. This chapbook is a little esoteric and hard to follow, but is beautifully printed on recycled paper with a gorgeous drawing of blue elpehants on the cover. The typography and layout is nice too. Kudos to Michael Basinski for following his muse and doing what he thinks is meaningful. We should all be so original. Blue Collar Work, poetry chapbook by Errol Miller. 2000, 44 pages, $6 ppd to Lummox Press, POB 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. Errol Miller is one of the most prolific poets around today along with Lyn Lifshin and Gerald Locklin. Alas, he has little to say in Blue Collar Work and just has diarrhea of the mouth, spewing streams of verbiage with no rhyme or reason, and no poetic flair or beauty to the words, which is a shame. I wanted to like this book but was struck by how little poetry there was. A Miller Lite Verse reads: ".They're using frogs now to study the effects of rain on the human brain: little fellows, they are very fragile, appearing rather bloated on their pads, deaf in one ear & sort of stupid in the other. Science & technology today. Shopping for the perfect cure, can you imagine a constipated cat in a sandbox terrified that its time is up? Just listen to your radio & you'll find acres of mango swamps covered with waves of bong-bong rock music. Things are not the same in Kansas since the wicked Witch of the West revealed her beautiful breasts were made of pliable plastic. All over the countryside the possible & the mundane is taking shape. People are paying their bills with homemade cash, spraying their bald spots with blonde paint as seen on tv, by Saturday night Cinderella is ready for the Hired Hand, by Sunday morning she's a mess, the three blind mice of the universe buttering their bread elsewhere & the Driver of the Coach calling home collect, my friends, support the arts, there's quality writing everywhere, have you read a good poem lately?" I haven't read a good poem here lately, in this collection... Bombed In New Mexico, poetry chapbook by Todd Moore And Mark Weber, with drawings by Charles Plymell and CE Millard. 2000, 44 pages, $6 ppd to The Lummox Press, POB 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. Todd Moore writes brutal, bold, violent verse about knifefights and the ensuing blood. Flowery beautiful poetry this ain't. Turks' Old reads: "man sat on a kitchen chair w/ his pants off his right foot in a frying pan the bullet had gone thru one side of his leg & out the other he was drinking jim beam & using a dish rag to mop the blood I was eating a 3 muskateers bar when he looked at me I sd you wanna bite he smiled & sd kid that shit'll kill ya." Grim stuff, but funny in a sick way! At least Mark Weber gets in some colorful descriptions and metaphors in his poetry. Opening Line For A Crime Fiction Novel reads: ": one shouldn't preface an impassioned testimony about a religious epiphany with the information that you are a veteran of "500 acid trips" and that you are presently on medications for a "bi-polar condition" it tends to dampen any ability for your listeners to sit still that you lived in a van "on the road" and haven't taken a hot shower in a month on your way to the Crow Reservation up in Montana to see a shaman and dance suppose to help you with these visions that overtake your dreams and the words keep coming out of your mouth like long streamers flapping interminably. 6may98". I dug Mark Weber's poetry but Todd Moore's was too violent to enjoy. Border Lines, poetry chapbook by Jill Polhemus, with cover art by Chris Bilger. 2000, 28 pages, $2 cash or check to Cari Taplin, PO Box 3189, Nederland, CO 80466. A moving, compassionate collection of heartfelt poetry of stark beauty. The author suffers from depression and borderline personality disorder, and the cover artist also suffers from mental illness, and drew what looks like the Amnesty International candle of hope, with a burning flame that lights up the night. These poems offer a glimpse into the world of mental illness. Season Of Silence reads: " "There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing, No end to the withering of withered flowers" -- T.S. Eliot Five was the age when she learned about silence. She wasn't supposed to play with you, but you led her into the springing woods. Your panties were white speckled yellow flowers, each cotton blossom tied with a terrible red ribbon. Open to the May air you beckoned "Kiss me here." Fingers not sufficient, you reached for the fallen limb of a quiet oak. Every creature lost its voice. She listened to the painful crackle of scattered leaves as she turned her ear to the verdant earth." The character seems to turn a deaf ear to love and sex, almost as if she is being molested and turning away from the world into a closed-off world of her own. Powerful words, images and ideas fill these poems in this chapbook. Highly recommended. Bourbon Skin, poetry chapbook by Jacqueline Kras & Francis