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Issue #2.0, section b 4/93
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TapRoot is a quarterly publication of Independent, Underground,
and Experimental language-centered arts. Over the past 10 years,
we have published 40+ collections of poetry, writing, and visio-
verbal art in a variety of formats. In the August of 1992, we
began publish TapRoot Reviews, featuring a wide range of "Micro-
Press" publications, primarily language-oriented. This posting
is the first section of our 2nd full electronic issue, containing
all of the short CHAPBOOK reviews; a second section contains all of
the zine reviews. We provide this information in the hope
that netters do not limit their reading to E-mail & BBSs.
Please e-mail your feedback to the editor, Luigi-Bob Drake, at:
au462@cleveland.freenet.edu
Requests for e-mail subsctiptions should be sent to the same
address--they are free, please indicate what you are requesting--
(a short but human message; this is not an automated listserve).
I believe it is FTPable from UMich, which also archives back issues.
A cummulative, searchable, and x-referenced HyperCard version is
under development--e-mail for status & availablility information.
Hard-copies of TapRoot Reviews contain additional review
material--in this issue, reviews & articles by Jake Berry, Tom
Beckett, geof huth, Kurt Nimmo, Tom Willoch--as well as a variety
of poetry prose & grafix. It is available from: Burning Press,
PO Box 585, Lakewood OH 44107--$2.50 pp. Both the print &
electronic versions of TapRoot are copyright 1993 by Burning
Press, Cleveland. Burning Press is a non-profit educational
corporation. Permission granted to reproduce this material FOR
NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, provided that this introductory notice
is included. Burning Press is supported, in part, with funds
from the Ohio Arts Council.
Reviewers are identified by their initials at the end of each review:
Tom Beckett, Jake Berry, Luigi-Bob Drake, R. Lee Etzwiler, Bob Grumman,
Roger Kyle-Keith, Bill Paulauskas, John Stickney, Nico Vassilakis,
Thomas Wiloch, and Ron Zac
*** Many thanx to all contributors. ***
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'CHAPS:
Al Ackerman: PROUD CRAY--Popular Reality, Box 2942, Ann Arbor MI,
48106. 30 pp., $4.00. Ackerman's reminiscences of Crowbar, the
founder of Popular Reality, and Keester House, the combination
flophouse, youth hostel, warehouse for stolen appliances, amatory
chiropractic clinic, home for the feeble-minded and insane asylum that
Crowbar runs with the help of a spirit guide he contacts by inserting
his finger into an actual hole in his head and twirling it. In short,
standard Ackerman humor, which is to say, an absolute howl.--bg
Curt Anderson: BENT ANTENNA--e.g. press, 1506 Grand Ave #3, St. Paul,
MN, 55105. 44 pp., $5.00. A series of prose vignettes, each based on
a "classic" 60's TV series (Gilligan's Island, Twilight Zone, Hogan's
Heros). Each one is as inspiring & deeply philosophic as their mass-
culture predecessors. In the Get Smart episode, Max & Agent 99 are
called in to fight a new, more depraved chapter of K.A.O.S.:
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E. Agent 99 draws out the villains by reciting work by
Sylvia Plath & Robert Penn Warren at a poetry reading--once the evil-
doers are identified by their hysteric reaction, they're rounded up,
while Max & 99 go back to the apartment and do what we all knew they
did but never saw. Great.--lbd
Bruce Andrews: STET, SIC & SP--Case Books, PO Box 292, Salisbury CT,
06068. 18 pp., $6.00. Four recent texts by so-called L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
poetry's Ayatollah of political scat song.
The first piece, "Time Expansion," explores in twenty short
sections the microtechnics of reading through an aesthetic of delay.
It was originally presented to the public as part of the music
accompanying the choreography of Sally Silver's "Oops Fact."
"Secret Refracted Somewhere Else" is a vintage Andrews collage
poem -- short, quickwitted rhetorical jumpcuts.
"Improvisation," the transcript of a thirty-five minute
performance piece, is the heart of the book. Improvised in the act at
St. Marks Poetry Project in NYC during the first week of the first war
with Iraq it crackles with humorous rage and some of-the sassiest and
most refreshing political backtalk I've heard in a long time.
The volume closes with "Black" an elegant abecedarian list poem
which effectively and economically underlines the basis of racism in
America in the first half of each line. The last five lines:
white vote
white who
white xerox
white yanking
white zeitgeist
STET, SIC, & SP. is a bulletin from the frontlines of politically
committed formally innovative writing. It's a rare bargain.--tb
John M. Bennett: LEG--Luna Bisonte Prods, 137 Leland Ave., Columbus
OH, 43214. 8 pp., $1.00. A 5-poem sequence whose first poem ends:
"like the window's seen from inside the wall where/ the damp dreams
bloom like the mold pressed in where my/ lack churns like an I thinks
in." Most of this makes normal sense, even the image of a "lack" that
"churns"--or an agitating awareness that something's missing; but
"like an I thinks in," in typical Bennett fashion smears us whereless.
