My review of Cinéma Vérité: poems/sketches/parables by Sam Rasnake (A-Minor Press 2013) is up on MadHat Drive-By Book Reviews.
Reviews of “Don’t Tease The Elephants” by Jen Knox and “Incompetent Translations and Inept Haiku” are up on MadHat Drive-By Reviews.
http://madhatarts.com/madhatreviews/madhat-drive-by-book-review-two-chap-books/
Surrendering August
early evening, late summer
walking down the lake road with the dogs
the sound of a tractor mowing the field above
grinding and clanking
tall grasses pulsate with cricket song
the water, placid and serene
opalescent pink and turquoise
a fish surfaces and dives
leaving ripples in concentric rings
on the far shore, in the vineyards
timed charges explode like the sun catching on fire
it scares crows away from the grapes
warm sunny afternoons and chilly evenings
sumac leaves, blood crimson
splashed across the blue forever
mornings laden with fog banks and soaking dew
migrating flocks wheel across the sky
air still warm from the day, but soon changing
into the fecund smell of damp coolness
black walnut trees already starting to turn
shedding golden leaves that flutter
like tears onto green grass
last to arrive and the first to go
a little girl rides her bike, training wheels still on
stops at the foot of the steep hill
she’ll be climbing before long
but not for a while
kids going back to school
pinching their noses shut
as they hurl themselves off the dock
into the cool blue water
already a memory
the season slipping away
away, like this day
like youth gobbled up
by the unremitting passage of time
it feels over too soon
already ending when it seems
it’s only just begun
the pale rider draws closer
with each trip around the sun
I stand at the edge of the shoreline
the edge of the season
surrendering August
Red Canoe
I’m very pleased to have my poem “Factory” in Ibbetson Street Review #35. I am humbled my work is included with brilliant poems from so many fine artists, including Marge Piercy, Kathleen Spivack, Timothy Gager, Teisha Dawn Twomey, Marie Elizabeth-Mali and Lawrence Kessenich, to name just a few. Kessenich’s radiant poem “Afterlife” is worth the price of admission all by itself. Special thanks to publisher Doug Holder for making this all happen. Ibbetson Street review is available as a print journal from Lulu and Amazon for 9 dollars.
Independence Day
Sitting outside on the 4th of July
in an Adirondack chair
by the little stone garden
with the scarecrow.
Its white shirt hangs slack
over crucifix arms
straw hat tattered and crumpled
by sun and heavy rains.
I watch clouds float
across the robin egg sky
like helium balloon animals
in a circus parade
pushed asunder by winds
blowing away the storms of yesterday.
I think, not so much, about
the Declaration of Independence,
which was initially published as the Dunlap broadside
and primarily signed on August 2nd,
but more about the fact
that this was the date when New York State
abolished slavery and Thoreau
moved into his shack on Walden Pond.
Whitman turned poetry on its head
when he self published Leaves of Grass
on this day, and Lewis Carroll
created Alice in Wonderland,
sending imaginations on a flight of fancy
on Independence Day.
Book Review ~ Everything Neon ~ Bud Smith
Everything Neon ~ Bud Smith (Marginalia Press 2014) is the best book of poetry I’ve read in a long time. Bud Smith unleashes his keen powers of observation and ability to describe contemporary life in narrative prose that takes the reader on a stream of consciousness magical mystery tour.
Rarely do I want to go back and start rereading a book right after finishing it, but I did with Everything Neon. For me it was like listening to one of my favorite vinyl albums that left me wanting to immediately flip it over, lay that needle right back in the groove of the first song, and do it all again.
Bud Smith writes poems that I wish I had written. He makes it look easy. Maybe it is for him, but these are poems that only Bud Smith can write. Bud Smith is a total original who is as comfortable in his own skin as he is with his own authentic voice. He exhibits a high degree of self awareness, but writes with a zen-like unselfconsciousness. The poems in Everything Neon are rendered with unstudied freshness and spontaneity and are never over worked.It’s like he’s on your living room couch and you’re just having a laid back, casual conversation.