LeMoine, 2000, 48 pages, $6 ppd to Lummox Press, POB 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. This is a dual effort in the charming Little Red Book series, by two talented poets, Jacqueline Kras and Francis LeMoine. Kras writes with a searing beauty and gets to the heart of the matter quickly: Beautiful Girl reads: "When you dance you close your eyes (I know why) when you follow the backbeat through the backdoor to movement you follow completely led while still strong from the stillness and the sound comes down to release you in its clutches to release you into grace and guided flight I won't ask where you go then (it's a bottomless question) down through the ground through the music I know why you close your eyes when you dance did I ever tell you that I dream of escaping (did I ever mention that I still dream) have you any sense of why I close my eyes or is the answer in the question where I left it beautiful girl there are streets of soft sound and untouched ground where the sky is a symphony of sea where the two never seek a separation and the widest eyes have never seen the difference (all the lookers are too busy dancing) and the only motivation to draw one's lids down is that the blue is nearly too much to behold." Sweet, flowery, lush verse makes Kras' poetry a joy to read. Lemoine's poetry is a nice companion to Kras' poems. LeMoine writes with grace and dignity also. I Watch Your Sleep And reads: " your years surface. You look older, like the end of winter, when your eyes are closed. Your face frowns, and I wonder at what in which dream. You hold yourself like an umbrella on a cloudy day. Were you cold in your dream? Your sleep looked crimped and wrinkled. Your sweater is across your knee. I reach over to touch it, then change my mind. I study the map of hair on your arms and wait for you to wake up." This is a wonderful collection of sweet verse; the two poets go well together. Cranial Tempest, bi-monthly chapbook-sized poetry magazine, edited by Jeff Fleming, 28 pages, April 2001, Vol. 2 No. 3, $2 sample issue or $10 for 6 issue subscription, to Jeff Fleming, Editor, 410 El Dorado St., Vallejo, CA 94590, publication pays one free issue. CranielTempest@hotmail.com. This is a fine new poetry zine brought to you by the man who gave you CannedPleghm. This new zine is small and nondescript, like many other chapbook sized zines, except the poems are better, from people you know well in the small press. It just seems the editorial standards are higher here. Good poems from Lyn Lifshin (God,is she in every zine that ever was?!), William Taylor, Jr., Karl Koweski, Catfish McDaris, John Sweet, Mark Terrill, and a host of others. This issue has an editorial letter by Fleming, and that is good. Might need a monthly editorial, some book reviews, and drawings to make it stand out from the crowd, but overall a good read. Now, if I could just understand the cryptic Spanish words on the cover!... Delirious and Purple, poetry chapbook by Jeff Fleming. 2000, 20 pages, $2 cash or check made out to Cari Taplin, PO Box 3189, Nederland, CO 80466. A terrific chapbook of what poetry should be -- flowery, rich in metaphor and description, beautifully wrought turns of phrases. Paint Creek reads: "There are ghosts in the orchard picking fruit telling stories of cider and donuts and crisp fall days where you can bite the air like an apple." Delirious and Purple reads: "The weak iron sky boils my life down to a misty black shadow, a raw dream, a sad picture smelling of winter. The gorgeous sweet wind cuts likea knife in the hands of love, I chant something delirious and purple." Vibrant, full of life, this is poetry that sings. I hope to read a full-length collection by Jeff Fleming some day. I Kiss The Feet Of Angels, poetry chapbook, 2001, 24 pages, $6 ppd to Butcher Shop Press, 30 West St., Apt. 1B, Oneonta, NY 13820, limited edition 100 numbered copies. A.D. Winans is a brilliant second-generation Beat Poet, but he doesn't want to be known as such. He prefers to be called a man of the streets. He's got it going on, a brilliant word association style bebop blues magoo, and he walks with angels when he writes. The title poem I Kiss The Feet Of Angels reads: "dark starry night fog creeping in over the hills rain drops falling on the window I see the faces of old friends staring at me ghosts from the past freight trains steam ships subway trains carrying their cargo of death Rimbaud the mad hatter Baudelaire Lorca fed a dinner of bullets Kaufman black messiah walking Bourbon Street eating a golden sardine Micheline drinking with Kerouac at the old Cedar Tavern Jesus wiping the perspiration from his forehead the fog horn plays a symphony inside my head I hear the drums I feel the beat I kiss the feet of angels." The bulk of these poems talk about socio-political events, like Mexican prostitutes, not jazz topics, but they are still interesting. These poems linger in the mind long after you read them. I love Winans' poems, especially the jazz poems, just great stuff. Wish I could write like him! Highly recommended. No Earthly Sense Gets It Right, poetry chapbook by Linda Lerner. 