An eventual semi-comprehension is possible, though. For instance, the
"I" might be sinking into the persona's mind as pure thought, but
doing so in the churning way some sense of incompleteness might emerge
into consciousness. Yes, very mold-murky, but engrossing for those of
us that like this kind of adventure.--bg
John M. Bennett: TOXIN--Luna Bisonte Prods, 137 Leland Ave., Columbus
OH, 43214. 4 pp., $1.00. Two inimitable Bennett poems that,
characteristically, seem raved from the mind of an amoeba with a
human's viscera--or the thought of some mineral writhing toward
semblance of life--or... whatever. The poems are semi-coherently
scrawled, with doughnuts, bugs, a skull and other decorations--but
typed translations are provided. Also included, two revealing
appraisals of his poetry by Susan Smith Nash.--bg
John M. Bennett & Susan Smith Nash: OUTLIERS OF EXTINCTION--Luna
Bisonte Prods, 137 Leland Ave, Columbus OH, 43214. 4 pp., $1.00.
Bennett's poetry is so wonderfully pre-logical, slithery and large
that it lavas on regardless of any non-Bennett boulders it picks up.
So his many collaborations, like the five here with Susan Smith Nash,
are almost always as fascinating as his all-Bennett benders--not to
diminish the added boulders. One title from this set should give a
taste: "LIKEN PHYSIOGMETRICS SUNLIGHT, HOME & MY HAND HOLDING SERUM,
SOFT W/HOWLING." This pamphlet also has another worthwhile prose
observation by Nash on Bennett's poetry.--bg
Lynne Micon Bruno, Cindi Brockett & David Goldschlag: UNRAVELLED--
PO Box 7392, Van Nuys CA, 91409. 20 pp., $2.00. This set of poems,
actually three sets by three different poets, covers a wide area of
interest. From drive-by shootings to grandmother memorials,
alcoholism to Greek gods; death, executions, Jamaican Dubs, and AIDs.
lt is neatly done, clean, and the art work is by Wayne Hogan. Poetry
from a keen eye and a cool mind, it makes you think. For two bucks
how can you miss?--rle
Didier Cahen, translated by Cid Corman: A WORLD IN PROSE--tel-let,
1818 Phillips Pl., Charleston, IL, 61920. 34 pp. Poems that tick off
various greys and nullities in flat usually two- to four-word
sentences like- "all secret/ sky infirm/ distant runs the other
shore." But the poems, in sequence, subtly (and secularly) sneak from
genesis ("Man comes/ day breaks") to a poem in which "the fable is
renewed" and "all is carven in you/ life envelops night/ dying is
impossible."--bg
jw curry: RE: VIEWS: RE: SPONSES: COLLECTED CONCRETE CRITICISMS, 1981-
1990--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte, FL, 33949.
$10.00. An 8 1/2 X 11 book of visual poems, each one being a "review"
or response to a different book. The pieces are in response to works
by Miekal And, bill bissett, Charles Bukowski, d.a. levy, Frank Zappa,
and several others. Regardless of their "usefulness" as reviews,
these are all lively and inventive poems, using a great variety of
techniques and approaches: no two are alike in fact. This is work
from one of the liveliest and most experimental minds around.--jmb
jw curry: THAT FUCKING LINE THAT--Writers Forum, available from
Rm. 312 Books, 1357 Lansdowne Ave., Toronto ONT, CANADA, M6H 3Z9.
At long last curry has collected his poetry into a single volume: most
of it is from the 1980's, much of it previously published in scattered
journals and broadsides. Having his work together is a great
pleasure, as it reveals a distinct intelligence at work, combining,
often in the same poem, a lively concern with visuality, deliberate
processes of thought, and a zen-like delight in the ineffable
juxtapositions of words. The poems range in length from one word to a
full page, and many are collaborations with other writers. An
essential collection.--jmb
Daniel Davidson: WEATHER--Score, 125 B Bayview Drive, Mill Valley CA,
94941. 26 pp., $5.00. This long poem of short, linked segments has a
peculiar sort of Raymond Roussel meets Bert Brecht with Basho quality.
Parentheses continually interrupt the text's flow creating a surreal
alienation effect haiku sequence that's really quite fascinating.
There are so many parenthetical partitions it is almost as if the
other materials have leaked out in loco parenthesis. This is an
innovative little book.--tb
Mike Davis: BEYOND BLADE RUNNER: URBAN CONTROL, THE ECOLOGY OF FEAR--
Open Media, PO Box 2726, Westfield, NJ, 07091. 22 pp., $3.50. What
will Los Angeles (or any major city) be like in the year 2109? Davis
sorts out the possibilities in this chap, the 23rd in OPEN Magazine's
pamphlet series. While it probably won't be like that depicted in the
film Blade Runner, it probably won't be any better either. Projecting
a "Gibsonian" map of future L.A. and drawing somewhat from the work of
Ernest W. Burgess and his diagram projection of Chicago from the
1920's, Davis brings current socioeconomic-political factors to bear
on his vision. From this basis we see our cities becoming
technologically and physically segregated into zones of protection
and/or terror. We have begun to build cages to sustain ourselves in
an urban landscape grown increasingly hostile due to vast economic
disparities. The rich live in gated protected regions while the poor
are relegated to a high-tech maintained urban wasteland that amounts
to an anarchic prison colony. Current and potential municipal
strategies provide ample evidence that these agencies of control are
already established and need only augment themselves to "perfect" the
dystopia.