Everything Neon is a collection of epistolary love poems and reflections on people and a sense of place. Smith’s poems somehow have a meandering way that manages to transform the everyday mundane into a transcendental experience. Everything Neon contains personal reflections on human intimacy integrated with, and somehow juxtaposed to, the ebbs and flows of living in a present day New York City neighborhood. Bud Smith ruminates on the day-to-day of urban living in the way that nature poets might describe the natural environment.
Intimacies shared with his lover are interwoven with reflections on finding and keeping a parking place or remembering where his car is parked, impressions of living in a pre-war Manhattan apartment building with all its noises and quirks and the idiosyncratic behavior of neighbors in close quarters. It’s also about the interaction of nature with his city; with references to the “moon scraping the tops of buildings”, the “silver river”, the storms of winter, the heat of summer and passing of the seasons.
However, don’t be fooled by what might, at first glance, appear to be minimalism or even simplicity. While Everything Neon may feel as comfortable as your favorite pair of jeans, the poems reveal hidden depth and subtle layers of nuance. Everything Neon is a celebration of being alive and fully present and the work resonates with me for the same reasons as the work of Gary Snyder, and (Hell yeah!) Walt Whitman. The poems in Everything Neon have a funky feel and a songwriter’s soul.
Smith writes with the sensibilities of a photographer and a film maker. Bud Smith’s narrative prose manages to take us inside his head so we can see through his eyes. Everything Neon is also about compassion, humility, humanity, ironic humor, a keen sense of the absurd, and a sense of optimism with hope for redemption. Smith is a prolific writer and a ball of fire with multiple collaborative projects in the works at any given time. You can expect a lot more from Bud Smith, but Everything Neon is as good a place to start as any.
Tagged: “My Writing Process”
“My Writing Process” is an ongoing series in which authors “tag” each other to answer some questions about their work. Robert Vaughan invited me to participate. Initially I declined, but reading Robert Vaughan’s and Bud Smith’s responses to these questions kind of got the wheels turning. I have always been fascinated by the creative process and it seems to be different for each individual.
Robert Vaughan’s most recent book is Addicts & Basements (Civil Coping Mechanisms)http://www.amazon.com/Addicts-Basements-Robert-Vaughan/dp/1937865231 Bud Smith (http://budsmithwrites.com) is the author of Tollbooth and Or Something Like That. He just released full length poetry collection, Everything Neon by Marginalia Books. He also is the host of The Unknown Show.
Authors Mia Avramut and Gary Powell have accepted my invitation to participate. Gary Powell is the author of Speedos, Tattoos, and Felons: A Novella in Stories http://www.amazon.com/Speedos-Tattoos-Felons-Novella-Stories/dp/1492820504
Here are links to some of Mia’s work:
http://www.escapeintolife.com/poetry/mia-avramut/
http://www.menacinghedge.com/spring2013/entry-avramut.php
http://thebookendsreview.com/2013/07/29/mia-avramut-postcard-from-kettwig/
http://lucidplaypublishing.weebly.com/glass-eye-chandelier.html
Here are my responses to the questions.
1) What am I working on?
I have two chapbooks looking for a home. Although, it seems the longer they are homeless, the more they keep changing. “Long Gone and Never Coming Back” is a poetry chapbook and the other is a flash fiction chapbook called “Between Dusk and Dawn.” If they go much longer before finding a publisher, they will be full length collections and may not contain any of the work that currently comprises them.
I’m also working on a portfolio of altered photographs called “In The Studio” which documents my friend Daniel Hoffman’s work as a luthier making cellos. I’ll be posting that on my website. To view Hoffman’s exquisite work go to http://www.danielhoffmanluthier.com.
I have an ongoing series on my website called The Lunch Lady Cookbook where I post recipes and photographs, music and beverage pairings all carried along by tongue-in-cheek goofy narrative. I also write essays when the spirit moves me and irate letters to my legislators when I’m hot and bothered by environmental issues, which seems to happen more and more frequently.
Oh yeah. Almost forgot to mention. I write songs too. Singer/songwriter/Americana story stuff, blues, ballads and rock and roll. Guitar, harmonica, vocals ~simple chords and simple structures.