2000, 48 pages, $6 ppd to The Lummox Press, POB 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. This is a touching collection of poetry by Linda Lerner, about her late father and ailing mother. She had a strained relationship with her father, and the pain comes through in these memory poems. That Last Visit reads: "for my father, Philip Lerner, 4/15/1900-12/30/85. Somebody's father is sick, tubes sprout from his mouth, his arms -- the cold /white of winter borrowing human form. He looks at me, those same damn hazel eyes. And my father, in the shape of his anger, my father, fist clenched, eyes blazing in the old way, rises, and once more, thunders toward me, the daughter whose death he mourned three times: I was nine, I didn't know of any passage, first, through grief, just his anger/blame, fast speeding like that car...it struck me, all that terrible summer, my foot in a cast...it struck me...I lay in bed, I listened, and years later in the arms of my Irish lover, his voice, the Jewish prayer for the dead, and when I left his house, unmarried, "No daughter of mine/no daughter of mine!" A nurse taps my shoulder. It is over. Visiting hours. An old Russian man holds out his hand. I take it. Afterall, what does he have to do with any father/daughter tug of war in my memory. I let go. I think of kissing his cheek." Linda writes tenderly about coming to an understanding with her father, and that it doesn't have to mean forgiveness. We can relate to the poems in this chapbook, no matter how close or strained our relationship with our parents are. Lerner writes about closure and compassion, beautifully. On/Off The Beaten Path, poetry chapbook by R.D. Armstrong, 2000, 56 pages, $6 ppd to The Lummox Press, POB 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. This is another in the charming Little Red Book Series. I enjoyed this travelogue diary of Raindog (R.D. Armstrong)'s trip to New Mexico, with four drawings by R.D. Honestly, where does R.D. find time to publish the monthly Lummox Journal and the monthly Little Red Book and travel? This min-chap is written in diary-like style but has poetic flourishes. "A train moves across the desert like Morse Code-- dots and dashes heading south towards Amboy all washed in muted hues of desert grays and greens. Needles flashes by like a junkie's promise. Colorado River cuts a lazy swath twisting gently towards the Baja and Sea of Cortez. Crawling uphill towards AZ proper Ocatillo whips in bloom Holy Moses Wash Andy Devine Parkway Shinarump Avenue CB World. Sandstone slab walls retaining hills older than dirt Kingman traffic jam session (twenty cars) -- deserted road suddenly crowded with urgency. Fractured lava caps sandstone cliffs red and stoic as if Indians wait to charge down on hapless wagon trains along Interstate Forty ala John Ford western epic. Climbing now, eyeball to eyeball with red-tailed hawk and sore-assed snowbirds migrating north for the summer. Five thousand feet of blue sky spreading wide like smile on mother of prodigal son then sudden puff of single cotton-tail cloud drifting lazy across vast and holy blueness..." I felt as though I were there along for the ride, and that if I took this trip myself I'd pass the same landmarks R.D. passed on his journey. We travel to give ourselves a new perspective on life, and here R.D. gains a sense of freedom and longing and visiting good friends that can only be found On The Road. A fine read. Paper Heart Vol. 3, poetry by Raindog (R.D. Armstrong), with drawings by Claudio Parentela. 2000, 52 pages, $6 ppd. To The Lummox Press, POB 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. Who would have thunk that Raindog was a lover boy?! Most of the poetry here is romantic and sweet; occasionally Raindog veers into parody, as in the poem Red Petals: "...I dream of pushing my sword deep into my lover's scabbard..." Most of the poems are serious though, flowery and sweet in their language: The Rain, The Rain Falls and Falls, The Rain Falls For Days On End reads: " The rain falls the room is tragically dark the streetlight on the corner creates a waterfall on your face, blending with the tears that I know must be there The rain falls for days on end and I know you must be crying like that train that I hear in the distance, I am mesmerized by your Modigliani-face The rain falls and I long for you but only your memory lingers in the room like an odd perfume as still as wood your face: as the curtain of rain closes around me a liquid shroud that will shimmer in the light of a new day." A perfect gift for Valentines Day! Stovepipe, poetry magazine, 2001, 32 pages, $2 single issue U.S. $3.50 Canada/Mexico; $10 per 4 issue subscription, $16 foreign sub. Will trade for zines, chaps. Make checks payable to Troy Teegarden, Sweet Lady Moon Press, PO Box 1076 Georgetown, KY 40324. Stovepipe says on the cover it is "a journal of little literary value", but that is not true. The poems, short stories and drawings are very good and engage the reader. 