The most provocative aspect of the whole thing however is that
this may be the future not only of the megalopolis, but small cities
and towns as well. Does your town have Neighborhood Watch, or a SWAT
team? These ideas originated from the Los Angeles Police Department's
attempt to control the burgeoning multi-ethnic population. As always
with the OPEN series of pamphlets, this is a chilling indictment of
the forces of control. Ignorance is slavery.--jb
Bill Dimichele: HEART ON THE RIGHT--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621,
Port Charlotte FL, 33949. Very tight literal surrealistic images that
want to involve the reader in the poet's interior turmoil. This is
somewhat of a painful trip... not too many laughs here. Has a
political edge and combined with the apocalyptic visions this kind of
writing can wear one down if you're looking for a romp in the hay with
*LANGWIDGE*. But then, Garcia Lorca wasn't exactly a Groucho Marx
either. Large fullpage format. --bp
Lainie Duro & Edward Mycue: A MURDERED ETERNITY/GRATE COUNTRY--Oyster
Publications, 1015 E. 49th., Austin, TX, 78751, 56 pp., , A dos-a-dos
chap, each poet starting at one cover of the book and working towards
the center. The dos-a-dos format always reminds me of "69" oral sex--
the head of each at the tail of the other--and while sexual imagery is
abundant in the poetry, such equality & mutual satisfaction is not.
Lainie laments love lost or lacking; Edward's woes are added to by
homophobia and AIDS. Honest rather than polished--Lainie is the rawer
of the pair, while Edward wraps his wounds in wordage--in the end,
we're not sure if either one is healed in the process.--lbd
john e.aton: EUROPE'S LOWER EAST SIDE and BROWN, MANUSCRIPTS ON
MEXICO--Shattered Wig Productions, 523 E. 38th St., Baltimore MD,
21218. 40 pp., $3.00. Right away this book strikes you as peculiar
because it contains large fold-out maps inside either cover. One of
the U.S. and Mexico, one of Hungary. But these are more than a
traveler's observation of the people and land he visits--these poems
are rich with a life all their own. In terms of both substance and
technique the words and phrases flow and work around one another. The
boundary between inner and outer reality dissolves and we are drawn
through a world of images charged with emotion. These poems are
explorations of what it means to be in these places, confronted with
these circumstances. e.aton has done his work well and Shattered Wig
should be commended for bringing it to light.--jb
Evert Eden: I'M NOT A WHITE MAN--G. Marie Press, PO Box 211, East
Meadow NY, 11554. 4 pp., $2.00. In two parts: "Song of the White
Man/Curse of the White Man"--the first part running down all the
cliche bad things white men are/do, the next repudiating the same.
The author is from South Africa, which makes it all the more pointed.
He runs one of the Poetry Slams at the Nuyorican Cafe in NY, and these
would work well in a Slam: accessible, PC, and under 3 minutes.--lbd
Theodore Enslin: GAMMA UT--tel-let, 1818 Phillips Pl., Charleston, IL,
61920. 32 pp. Deftly, even masterfully, inept attempts to
communicate, as an the following untitled poem: "So much/ to think/ to
say of it// I cannot/ words excuse/ me simple// diction/ yet I
have not said." Wonderful epiphanies occur, such as a look through
branches "to catch the glint of light/ that follows water/ out
where more than water is."--bg
Csar Espinosa (ed.), translated by Harry Polkinhorn: CORROSIVE
SIGNS--Maisonneuve Press, PO Box 2980, Washington, DC, 20013, 129 pp.,
$9.95, A welcome dose of international perspective on experimental
underground literature. Visual & concrete poetry has a strong
heritage in Spanish-speaking countries, and this anthology presents a
variety of essays on it's history & practice. They are collected from
a variety of sources, and don't hang together in any kind of order,
but taken as a whole seem to cover a lot of ground. Includes a
couple-dozen examples of work, which mostly serve to whet the appetite
for more--a 50/50 mix of samples/essay would've been nice.--lbd
David Gianatasio: BEND BACKWARD FOR SHARPER RECEPTION--Runaway Spoon
Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. A series of short
poems making use of various forms of minimalist and elliptical
expression. Most of the poems also make use of an implied narrative
or discursive structure. The contrast (or balance) between that and
the haiku-like techniques can be extremely effective:
the deserted parking lot
engine regards a vacant space
"grrrbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," it says
"grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"
it's saying your name
no it isn't
--jmb
David Goldschiag & Lynne Micon Bruno (eds): DIAMONDS IN A FROZEN
CAVERN--PO Box 7392, Van Nuys, CA, 91409. 20 pp., $3.00. "Nine Los
Angeles Pierce College Poets Speak Out On AIDS." If you are socially
aware this chapbook will send your thoughts nebula. It creates a
flame which begins mentally, becomes physical, and ends up altering
one's social concerns. Poetry can indeed alter the way we view the
world. It can alter this view forever and become an enlightening,
spine-tingling (I mean literally) adventure of learning, changing, and
evolving socially. I guess art does free the spirit and enlightens
the masses as a friend of mine once said. A friend I loved dearly. A
friend who died of AIDS. I prefer to think of it as "Harsh art for
harsh times." This becomes a chant which rumbles through my mind
whenever I read something which affects me as deeply at this chapbook.
