A Fortune in Mothballs and other poems - by Ed Galing.
Originally scheduled to be published in 1999 by Black Spring Press but kept the dark because of the publisher’s lack of $coin$. Galing brought this collection to light on his own, via his own will. Write him for copies of this book. The book is $5.00. Ed Galing 3435 Mill Road, Hatsboro, PA, 19040. Why not write him and ask for poems!
Letters to Unfinished J. - by Sheila E. Murphy.
2003. 100 pages. $10.95. Green Integer: www.greeninteger.com
• Green Tea With Ginger - by Sheila E. Murphy.
2003. 88 pages. Write for price: Potes and Poets Press, Ten Acres Dr. Bedford,
MA 01730-2019 www.potespoets.org.
First Class No. 22. 2003. - Christopher M. - editor.
Four-sep publications, P.O. Box 86, Friendship, Indiana, 47021. $6.00 an issue. Christopher M. is editor. He publishes lots of chaps. Check out:
www.four-sep.com.
Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews & Encounters 1963-1993
- edited by David Stephen Calonne.
2003. $15.95. 288 pages. Isbn: 0-941543-37-4. Sun Dog Press, 22078-Cumberland Drive, Northville, MI 48167. Al Berlinski – editor and chief dog of the sun. sundogpr@voyager.net sundogpr@voyager.net
I wondered, as I approached this book, if it would really be worth the while to read nearly 300 pages of interviews. Bukowski himself said he hated to read them. And why read 300 pages of Bukowski being interviewed? What might I find out in Sunlight Here I Am after reading three feet of Bukowski books on the top-shelf, three or four biographies, CDs, coffee table picture book, yadda, yadda yadda, blah blah blah, woof-woof. Dive in! I must admit, the book might not be for the casual fan, certainly Sunlight Here I Am is for the collector, and for the rabid Bukowski reader this one will sit nice on that top-shelf with a lot of the other books the Bukowski industry is inventing. But I have this very strange, other side that likes to poke and pick at the writer’s carcass, the meat of the words upon the bone of the poem or short story. If so inclined, yes, if so inclined this is a gold mine and gold mind. Organized chronological from 1963-1993 there are thirty-four interviews and encounters and a few excerpts from Bukowski’s books. But mostly it is King Charles responding to questions. There is surprisingly little repetition, and I take this to be the result of the very careful editing done by David Stephen Calonne. He did not leave things out – like cut this part out of this review or that review and past it together to make some form of narrative collage. Nope. He ordered carefully and with a sensitively that allows Bukowski’s ever changing perspective to dominate the book. Job well done. Calonne has effectively removed his ego from the book. That said, Bukowski spews his philosophy and ideology variously. He is both consistent and questionable. At all times his active mind, his sharp, focused, intellect responds with candor and wit. If a reader hadn’t read the down and out Bukowski saga, it is possible that this imagination and intellect might be that of another writer. For the scholar and the digger and the thinker this book opens many portals for endless further consideration. For the curious and the inquisitive there will be no disappointment. None. None whatsoever. All Berlinski and his Sun Dog Press and David Stephen Calonne have presented this gem of an important document and it is even indexed! Sunlight Here I Am is by far the best supporting book in the Bukowski cannon.
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The Dorset Poems
- by Gerald Locklin with artwork by Henry Denander.
October 2003. 34 pages. $5.00. Bottle of Smoke Press. 50 Loch Lomond Street,
Bear, DE 19701. orders@bospress.net - http://www.bospress.net
I see Master Gerald Locklin as Master Po in the old Kung Fu TV series and we are all in the small press poet and poetry monastery of writing. Well, enough of that. I wanted to write something way cool about Locklin’s poems so that those out there reading this might and would buy the book and check it out. Do. Oh I wanted to be profound and flowery and poetic. But I am sitting here in Buffalo and it is zero or –2 and snowing. I just moved my car and my wife’s car from the driveway so our daughter could drive to her morning class. She is a college freshman! I am very proud of her. Anyway. I had to do all of that because you can not park on our street at night because the snow plows have to have space to plow the streets so we can all go to work in the morning. So each night every one moves around their cars in preparation. And then in the AM, after 7, when it is allowed to park again on the street, we all move our cars back onto the street. The street that was not plowed during the night - never is. And then an hour later, after 8 am, when all cars and vans and such are out on the street. Arrives the plow! Plowing us in, as we say in Buffalo. And all the while I am thinking of Gerald’s Locklin’s poems. I like it when I find in a poem something that really describes the poet’s work. In one of Locklin’s poems, a poem about Edward Field, (you should read him – he is one of the best and one of Locklin’s influences), …the poem is called: The Loser… anyway, Locklin writes: “simple, unadorned, yet / musically, rhetorically, and/ metaphysically organized language – “ That’s what Gerald Locklin’s poems offer, ona plate of western New York snow, on a platter of gold, on a trip to England (two trips – these poems are about two trips), ona dish of diet coke, on an airplane, or a camel. One must comprehend and enjoy the sheer beauty; the absolute beauty of words and their sound and that is what you get from Locklin’s American poetry. That is what American poetry really means – doesn’t it. Easy flowing cadence and the loveliness of our language mixed and altered with all of them other languages and argot and jargon and etc. And don’t let me forget to mention that the illustrator of this book is Henry Denander! He is Sweden’s Locklin Bukowski. I wanted to end with some giant emphatic pronouncement. But I screwed up. Buy the book and enjoy. If your car is plowed in, as we say in Buffalo, you got no place to go, you ain’t movin and can’t drive no place anyway. Read on into the morning.