1974 by David Minton reads: "They're over: Those nights of velvet-maroon curtains hanging from nothing in the orange universe. We're watching this storm roll in, black tornado clouds, lightning, eerie green cast to the air, swirling tops of trees, drinking beer. Bums in rags blow past the picture window looking for Barnum & Bailey. The cat crouches in an open grass field. Our lives are spread out on the plane, out past the winter-like unseeable fogs, & change is imminent now. A squirrel hurries across in electric wire from maple to pine past the next house. Huge spark sideways. We laugh at close thunder & a thrashing-about in the invisible." Very good poetry with recognizable small press names make this a fine read, at an affordable price. 13 Jazz Poems, poetry chapbook by A.D. Winans, and Poem For Mingus, poetry broadside by A.D.Winans. 2000, 18 pages, X-Ray Book Company, Limited Edition, letterpress and hand sewn, $11 ppd, signed copies from A.D. Winans, POB 31249, San Francisco, CA 94131 and 2000, 4 pages, with photos of Mingus and Winans, published by Free Thought Press, Signed copy $5 ppd to A.D. Winans, POB 31249, San Francisco 94131. Mingus broadside available free with the order of 13 Jazz Poems, mention review source. These jazz poem companion pieces are superb examples of the Beat style of bebop free association poetry of the Beat generation. A.D. is a second generation Beat poet and a man of the streets. He writes like a wildcat on fire, free associating into the night, as "outside the stars commit cunnilingus with the universe." Poem For Mingus is and excerpt from 13 Jazz Poems, one of the strongest in the bunch: "hot lava erupting in my veins wet sex screams riding my veins white hot lightning bleeding my heart like an undertaker dressing the dead your rainbow notes cutting into me like a surgeon's scalpel leaves me feeling like a drunk Jesus walking on water." Both editions are beautifully done, put together by hand with loving care and signed by Winans. Wonderful poems, nice companion pieces, buy them today before they sell out! Too Many Hours To Kill Until Dawn, fiction chapbook by Brent McKnight, November 2000, 34 pages, $2 cash or check to Five Minutes Left, 1810 Jacobson Blvd., Bremerton, WA 98310. This chapbook consists of three gritty, realistic down and dirty stories, brimming with gutbucket details and dialogue. The first story is about a wandering soul who runs into a girl he used to like, named September. The second story is a bout a bunch of card-playing losers at a party, and the third story is about a small time crook who makes one last run for the money (with a predictable ending). The second story, It Takes A While For Sleep To Come, reads in part: "Outside of a bar two drunk guys yell something at me in gibberish that I can't begin to understand, so I flip them off on principle. They mumble about it, but let it slide, none of us are in the mood for a fight, it's too cold, too late. But it's a good kind of cold, the kind that chills right through your skin and pokes at the bone, driving out any tiredness that may have crept in. Not that I'm in any immediate danger of falling asleep, there are still more than a few hours to kill until dawn. I can't remember the last time I fell asleep when it wasn't light outside. I like to think I'm turning into a vampire, but I don't have an all consuming lust for human blood, so I'm probably not..." These stories were well-written and funny in a sad is-that-all-there-is-to-life? way. McKnight knows how to place details just right so that the stories remain amusing read after read. Please send poetry books, chapbooks, cds, broadsides or whatever for review to Ralph Haselmann Jr. at 67 Norma Road, Hampton, New Jersey 08827. Include price plus postage, who to make check out to, and address to order from. 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, inlcuding David McNamara's poetry )ism( list, Doug Holder's list, Kelly DeSaint's list, J.J. Campbell's list and Frank Moore's list, after which they will be archived on my Lucid Moon Poetry Website. My reviews are also picked up by 5 websites, including Al Aronowitz' The Blacklisted Journalist website (http://www.bigmagic.com/pages/blackj/index.html), Joe Grant's BookZen website (http://www.bookzen.com/ ), Andre Cordrescue's Exquisite Corpse, (http://www.exquisitecorpse.org), Carlye Archibeque's The Independent Review Site (http://www.irs.theroadlesstraveled.org), Brian Morrisey's Poesy magazine and website (http://www.geocities.com/bmorrise2/) Don Hoyt's Web Writer's Workshop (http://www.webwritersworkshop.com). Ralph Haselmann Jr. HOME PAGE & ARCHIVES
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