Yes, these are harsh times, and Diamonds in a Frozen Cavern is a work
which will awaken the reader with it's indicators of the heart and
mind. These are words bound by our society's press of necessity.--rle
LeRoy Gorman: HEAVYN--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte
FL, 33949. $3.00. A thick little book of one-line texts consisting
of what at first glance look like words with arbitrary spaces between
the letters. For example:
sur plu sti des ubs eed
Each of these texts, however, is a protean object for meditation.
Different words appear and/or are suggested to create the effect of a
much larger and more complex work. A maximum example of minimalism.
--jmb
Robert Gregory: BOY PICKED UP BY THE WIND--English Dept., Emporia
State, KS, 66801. $9.95. How does all this fit together and work so
well? Zany, tender, surreal, curious, imaginative. How do these
poems sound conversational and/or informative while taking such abrupt
shifts in scene/tone/angle so seamlessly? Poems entitled "They Wash
Their Ambassadors in Citrus and Fennel" and "Thomas Jeffersons's
Garden of White Machines." A sense that this language sees, opens and
cuts through, maybe sometimes victimizing/stranding the poet. A wide
range of emotions and of questions, but I want to got there, a net to
fall up from. "The doctor's yard is full of bones/ and the dream-work
is just a kind of golfswing, by father said." It amazes and
encourages me that a book as avant and energized as this won a
university press competition.--dan raphael
Jessica Grim: THE INVETERATE LIFE--O Books, 5729 Clover Drive,
Oakland, CA, 94618. 61 pp., $7.50. This is a volume of prose format
poems, a newer sentence, if you please, enacting a kind of drama of
the daily fact transmogrified. Jessica Grimm's work shirks nothing.
It's always on, attentive to synapses and lapses of thought, sounding
well-envisioned thinking, feeling out amongst a thorough listening.
Recently I read Twyla Tharp's autobiography and wanted to dance.
THE INVETERATE LIFE makes me want to write--it is that inspiring.--tb
Bob Grumman: MATHEMAKU 1-5--Tel-Let, 1818 Phillips PI., Charleston IL,
61920. $4.00. A small book of six (1 is in 2 parts) haiku-like poems
constructed as if they were mathematical formulae. They are amazingly
effective in eliciting a sense of place/time using the barest of
means. No. 2 reads:
March=
(meadows.)(:/.),
slowly
--jmb
Fritz Hamilton: NO DIFFERENCE--5976 Billings Road, Parkdale OR, 97041.
25 pp., $2.50. Ten poems composing a mini-chapbook and devoted to the
testimony of helplessness, dereliction, and addiction. The characters
are winos, a Vietnam vet, and a woman amidst family tragedy. Their
stories are combined into a Beat-Rant style similar to a subjective
Gonzo Journalism where Hamilton has immersed himself in the scene,
becomes deeply involved, and passionately spews out the frustration
and anger in long, unpunctuated, rants; with long flowing cadences and
repetitions. There is a touch of divine nothingness here as it
appears all are abandoned, trapped within a life of selfdestruction
and decay. Jesus in a Detox Center, and a dead wino in a plastic bag
waiting for the garbage truck to pick him up are just two examples of
the frightening symbolism here. The connotations are not subtle,and
futility is the icon of repetition. This poetry is dark and
depressing, evoking fears of failure with visions of street people as
powerful as a national disaster. This then is why No Difference is an
important work. It has the ability to draw the reader into the scene,
this device creates a potent self-awareness. For example these lines:
"Old Joe Corbett sleeping/ on a pile of plastic/ garbage bags filled/
with winos' souls..."--rle
W. Joe Hoppe: HARMON PLACE--Primal Publishing, 107 Brighton Ave.,
Allston MA, 02134. 76 pp., $5.95. In this collection of short
stories Hoppe confronts some of the nastier elements--landlords, bad
hotels, drunks in the hall, brutal poverty, etc. Occasionally he
breaks into Kerouacian euphony and beatitude, but for the most part
it's beat dead on. No melodrama, no romanticization, Hoppe is a man
unafraid to witness the horrors in front of him for what they are and
then bring it home in our face. To say he lives his work is a gross
understatement--there appears to be no difference between the two. In
case you haven't noticed, if you turn off the TV there's a real world
out there. These are tales of that world.--jb
Marshall Hryciuk: THE GATHERED GALLOPING SYNTAX STRANDS--Runaway Spoon
Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte, FL, 33949. Mysterious experimental
poetry and xerox visual overlays and scrawls on found text and it's
got a unity which is Hryciuk's intelligence and ability to outwrite
any naive attempt to fit the images together into Procrustean sense...
whatever THAT is. It reads like a 19th century transcript of a mad
alchemist's diary/secret formula hoard. This is an original voice
that reaches out and grabs you. Large format, full of ideas and
language-rockets. --bp
Albert Huffstickler: WORK--312 E. 43 St. #103, Austin TX, 78751. 8pp.