2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I think, like everybody else, I try to be authentically “myself” and put my “personal stamp” on it without getting so esoteric that I lose the reader. My best work conveys irony, humor and redemption, no matter how far it may veer into the dark side. From time to time, I’m lucky enough to write a piece that only I could write. However, that’s a slippery and intangible bit of magic that I am at a loss to explain, because I don’t even understand it myself.
3) Why do I write what I do?
It usually comes from a deep emotional response or a reaction to a situation, social condition, event, or nature. Sometimes it’s triggered by a song or a visual image. I also seem to write a lot of stuff that comes from driving my car. I have a lot of fun writing parody and satirical pieces laced with ironic, often self deprecating humor. This shows up a lot in my series The Lunch Lady Cookbook and in my serial detective noir send-up “The Last of the Hard Boiled Dicks.”
4) How does my writing process work?
I compose most every thing on my computer or iPad. I think all my years of academic writing rewired my brain. Or maybe “short-circuited” would be a better description! Songwriting is done differently. I usually write songs in long hand and use a guitar or mandolin to play the chords. Although, some of my best songs came to me, unbidden, while doing things like mowing the lawn or walking my dogs. In a couple of cases they came like a “download” ~ fully formed with lyrics, melody, chords all intact ~ and I had to rush into the house to write it all down before it vanished back into the ethers. It was like I “channeled” them. A lot of my poetry starts with a line that has come to me in a near dream state, either just before falling asleep or as I’m awakening. Most of the heavy lifting in my writing is done with a burst of energy using blunt instruments and big, broad strokes. After that, it seems like an endless process of revising, cutting, and rearranging words and phrases. It’s like feng shui. I’m also a recovering adverb and cliche abuser, so ferreting out those buggers is an important part of the process. Quite often, I’ll get ideas for poems while driving my car and I start scribbling madly in a notebook on the passenger seat. Of course, this is even more dangerous than texting, so I’ll pull over if at all possible. I also beg, borrow and steal ideas shamelessly, then hammer it into something that is my own. Don’t we all? Perhaps the secret to transmuting it into something new and original lies in responding in a truly honest, personal and authentic manner. That’s all easier said then done, but it’s worthy of striving toward.
Book Review Before Whose Glory by Lawrence Kessenich 2013 FutureCycle Press
Lawrence Kessenich’s Before Whose Glory is his first full length collection of poems, published in 2013 by FutureCycle Press. Kessenich writes about time and space, people and places, unfathomable mysteries and the beauty of nature, the human condition and the experience of being alive. Before Whose Glory is a collection of beautifully crafted poems, each one a story, each one its own self contained universe.
To say that Kessenich’s poems are accessible is not to say that they are without depth. The poems in this collection are deceptively complex, intricately layered and subtly nuanced. Each poem offers a clear path through the piece without obfuscation, needlessly difficult arcane references or unintelligible abstractions that might otherwise leave me bewildered and wondering if I’ve missed the point. These pieces are compelling and evocative. They insinuate their way into my subconscious and run through my head like my favorite songs. They are poems I find myself going back to and noticing something new with each reading.
Kessenich’s poetry is narrative and reflective and the artist’s sensibilities are pervasive throughout the collection. His understated, gently ironic humor and sense of the absurd comes through in the pieces based on true stories ripped from the news that are stranger than fiction. Other poems are poignant and compassionate reflections on relationships and family life written from the perspective of being the Devil himself, a kid with a paper route, a son, a lover, a husband, a father, or a citizen of planet Earth.
With this collection of symmetrically crafted poems, Kessenich demonstrates a dazzling ability for juxtaposing the mundane with the sublime. Some pieces begin in a very ordinary setting and end in reverent contemplation of the spiritual and metaphysical and sometimes it’s the other way around. Either way, the poems in Before Whose Glory give me cause to pause; stop what I’m doing, question, reflect, appreciate and remind me to be grateful for life and all its blessings.
Your Own Back Yard - Michael Gillan Maxwell 