Lew Gallery book by the great Garrett Caples. Short, musical poems. This may be the first thing I’ve seen from Caples since his amazing Narrow House CD, Surrealism’s Bad Rap (what up Sirois!). Garrett brings it.
12. Wild Schemes- Derek Fenner
Inimitable editor of Bootstrap Press, Fenner’s Lew Gallery chapbook was released at about the same time as my LG book RAVE ON! Kevin Opstedal micro-reviewed both…take it away Kevin! “Lew Gallery/Auguste Press strikes again with a beautiful pair of books. RAVE ON! by John Sakkis, and WILD SCHEMES by Derek Fenner. Whatever these poets are drinking I’ll have the same, & double up on it.
We find consecretion
and supplication
in Humulus Lupulus
along paths
hidden
by the misery of America. (Fenner)
Our sunset should be as muted as
my apartment (Sakkis)
Both of these poets have the chops, the workshed rudiments, & the attention, as the line is drawn. Whatever it is to be found, to be lost, to answer when your name is called. Or not. You can’t lip-synch your way through it. Well, you can, but against the oblique desire, pending comprehension. Here we have the songs & the risk taken. If you’re lucky enough to get hold of one or both of these little bokes you’ll know what I mean.
13. Life Of Crime- ed. Steve Lavoie/ Pat Nolan
This is the anti-The Grand Piano. One of my 11 selections for Steve Evans' Attention Span this year. I devoured this book, didn’t want it to end, but end it did, and too quickly. Steve Lavoie and Pat Nolan taking the piss out of everyone and anyone they felt like, totally un-PC, crass and hilarious. From what I hear, with the publication of LOC they made themselves public enemy #1 in SF (and we’re even reluctant to re-publish after all these years). Thank you Alistair Johnston from Poltroon Press for publishing this book, an important moment in Bay Area poetics (wars) that a lot of folks my age are just now hearing about.
14. Aevum- David Brazil
A little chapbook arrives in my office at work called Aevum by David Brazil. I don’t know how it got there and I don’t know who sent it (though I have ideas), I’m just glad they did. I think a little book called Our Insalvagable by Thom Donovan came my way under similar circumstances. Whoever you are Vigilance Society, keep em’ coming. I love these little mysterious chapbook poem objects.
15. The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Finally got around to reading it TGG, I liked it. A quicker read than I was expecting. I rented the movie. I remember liking the movie better in high school.
16. Sulfur #3
This might be the Charles Olson/ Edward Dahlberg correspondence issue. I love Sulfur. A real magazine, "feminine and tough." Olson and Dahlberg get into a really sad (yet entertaining) whine fest with each other. Sad because it's a document of a longstanding friendship coming to an end, and entertaining because these dudes really know how to write mean, spiteful, underhanded, passive aggressive letters... Dahlberg is super pissed that Olson won’t write a review of his book called The Flea Of Sodom. Olson is like “dude, I’m working on it…” and Dahlberg is like “I’m starving and I can’t feed my wife…hurry up with that review…if you were ever my friend you’d write that goddamn review…” and Olson is like “bro, chill the ef out…i’m a little busy right now with, you know, THE MAXIMUS POEMS…and I’m not even sure I like your book…” and Dahlberg is like “fuck you, your poetry sucks, remember when I came to visit you at your Mom's house, and she made dinner and offered you the biggest piece of roast chicken? and the last of the scotch? and you accepted them without so much as the slightest acknowledgment to me as your guest...I was starving and I had to sit there at your Mother's dinner table watching you shovel food and drink into your giant gaping maw...I’m not friends with you anymore!” and Olson is like “whatevs…your being retarded…smell you later skater…” etc etc etc…it was epic.
17. Try- Feb 21, 2010
There is nothing else to say about Try. It’s a better magazine than your magazine. as they say in the comic books 'nuff said.
18. The Carrier Of Ladders- W.S. Merwin
Logan Ryan Smith gave me this book a long time ago. I believe for my birthday, probably in 2002. He was still living at Park Merced out by SFSFU with Nick Buzanski. He loved Sharks hockey and Giants baseball. I think he told me that he met Merwin once at a City Lights reading. I want to say that Logan said he was a dick. But maybe Logan said that he was really sweet. I should probably refrain from guessing what Logan told me Merwin was like in 2002.
19. Temblor #1
Finished reading Temblor #3 this morning. I've read 4 issues of the magazine thus far. #1,2,3 and 8. I've had the same experience of dread upon starting each issue and then the same feeling of relief upon finishing each issue. i love [old] magazines. I collect old magazines. i own all 10 issues of Leland Hickman's groundbreaking [??] journal Temblor. i bought them from Green Apple in 2002. it was a big haul, each issue cost 8 dollars, George Albon who was working the counter gave me a complimentary Green Apple tote bag because it was such a large haul (I still use the tote today for produce shopping). Kevin Killian told me that all those Temblor's probably belonged to Lew Ellingham (which is neat). Over the years I've also scored an almost complete set of David Levi-Strauss and Benjamin Hollander's ACTS as well as a smattering of rare and lesser known mags like Steve Abbott's Soup, Cyanosis (out of Santa Rosa) and Aram Saroyan's Lines et al. So yeah, I really really love old po-magazines. But Temblor, man, Temblor is kind of a drag.
Temblor is a medical journal. It looks like one and it reads like one. Each issue is about 140-160 pages. All covers are a variation of 70's ranch house brown. Each issue is filled with a gaggle of poets that appeared in earlier issues (Language based mostly). Each issue contains anywhere from 4-6 "compleat" sections where the poets' work is featured at chapbook length. You'd think the "compleats" would rule, it's a pretty cool idea (and probably the first magazine to do it), but they don't, they are tedious (no matter how good the work)...I don't know if it's Hickman's editorial POV that wears on me, or that is seems like the same coterie of names appear in each issue, or the monotone-stucco design aesthetic that bums me out, or simply the daunting size of each issue that turns me off (poems bleeding into poems which in my experience often happens with oversize issues). Actually, it's all of these things, but it's also the knowledge that groundbreaking, rigorous AND entertaining magazines like Soup and Jimmy & Lucy's House Of "K" and Life Of Crime were contemporaneous with Temblor. Temblor is decidedly not entertaining.
So i finished Temblor #3 this morning and picked up Lines #5. The energy of the two magazines couldn't be further apart. Lines is a magazine - Temblor is a journal. I prefer magazines. If i had it my way I probably wouldn't read the remaining 7 issues of Temblor, but I don't really have it my way, my weird tics are going to make me finish the full run. And I'm glad about that. After all, as much as I don't like the journal, it has it's place in West Coast poetry history, and I'm experiencing that historical moment albeit 25 years later. And I appreciate that. I'm just not enjoying the experience.
20. Can Arboreal Knotwork Help Blackburn Out Of Frege's Abyss- Boyd Spahr
All I remember is that this is a Dusie Kollectiv book. From the 2nd round I believe. If I’m remembering correct I took part in the 1st and the 2nd Dusie Kollectiv chapbook exchange. Is this the book with all the photo’s in it? Shit, I wish I could remember.
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