A tantalizing taste of Huff's experiences over the past 20 years and
more. The most recent addition to his incredibly prolific output,
WORK documents some of the many jobs that Huff has held in poems
titled "Day Labor," "First Day at the Furniture Factory,"
"Apprenticeship," and "Short Order Waiter." He has clearly been
inside and felt what the average worker feels but often cannot
express--the pain and sweat, the relationships, the liberation and
frustration that can only come with the exhaustion of hard labor.
"Skirmish" describes an experience in a day labor office after someone
is kicked out for wearing a marine field jacket--attire the dispatcher
felt was disrespectful. The frustration and pain of fellow laborers
is felt, yet they all are resigned to go on to the jobs they so
desperately need "...the stranger in the field jacket forgotten,/
another nameless casualty in the war against the system." In
"Sanctification" he compares writing poetry to the grease, sweat, and
long hours of restaurant work--In either job, the speaker learns from
Holmes, the 14 hour a day cook, that it is necessary give oneself
fully. The speaker chooses poetry, "...it was the only thing I/ ever
found that I could give myself / to the way Holmes gave himself to/
restaurant work: it was the only way/ I could ever be sanctified."
--rz
Geof Huth:I'TS--eXpeRimeNtaL (basEmeNt) pReSs, 3740 North Romero Rd.,
#A-9191, Tucson AZ, 85705. $1.00? A series of distorted and highly
suggestive (like the title) printed on a cleverly cut and folded
single sheet, so that any number of different arrangements or
sentences are possible. For example, one might begin, "Its fhe mesure
ofor lvl..." The possibilities are endlessly folded, unfolded,
closing, opening...--jmb
M. Kettner: FULL PENNY JAR--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port
Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. Intros. by Noemie Maxwell and Nico
Vassilakis; computer illus. by Mike Miskowski. A collection of
Kettner's haiku--he's written hundreds over the years--that includes
some of his best. Some of these are essentially traditional haiku in
form and perception, though eschewing the cornball "fireflies and
sunset" content: "house to be demolished:/ on its side,/ refrigerator
in the front doorway." Others break new ground: "siren distant
pine tree." This is haiku not as a "literary" exercise, but as a
practice in attention and expanding awareness.--jmb
David C. Kopaska-Merkel: UNDERFOOT--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621,
Port Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. Intro. by G. Huth; illus. by Sheila
Kopaska-Merkel. Many of these poems arise from the world of
speculative and fantasy poetry, but avoid the excesses of much of the
work in that genre. The best of Kopaska-Merkel's work in that vein
shows a concision that pulls toward the other pole of this book, a
kind of minimalist expression that betrays an interest in language as
a means of expressing the inexpressible: "wrong side of the/ white
sky surf/ knife edge over mountains."--jmb
Stephen-Paul Martin: THE FLOOD--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port
Charlotte FL, 33949. 100 pp., $7.00. Intro. by Richard Royal,
afterword by Harry Polkinhorn. Represents six months of experimenting
with a SmithCorona 2500 typerwriter by Martin, in which time he has
covered scores of pages with concrete typetics, prose, and verse which
seems to "center" on biblical/presidential moments. The presentation
is greatly enhanced by the quality of Martin's use of language and
imagery. Visual puns, cutups, letters overlaid on each other, it's
all here and in a format large enough to give you the feel of seeing
it in its original size.--bp
A thick 81/2 X 11 sequence of visual texts (really one long work) all
created using a Smith-Corona electric typewriter. The work refers to
the story of Noah and to "the President" among other things, and
combines a narrative flow with the more suspensive or static approach
one may take with each page. Noah and "the President" are topics of a
dialectic between the world destroying itself and moving toward hope.
A major work in a genre Martin excels in.--jmb
Larry McCaffery (ed): AVANT-POP: Fiction for a Daydream Nation--Black
Ice Books, PO Box 241, Boulder CO, 80306. 250 pp., $7.00. Fictions
ranging from cyber-punk SF to PostModernLiterature, with plenty of sex
& violence and enough sense to laugh at it(self) sometimes. Some
older hands like Kathy Acker & Samuel R. Delany, lots of newer punks,
and some surprizes like Harry Polkinhorn in the SciFi mode. Bite-size
bits make this easy to get into and out of--if you like, say, Wm. S.