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A Fortune in Mothballs and other poems - by Ed Galing.
Originally scheduled to be published in 1999 by Black Spring Press but kept the dark because of the publisher’s lack of $coin$. Galing brought this collection to light on his own, via his own will. Write him for copies of this book. The book is $5.00. Ed Galing 3435 Mill Road, Hatsboro, PA, 19040. Why not write him and ask for poems!
At 87 Ed Galing has gotta be near the oldest practicing, activity writing poet on the planet and I find that spectacular particularly because this day at the writing table I couldn’t squeeze out a word! So Galing for sure has got guts! This collection is full of the wonderful speaking cadence of small presswork and, particularly, in this book is a tender and wonderful tribute poem to Charles Bukowski. Galing could have sat next to Bukowski in the ol’ time burlesque houses of south Philly. Imagine that. And of course, Ed Galing sat next to a lot of other people over the decades and it seems sat a long time at the writing table. His works are tender and sharp insights into all that makes us human. After 87 years his breath has been ours, all of our breathings and his poetry is the poetry that is the spine and soul of each and all of us. He is the mountains.
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- Letters to Unfinished J. - by Sheila E. Murphy.
2003. 100 pages. $10.95. Green Integer: www.greeninteger.com
- Green Tea With Ginger - by Sheila E. Murphy.
2003. 88 pages. Write for price: Potes and Poets Press, Ten Acres Dr. Bedford,
MA 01730-2019 www.potespoets.org
Here are two new books by Sheila Murphy that express the vast horizon of her abilities as a poet because they are cast in forms quite unlike each other. She produces so much poetry one wonders if she has time to sleep or how many Sheila Murphy’s are there? Which is not a bad question considering the vast number of forms and types of poems she has mastered. And I should add also that she works! This is not someone who has the time to gaze at cactus! So I would suggest that there are many imaginations and what any poet can learn from Sheila Murphy’s work is be unafraid of the essence of poetry and forget about form because in all her work there is pleasure of words. In Letters to Unfinished J. there is the shifting focus of Gertrude like Tender Buttons and in Green Tea the almost haiku like clarity of the heightened instant in a human life. All always there is this technical perfection. Again, fear not, the perfect is in part of each everyone and us (perhaps less in some – but you know what I mean). So what does this reading give one? This poetry grants you avenues into the imagination, more than one considered possible. Interested in her work for your mag or want to write a fan letter: Write to her: Sheila Murphy, 3701 E. Monterossa No. 3, Phoenix AZ 85018-4848.
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First Class No. 22. 2003. - Christopher M. - editor.
Four-sep publications, P.O. Box 86, Friendship, Indiana, 47021. $6.00 an issue. Christopher M. is editor. He publishes lots of chaps. Check out:
www.four-sep.com
Nice to get this magazine in the mail and better to have squeezed the orange of time to make the time to read it. A great poem by Michael Kriesel called Spiderman Vs. Jesus and there is a grand contribution by lord Locklin and John Bennett of Vagabond up the western coast. And nice to have a little magazine of underground flavor including lots of fiction. Children of the New War Culture by Rey-Philip Genaldo is mighty interesting. My new discovery is a poet named Spiel who wrote one hell of an anti-war poem. I am all for the poem as a weapon of honor. It is right, correct somehow. Why can’t a work of art make its war against war? The lofty dogs of the upper classes and rungs of wealth and power would argue no. But they never go to war. Their sons and certainly not their daughters would ever go to war. They make money off war. Spiel writes:
Does a pint of the blood of the homo at war
weigh less in a jar?
than a pint of blood sapped form his foe?
or a pint of the stuff from your average Joe?
Compare to a pint of dirt or sand,
a pint of gold or a pint of lead.
Weigh a pint of the blood of the homo soldier.
Phone his mother
Her son is dead.
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Michael Basinski
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