Michael Basinski Book Review Library/2001

Michael Basinski Book Reviews
july 2001

The Whirligig (Pulp with a Pulse) - Issue 3, Spring 2001.
Frank J. Marcopolos - Editor/Publisher, 4809 Avenue N., No. 117, Brooklyn, NY. 11234. 3 bucks. See: Whirligig21@aol.com and http://members.aol.com/whirligig21/whirligig.html

Notes from the Bounty Bar. - Issue 2.
Rabid Bear Press. Chris Mansel, 606 West Ranch Road, Florence, Alabama, 35633. Some bucks send some, a bag, with pizza.

Expulsion: - A book of Poetry.
Chris Mansel, 606 West Ranch Road, Florence Alabama, 35633. Send some bucks.

Three Books from: - Xtant Books,
1) Elamentations by Ken Harris.
2) Ditch Cloth by John M. Bennett.
3) Hunkers by John Crouse.
1512 Mountainside Court, Charlottesville, VA., 22903-9707. Send all your money, stamps, first books of music, train sets, old pop bottles and the like.

Rattle. - Issue Number 15,
Volume 7, No. 1, Summer 2001. 13440 Ventura Blvd., No. 200, Sherman Oaks, CA. 91423. 200 pp. $8.00.

The Whirligig (Pulp with a Pulse) - Issue 3, Spring 2001.
Frank J. Marcopolos - Editor/Publisher, 4809 Avenue N., No. 117, Brooklyn, NY. 11234. 3 bucks. See: Whirligig21@aol.com and http://members.aol.com/whirligig21/whirligig.html

I flipped this issue open on this hot, hippo boiling afternoon and came upon Jennifer Callahan's All the Rage, a short story, that begins, "Live flesh has amnesia…." Indeed, a tasty cherry covered tire-iron of fiction, I thought. And the poetry within this magazine also, I thought when I read Jonathan A. Golberg's poetry, "My mind is melted…" and again when I read Fatigue by Q.R. Maber, "natural as flies fucking/ on your microwave. "Indeed, poetry of endless African nights in pools of oil beneath old cars. Well, this has to be some of the better fiction and poetry I've read in a good while and balanced with a sense of what is the best and most wild of American writing, that writing that lances the boil of mind. You know, good reader, that there are a lot of magazines with a lot of shit poems in them and the fiction is worse. But you get this true lion roaring sense that Frank Marcopolos knows what he likes, and how to read, and how to publish and he has guts and eats insects on Wheaties with bleach. He has made a fine thing here. I recall that Bukowski started writing slight, short stories and I think that maybe the folks in here, well - Marcopolos has discovered the next generation and is opening them up and allowing them to fly into our thick, chocolate blood hooded and howling nights.

Notes from the Bounty Bar. - Issue 2.
Rabid Bear Press. Chris Mansel, 606 West Ranch Road, Florence, Alabama, 35633. Some bucks send some, a bag, with pizza

This is a fine magazine that has on cover a naked man with noose around neck. And the man appears to be yanking on the rope in the foolish hope that the noose will tighten and he will hang before an oncoming locomotive smacks him straight on. And then begins the stuff within, what is writing by Abigail Deacon and Chris Mansel. Their piece is called: The Savage Tale of Walter Seems, which contains graphic violence and images that the author's claim disturbs even them. I just opened it up and read, "hemorrhaging defoliant drenching unsigned extracting coagulated blood…" Need more: contact those in Florence, Alabama, this way maybe: Rabidbearpress@aol.com

Expulsion: - A book of Poetry.
Chris Mansel, 606 West Ranch Road, Florence Alabama, 35633. Send some bucks.

Here in poems dedicated to Kerouac, Corso, Jake Berry and Jack Foley. And here in poetry flesh greasy fingers and odor of ancient ox of Crete. Hot and volcanic and steaming butterflies and birds and alligators singing a courtship call to the rampaging extinct giraffe of the heart and soul and desert and lush, sex forest of American poet. Mansel is a Goodyear Blimp full of hot pepper cracker jack hamburgers of still pools of vestal virgins. All of this floats above the sad heads of us who go about ourmundane lives like so many snails going extinct in the brutal sun.

Three Books from: - Xtant Books,
1512 Mountainside Court, Charlottesville, VA., 22903-9707. Send all your money, stamps, first books of music, train sets, old pop bottles and the like.

1) Elamentations by Ken Harris.
This is a sprawling, fat book, which utilizes the poetics of a new concrete, a readable visual poetry that walks the hard, thin line between the molding ancient, pretty and petty, redundant concrete of lore and yesterday and the vibrancy of expressionistic visual poetry that leads the parade into the future. This text, with lots of color, folded texts, pure word text etc., uses each page as a portal to the imagination. The reading is done by personal improvisational encounters with the engaged imagination. Visual poetry must revamp its poetics to become viable. The techniques that Ken Harris here displays begins and advances into this most need rewriting of vis-poetry. All power and sustained poetic energy to Harris the Intrepid.

2) Ditch Cloth by John M. Bennett.
John M. Bennett has got to be the only artist who lives in a constant, ever-present, presence of creativity, creative energy, with hand on the third rail of the imagination. Me think there is no seam between the page and the place of art. Bennett's work is that torrent of the sublime that repoetries the desert of supermarkets, cars, the dentist office and pours and pouts into beauty parlors.

3) Hunkers by John Crouse.
This book, a slight book with one poem, is a conversation/play, series of poem, serial poem and scenes - one per page. Playing with form and breaking the moribund notions of poetry, Crouse takes the public language of conversation and reinvents interaction. He proposes that speaking (no speech) but speaking with, talking is art.

Rattle. - Issue Number 15,
Volume 7, No. 1, Summer 2001. 13440 Ventura Blvd., No. 200, Sherman Oaks, CA. 91423. 200 pp. $8.00.

In this issue of Rattle is a section called: Tribute to Writers of the Underground Press. Included are: Amiri Baraka, Eric Basso, Art Beck, John Bennett, Douglas Blazek, Bob Branaman, Hugh Fox, Jack Grapes, Ben Hiatt, Linda King, Tom Kryss, Lyn Lifshin, Gerald Locklin, Rich Mangelsdorff, Al Masarik, Clive Matson, Ann Menebroker, Wayne Miller, Joyce Odam, Maia Penfold, Bob Perlango, Frank Rios, Kell Robertson and Kent Taylor. Certainly, these are the elders of the clan. Certainly, this paves the way for others who are younger but carry on this tradition. Certainly, this is a tradition that goes back beyond this generation - perhaps back to Kenneth Patchen? Most wonderful to see all these poets above so honored. Honor Rattle for this honor role with an order for this issue or drop them a line, lion or lime telling them how important what they have just done is. Also included in this issue an interview with Jack Grapes and an essay by Hugh Fox. And then there are also 150 pages of other, less underground, poetry and etc. As it should be, poets from all walks walking together for a change. Wow! Cooperation and cross-fertilization. Poetry might move beyond its current ruts. Yeah.

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