Burroughs, it makes for a "pleasant read". One of the initial
offerings from Black Ice Books, somehow in cahoots with a resurrected
Fiction Collective, which has seen several incarnations.--lbd
Thom Metzger: THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!--Autonomedia, 55 South 11th
St., PO Box 568 Williamsburg Station, 11211. 181 pp., $6.00. A
collection of unrelated rants, roars and other misc. stuff culled from
Metzger's Zigguart Press. Advertised as a anarchist horror novel
(it's not). Still, anyone who chooses James Brown, not Jean
Baudrillard, is on the right tract. Ouch.--js
Judy Murray: HE SOFT SIGHS OF IF--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port
Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. Poetry, with photographs of highway
scenes. These poems are suffused with a playful surrealism that
expresses a pleasure in being in the world:
Oh you have a silly buckle in your mouth
this morning
Did you swallow a pillow of happy as you lay down
my love
Beside Churgle and Who Hah and Howdey Legs
I think I'll take a sun tickle bath myself
Pull out the Wha Hoo plug
--jmb
Stanley Nelson: IMMIGRANT, BOOK II--Birch Brook Press, PO Box 81,
Delhi NY, 13753. 110 pg. The second of 4 installations, this series
is a valuable guide to the mystique of Brooklyn, New York. Like
William Carlos William's Paterson, there is rich historical support,
as well as contemporary reportage. Ten years in the making, Nelson
has fashioned an homage to Brooklyn. Immigrant is a 400 page poem
which chronicles the poet's memories alongside Brooklyn's own past.
It is written in a very readable cut-up verse that welcomes both
linguistic and ludic reader. There is an ease and effortlessness that
shines through; the mark of a strong writer.--nv
F.A. Nettelbeck: ECOSYSTEMS COLLAPSING--Inkblot, 439 49th St., #11,
Oakland, CA, 94609. $10.00. An elegantly produced perfectbound book
containing "expanded and rejuvenated" (the author's words) sections
from his well-known BUG DEATH (1979). This book functions as a single
whole, however, and provides an excellent taste of Nettelback's art,
which is perhaps harder to appreciate through short takes appearing in
magazines. ECOSYSTEMS COLLAPSING is really a single long poem,
creating through a variety of literary and visual techniques the
impression of a multitude of voices speaking through a single
totalizing consciousness, a consciousness that judges while at the
same time being all it contains:
exciting intriguing breathtaking
sleep "Best/
legs twitch in blasting dreams
new character, good. we'll
see"
Essential reading.--jmb
A.L. Nielsen: EVACUATION ROUTES--Score Publications, 125 B. Bay View
Dr., Mill Valley CA, 94941. 28 pp., $5.00. A series of 13 "routes",
with occasional sidetrips, each originating in a letter:
ROUTE U
Rub
Not seen since page one? "There's the erase." He
broke hiscollar-bone swimming with an abandoned baby.
A pal; an ode. AMr.and Mrs. Van Winkle died in their
sleep last night in a four alarm blaze which destroyed
their home...
This beginning is typical of the work in this compelling book:
coherent sentences juxtaposed often with little in the way of
"logical" discursive relationship. The logic, however, lies in a
subjective linking: one thing suggesting another, sometimes by the
sound of words, sometimes by conceptual opposition. At other times
one feels that perhaps a paragraph of exposition has been removed
between sentences. There is a kind of deadpan surface to these texts
which does not prevent them from being quite humorous at times; or
eerie, or desperate, or sarcastic, or...--jmb
Kurt Nimmo: SUSAN ATKINS--Persona Non Grata, 46000 Geddes Road #86,
Canton MI, 48188. 64 pp., $4.95. This is a novella which looks like
a chapbook, composed of nineteen sections and a variety of writing
styles and techniques; from courtroom entries to journal entries, from
scatological ravings to bizarre sexual fantasies, from play scripts to
multiple choice quizzes, from nihilism to exploitation, and all of the
paths and layers and levels which pile-up and cross the weird
landscape of Nimmo's making. This is indeed an eclectic montage of
exuberance and eccentricity. A fable built of the boldest name-saying
where movie stars, murders, politicians, and princesses rub body parts
and fantasies across our minds. The central icon of this fantastic
delirium is Susan Atkins, Charlie Manson's Femme Fatale, murderer
turned convict, and idolized sexual object. This is pop-cultural
sensationalism at its finest, you couldn't have this much fun with a
ten foot stack of National Enquirers. Kurt Nimmo's ability to
transpose cultural images and unexpected atrocious behavior creates a
fertile ground for epiphany. Once again, this is Nimmo at his best,--
not for the weak-of-heart or close-minded.--rle
Stephen Peters: DIVERGENT TALES FROM A MAN WITH THE SMELL OF BOOZE ON
HIS BREATH--105 Betty Road, East Meadow NY, 11554. 32 pp., $?. Hard
hitting nihilistic poetry which races through a postmodern landscape
of alcohol haze spiked harsh and fluent realism. Experimentally
structured and punctuated, capitalization optional. Black and white
art throughout. Unemployment, garbage, dead cats, sweat, death,
blonds, loneliness, love, liquor, and sex embroiled in decadent
abandon, Nice dose of real images smeared with a youthful fetish and
played like white-boy blues. Recommended for those who don't like
their poetry pretty but do like it honest.--rle
Brian Richards: EARLY ELEGIES--Bloody Twin Press, Box 253 Rte. 1, Blue
Creek OH, 45616. 28 pp., $12.00. The cover photo of Bill Evans at
the piano is cast in deep blues, the mood and music of these personal
elegies for the lost vibrance of the late 60's--early 70's. Richards
mixes detail and dialogue in the fast dance of meaning and emptiness.
