A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst by Hosho McCreesh

Under normal or sober circumstances a blurb or a book review would follow on a new book not quite out yet or any book by that matter.  In this case after reading over 250 pages of McCreesh’s drunk poems this poem came out…

your buddy hands you
a book of poems
you switch from cheap wine
to guinness and back again
because you are a virgin
because the more you read
the more intoxicated you get
anticipation builds
like your first time
in the back seat
or the tequila whores in juarez
you turn the pages faster
kamikazes lined up
stretch down the bar
until you’re ready to pass out..

but you don’t pass out
you drink another  &
develop a deep
 and gorgeous thirst

____________

…granted not quite a review of his new work published by Artistically Declined Press   but I guess more of a tribute to the style, to  the talent and courage to break away from the artistic boundaries that identified a Hosho Mc Creesh poem in  the past.  There are no labels found here. It is an  unmarked brand.  It is new.  It is fresh as the born date on a bottle of Bud.  This book is breaking ranks.  Drink up.

I thought I was finished with this zine, I guess not–credit McCreesh.

Scot

Battle Scars by John Bennett

The name John Bennett is a not a new name to the small press by any means but is new to the Rusty Truck.  In a new book published by Henry Denander at Kamini Press, Battle Scars by John Bennett gives us a glimpse of America, life and himself with word portraits,  with short poems that had me nodding my head and saying I wish I’d written that:

Tea Baggers

Tea Baggers
will
go down in
history as
flag- waving
maniacs who
put the
good name of
Lipton
to shame.

In my house I have an extensive library of small press poets.  I now have added Battle Scars to my collection and one John Bennett book will not be enough.

(cover art by Henry Denander)

Drowning With Li Po in a River of Red Wine by A.D. Winans

Well A.D Winans can say what he wants about wearing the label of a poet.  It is what it is and with his new book Drowning With Li Po in a River of Red Wine from Bottle of Smoke Press, I say he is a poet—all 396 pages, all 40 years of poetry worth spanning 55 plus books and chaps.    This is a chronological collection containing poems from every book including an excerpt from Black Lily that the Rusty Truck published.

This collection begins with Carmel Clowns 1970, which I own, and includes the poem Remember Still with this opening stanza:

I remember still how wonderful it was
Running to join each other’s dreams
Sharing our separate worlds of hope
In rooms of music where angels lay

In the 80’s he writes of Crazy John and the Reagan Pslams and in 1997 he issues a poem A Call to Poets when he ends the poem:

take a bookstore owner
to dinner
talk child talk
translate gibberish
put ego aside
put power aside
quit visiting Kerouac’s
and Bukowski’s graves
return to the world
of the living
put the poet back into
poetry
make me want to believe
in you again

In the book From Pussy to Politics (1999) he remembers his friends Jack and Bob in the poem I kiss the Feet of Angels:

Kaufman black messiah
walking bourbon street
eating a golden sardine
Micheline drinking with Kerouac
at the old cedar tavern
Jesus wiping the perspiration
from his forehead
the foghorn plays a symphony
inside my head
I hear the drums
I feel the beat
I kiss the feet of angels

Winans has said and writes in the intro of this book: I don’t think any one man’s life is really that important, but what he does with it and leaves behind is.

I agree it is what you leave behind that makes you important.  That  is why I published his  chap Black Lily.  It is why I will seek out and buy his  early work to read when I am old so that I will still remember.

The work of A.D. Winans is about the common man.  This book from BOSP is the definitive history of 40 years of such observations.  When you read a 40 year old poem and it is still relevant, you feel the significance of the writer and his work.

A.D. Winans you are a poet.  Wear the label however you wish, but I have the  documentation, Drowning with Li Po in a River of Red Wine.

(The book will be released in early November from Bottle of Smoke Press–thanks Bill)

Charles Plymell: Eat Not Thy Mind Review

Click on the pic

To purchase book—here

The Poet Tree by t.kilgore splake

Review of  THE POET TREE by t. kilgore splake, Kamini Press, Ringvagen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden, 2010 or contact henry.denander@gmail.com

By Barbara Bialick

Think of The Poet Tree as a little treasure you could write away to Sweden for, just for the experience of remembering those old countercultural days of the 60s and 70s, from the point of view of a so-called “small press icon.” splake is a poet’s poet from northern Michigan, who slaps images onto the page like paint, one image after the next. He doesn’t need grammar or even page numbers—the rhythm is inherent in the little poems in this 4 x 6 chapbook that lists 12 preceding “selected titles” published just since about the year 2000.

CLICK HERE to read review and scroll down

REVIEW: SODOMY is a CITY in NEW JERSEY by George Wallace

John Dorsey (Grievous Jones Press, 2009)
Sodomy is a City In New Jersey

America needs poets of witness as never before — but more than that, poets who are unafraid to remain tender to the human condition while getting their point across.

Some don’t bother at all — they’re content to rant in anger or self-righteousness. Others are able to use their wit, stoking the fire of irony and satire to win their point.

And there are those rare few who are able to strike a balance between the awfulness of the ‘big picture’ they are trying to convey, with the humanity of the small people caught in it.

Fortunately we have poets like John Dorsey among us, who demonstrates in his new collection that he is capable of doing just that.

CRUDELY MISTAKEN FOR LIFE by Wolfgang Carstens

This will be the first review ( and maybe the last) in this zine as I figured others could do it better and I wanted to leave this space for poetry. That was before I finished Wolfgang’s first book Crudely Mistaken for Life. In this book he leads the reader on a journey of  life, death, and the beauty and pain caught in between.  The work may give a hint of more famous poets, but leaves no doubt this is new, fresh and uniquely Carstens’ poetry.

If I were to write a book of poetry I would strive for this.

And inside these 80 pages you will find some truth, maybe yourself.  I’ll trade  $15.50 for that any day.

Epic Rites publications are available through Small Press Distribution, as well as inside the Epic Rites Bookstore.