Poesy #38

Poesy #38.
Edited by Brian Morrisey (Santa Cruz)
and Doug Holder (Boston).
4/year; POB 7823, Santa Cruz, CA 95061.
$12 (four issues).info@poesy.org. http://poesy.org


Review by Hugh Fox


The real center of this issue is remembering poet Dave Church,
1947-2008. A touching little personalized essay from A.D. Winans,more
remembering Church from Tom Chandler. Church kind of the incarnation of the whole esprit of Poesy : “The Pelting of sleet/against the window./That scary roar of wind./The tick and tock of the clock./Another scotch and soda/to take my mind/off what deep-down/I know I’m really missing.” (“Alone in a Small Dark Room,” p. 12).

There’s also a deep meditation by Debbie Kirk on Church’s book Hack Job, published by Green Bean Press in 2002: “Dave Church romanticized his sleazy lifestyle, and I believe he enjoyed it most of the time. In this book, Dave is a storyteller, a philosopher, a psychologist of sorts, a fragile boy at confession, and the most incredibly resilient
personality.” (p. 13).


All kinds of Beat , Live-It-Up Now poetry here, poems by poet-heroes
like A.D. Winans, Alan Catlin, B.Z. Niditch, Frederick Davis, an
interview with Cesar Vallejo translator, Clayton Eshleman, not just
about Vallejo but Eshleman’s own life too. And the whole mag is filled
with pictures, not just of Church, but photos by experimental poets
like Ellaraine Lockie, T. Kilgore Splake, etc., a picture-word statement that says: STAY HERE, BE HERE, EXPLORE HERE, EXPAND HERE...AS LONG AS YOU CAN. Not just a poetry mag but a strong immersion in a positive existential philosophy
that we could all use a lot of these days.