His opening quote from old Beat, Zen poet Han Shan foretells a kind of
Taoist unravelling of facts that somehow rise to a heart break of
moment and memory. This beautifully crafted letterpress book
concludes with the long prose poem "Tommy" which caps an era when
risks spoke a sweet madness 'til friendships vanished before our
eyes.--larry smith
Franklin Rosemont: LAMPS HURLED AT THE STUNNING ALGEBRA OF ANTS--
Surrealist Editions, 1726 West Jarvis Ave., Chicago IL, 60626.
48 pp., $5.00. Twenty-seven poems which touch the marvelous, in the
tradition of the continuing surrealist revolution, they relocate you
among the dreams. With pen and ink drawings by Czech artist Karol
Baron.--js
Penelope Rosemont: BEWARE OF THE ICE & Other Poems--Surrealist
Editions, PO Box 6424, Evanston IL, 60204. 64 pp., $6.00.
Beautifully produced, with drawings by fellow Surrealist Enrico Bai,
this collection seem a bit more lyrical than the above collection but
just as surprising. Powerful work.--js
Leslie Scalapino (ed): WAR (O/3)--O Books, 5729 Clover Dr., Oakland,
CA, 94618. 32 pp., $4.00. The first two anthologies in this series
were thick perfectbound productions filled with fine fine writing,
dance (i meant to type "dense", but maybenot) with language & its
illusion. The writing's still here, tho less illusive & more direct--
but the package is fragile & immediate, letter-size pages xeroxed
direct from manuscript, staples already tearing thru the black
construction-paper cover. It all works to re-call the urgency of
action & emotion brought on by the Persian Gulf War, all too soon
forgotten. Impassioned work, as it/we should be. From Norma Cole:
"Walk in beauty like the dead/ the dark is at its zenith, etc./ a kind
of iridescent/ or even near blur/ given for possibilities/ forgive the
echo". Other contributors: Jerry Estrin, Alan Davies, Laura Moriarty,
Fanny Howe, & editor Leslie Scalapino.--lbd
Sam Silva: DE LA PALABRA--5976 Billings Rd., Parkdale OR, 97041.
37 pp., $4.00. A deeply philosophical, Christian-based work of
romanticism revisited. The poet guides us through his agenda of
faith, nature, and spirit in three chapters (Faith Of Our Fathers; An
Act Of The Sun; A Spiritual Revolution) totaling twenty-eight poems.
Although this chapbook is described in the forward as a work of it
sensitivity, a "Work of grace and pain and wisdom," its lyrical nature
tends to dull the senses and fails to provide surprise, mystery, and
the edge needed to push/pull the reader towards a climatic catharsis.
lt is pretty poetry, yes; subtle in meaning, obscure in image, but
crisp in metaphor, and touching in its degree of spiritual fervor.
This is a vastly different work than a lot of other poetry today. At
first read, one wonders where is the tension, the interplay between
mind and reality? A second read shows it is indeed there, cloaked in
the beat, images peering out from behind rhythmatic slants. If you
are looking for nice examples of rhyme, off-rhyme, and alliteration in
a lyrical free verse format give Sam Silva's DE LA PALAMBRA a try.
--rle
Herschel Silverman: BLUE LUDES--The Beehive Press, 47 E. 33rd St,
Bayonne NJ, 07002. 60 pg., $5.95. Beat literature is both word and
image rant. The rant is an ancient technique. With BLUE LUDES we have
a language that slices through, perpetuated by its very design. There
is a restless attraction toward contact. There is a field of sound,
of verb--an immediacy of moment that riles the reader. It is jazz and
blue, NYC and beat. They are poems of skin, worn on skin where the
present tense conducts its business. There is a zeal for life here.
Silverman writes his life in this place.--nv
Nathaniel Tarn: DRAFTS FOR: THE ARMY HAS ANNOUNCED THAT "BODY BAGS"
WILL FROM NOW ON BE KNOWN AS "HUMAN REMAINS POUCHES"--Trout Creek
Press, 5976 Billings Rd., Parkdale, OR, 97041. 8 pp., $1.50. The
horror of modern warfare is only compounded by the official newspeak
euphemisms that try to cover up what would be intolerable if
confronted honestly. Tarn makes the honest call & calls mechanized
murder what it is--not valor or patriotism, but only death. The
language harks back to Whitman, but where Walt could see heroism mixed
up in the carnage, here we only see "where there had been the
principle of hope,/ not there is none--/ nor human nor divine,/ no
condition forward."--lbd
Cheryl Townsend & tolek: PARALLELS & REBUTTALS--xib Publications, PO
Box 262112, San Diego, CA, 92126, 20 pp., $2.00. Call & response form
collaborative poetry--Cheryl paints a soft-porn scenario, tolek
repaints it from the male point of view. In the intro, Cheryl makes
plain the impetus for (at least some of) her poetry: "I want women to
know that it's okay to "want it" and more so to "get it." She is the
editor of IMPETUS magazine, which often pursues a similar agenda;
tolek edits XIB, which is not exactly a monastery newsletter.--lbd
Thomas Vaultonburg: POEMS AT THE END OF THE WORLD--PO Box 9101 ,
Warwick RI, 02889, 11 pp/, $2.00. Twelve poems lightly assembled into
a chapbook without a strong theme. A touch of the suburban
intellectual. The first poem is strong, using fellatio as a metaphor
for oppression in America, but from this strong start the following
works seem to drift aimlessly through the miasma of the middle class.
But Valtonburg's attempts at social statements sometimes ring hollow--
for example, in "Ionic Matriculations" he states, "There's a death
match on TV, and they're/ selling me the universe with garlic./
American Indians want me to buy a Honda/ maybe with four doors, so I
can drive/ my two blue-eyed boys to a school where/ we have stolen the
dreams of his children." Vaultonburg does hit a fine note once in a
while, like in "Lost and Found" where he shows a momentary
passion,"Ignoring sad son-of-a-bitch Frost/ Who hid his son's Prozac/
and never raised a tent/ any living being could sleep under." Here I
applaud this rare bold stroke of iconoclastic plunder. Still, at only
two dollars this chapbook is worth a read.--rle
Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop: LIGHT TRAVELS--Burning Deck, 71 Elmgrove
Avenue, Providence RI, 02906. $5.00. LIGHT TRAVELS is a
collaborative poem of fifteen parts in a beautifully produced
letterpress edition.
Repetition is used section-to-section as propellant and as
framing device, in aid of reflection, underscoring the dialogic nature
of this project--as in repeating what another has said to be sure one
has heard correctly. Here, by way of example, are sections four and
five:
4. close the curtains but
playful elaborations of otherwise
arrogant variation keeping
the window open
as it's wrong to shut
one's eyes to dream
it's raining while it is in fact raining
5. as it's wrong to shut
one's eyes to dream it's
raining while it is in fact raining
ears busied with hearing more than
one voice the stream our tears unmirror
Throughout the poem alludes to its own creation. It alludes, too, in
a fractured way to its Outside. It is always well sounded, always
particular.
I treasure this book not least because I prefer duets to solos.
Together you can get to places you cannot go alone.--tb
James L. Weil: IN ART--tel-let, 1818 Phillips Pl., Charleston, IL,
61920. 12 pp. Six conversational poems in couplets, for example, "As
Bill Says...":
Actually, there
is very little,
to be said about
poetry--which is
to say, already
too much has been said
about it. What there
is to say, it says.
Thoughtful, easy-to-like stuff, even if you disagree with it.--bg
Gail Whitter: INSULAR POSITION--PO Box 64026, 555 Clarke Rd.,
Coquitiam BC, CANADA, V3J 7V6. 64 pp., $7.95. A series of inter-
connected poems on an abusive relationship and codependency.
This is a powerful work due to it's perspective: the linking of
pain/hate/love into a solid atlas of abuse. This is not pretty
poetry. It is potent poetry which is sharp of metaphor and forces the
reader to think, to compare their own lives to this. "Pain is an old
cave/ you always have/ to come back to" It is a work for those who are
involved in a relationship in the 1990's; it is too important to
ignore.--rle
Thomas Wiloch: LYRICAL BRANDY--Found Street, 14492 Ontario Circle,
Westminster CA, 92683. $1.00. A kind of pleated mini-broadside
containing 6 dreamy/surreal freeform haiku, e.g., the title-piece:
"warm hands/ of/ sleep// (invisible garden)."--bg
A series of six minimalist haiku-like poems, printed on a single sheet
of paper folded in a delightfully ingenious manner to create a small
booklet. The poems form a sequence with erotic undertones: "entice/
the keyhole/ overture// (noctural caress)" Each of the poems contains
its own implied narrative, but also forms part of the larger narrative
of the sequence. A perfect blending of content and format.--jmb
Jeff Zenick: PROTOPLASM and BECAUSE--Wheatcake Productions, Box 877,
Tallahassee FL, 32302. 8 pp., $.29@. Two micro-comix of loony
drawing's that ooze through dream-logical narratives. Just one clump
of text emerges from the two books--from PROTOPLASM, protoplasmically:
"IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO CHANGE YOUR MIND." The drawings are a little
primitive here and there but densely active and well-integrated.--bg
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end TapRoot Reviews Electronic, issue 2.0 section b (CHAPBOKS)
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