Impeaching George W. Bush..." ( World Audience Books)

Impeaching George W. Bush..." ( World Audience Books)


Impeaching George W. Bush and His Administration;
Essays by Different Writers
A World Audience Book
August 2007
New York, New Castle
www.worldaudience.org Reviewed by Lo Galluccio

Hot of the presses is an ample and acute journal of essays, critiques, poems, reflections and treatises on two basic subjects: why the Bush administration should be impeached and why the war in Iraq should end. This journal represents a diverse group of international writers driven by a “focused outrage” on these issues.

The basic idea behind impeachment is that it would show the world that America is willing to investigate a corrupt government and try to save our Democracy against internal abuses of power and the misguided policy which has caused the ravages of war in Iraq because of an American occupation.

In his essay “We, the People” Editor M. Stefan Strozier states:

“Right now, America is facing a lot of trouble. This has been the case ever since President Bush took office. In life, there are different kinds of troubles. The trouble America faces right now is potentially irrevocable. President Bush has 18 months left in office –the perfect amount of time to impeach him. President Bush is leading us down a path from which we might not emerge. The only way to stop this from happening is to impeach President Bush, and soon.”

Strozier goes on to say that impeachment amounts to a form of accountability, a way of taking responsibility for our actions, for our failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, for our failure to have any real impact on the so-called real terrorists (Osama Bin Laden, for instance is still at large, while Sadaam Hussein did finally swing from a noose as a war criminal.) He states vehemently, “Impeaching President Bush would demonstrate to the world, clearly, that we are a good nation of strong people.”

And he goes on to quote Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – the famous section about not allowing those who have died to have died in vain, in a war where over, compared to Iraq 625,000 American soldiers died in an internal battle over issues of great economic and racial consequence to our country. And then to the futility and failure which the war in Iraq has proven to be over the past 6 years. Ironically, we’ve in fact helped instigate a civil war in that country between various religious tribes that were in some sense held at bay by Hussein’s dictatorship.

The bottom line for Strozier is that if we are fighting in Iraq we must fight for something right and stand for humanity not just democracy. Our history of foisting Democratic governments on other countries by force leaves a fairly poor track record.

Essentially Strozier states that “a general is not a general” But, the hitch is that he is, in times of war, the Commander in Chief. The issue it seems to me is that this war was started under false premises, declared won under false premises and continues to be fought without any regard to the clear evidence that it cannot be won. And the cost in human life, over 3,000 American soldiers killed and up to 100’s of thousands of Iraqi’s killed, aside from the financial cost of over $530 billion in government funds spent, is more than criminal waste. There may be just and unjust wars. This one, it seems to me, cannot be classified as a just one. And that is good enough reason to go along with an impeachment proceeding.

I think it is worth noting that there have been three Presidents within the past 30 or so years who were brought to impeachment by the US Congress and Senate. President Nixon was impeached after the Watergate scandal was leaked and found guilty of bugging Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. He was essentially put on trial for a charge of wrong doing and before convicted on many counts, including misusing the C.I.A., he resigned from office. Remember the backdrop prior to the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate Scandal in the 1960’s under Nixon, was the Vietnam War, the closest equivalent, I think we can find to the current war in Iraq. Nixon's last days in office came in late July and early August, 1974. The House Judiciary Committee voted to accept three of four proposed Articles of Impeachment, with some Republicans voting with Democrats to recommend impeachment of the President.

The final blow came with the decision by the Supreme Court to order Nixon to release more White House tapes. One of these became known as the 'smoking gun' tape when it revealed that Nixon had participated in the Watergate cover-up as far back as June 23, 1972. Around the country, there were calls for Nixon to resign. He did so on the evening of August 8, 1974.

The other President who was called to trial for possible wrongdoing in office was, of course, our charismatic Democratic President from Arkansas, Bill Clinton. On a much less important scandal, at least to most American people and certainly I think, it is safe to say the rest of the world, especially Europeans.

Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, and acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999. The charges, perjury and obstruction of justice, arose from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Paula Jones law suit. While there was an issue of the President having committed perjury in his denial of sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, a 22 year old White House intern and some division in opinion over the President’s culpability, he was not forced to resign from office but reprimanded with a monetary civil suit of some kind.

These are vastly different cases of Impeachment and so it needs to be noted that impeaching a Presdident really means putting him on trial, it does not mean automatically having him/her thrown out of office.

In “The Finger and the Moon” by Tom Frozart, he lists three reaons for impeaching George W. Bush:
· Serial lying; bogus claims about special power, WMD;
· Conducting an illegal war; faciliation of crimes as described in Nuremburg Charter and Geneva Convention on POW;
· Committing/iinducing his adminstration to commit a sizable number of federal crimes against civil liberties.
Under the heading a “A big Step Backwards for Democracy” Tom writes,
“The current situaiton in Iraq is going a step further with the outsourcing of military prerogatives to private organizations that usually fall into the category of mercenaries. War is more and more a a funding of business with public money, and lives; to do so, deals have even been struck with foreign countries to compose a motley alliance mixing formal democracies, authoritarian reigning families, and mafia style gangs. In other words, we are going full-speed in reverse gear; warlords of the medieval age didn’t act differently, and already invented the free circulation of people in chains.”

Franklin W. Liu, an editorial, essay writer, visual artist and reviewer who has traveled the world from his home base in Hong Kong writes a rather lyrical history of his own relationship to America as the foundation of Liberty, using the famous Statue in the NY Harbor as a pivot point. In one passage of his chronology he writes:

“President George W. Bush, in fact, upon the commencement of the Iraqi War declared that the United States reserves the right to use any weaponry in our military arsenel, including our nuclear weaponry. Thus with this wanton, reckless rhetoric, President Bush opened the floodgage for other countries to rush into nuclear weaponry development and may have pushed al Quaeda to seek suitcase nuclear devices via the black-market. Critics say Presdident Bush a born again Christian, has witlessly brought the world one step closer to the Bliblical End Times..”

Of course there are also those who think it significant that our President is also a somewhat recovered alcoholic or one acting like a ‘dry drunk.”

To interject a few of my own observations: I believe that had Bush tried to enforce a draft as in the Vietnam War in the late 60’s so that more middle and upper class young people were affected by this debacle, many more people would have protested this war in the streets. It also saddens me a great deal that the facts are that most of the American soldiers fighting are on the 3rd, 4th or 5th tour of duty and most are young and from rural areas of the country. In one New York Times article I read, these soldiers, before returning to their regiments, even write in journals of dreaming about their imminant deaths, and can do nothing to stop their fate except writing letters to their children to keep them strrong and with faith in God and sacrificing for one’s country. I also read at one point that, while we have virtually destroyed the infrastructure of Iraq, and many soldiers die because jeeps simply fall off faulty or broken road lanes, there are now over 6 million cell phones in Iraq, up from the under 100,000 pre-War. That was an Associated press statistic. It really makes you wonder the kind of quality of life that America is bringing to the world. Sure it’s great to have a Nokia when you’re in a bind, but if you can’t reach a doctor or a tow truck or friend who’s just been killed by a suicide bomber, is the Nokia worth that much?

And there is the supreme irony that Osama Bin Ladin is still at large and that he, not Sadaam Hussein masterminded 9/11. So, with all our U.S. intelligence and fire-power, why does this man elude us? According to a PBS special that aired some months ago, our invasion of Iraq was a dream come true to him, because since the time that Anwar Sadat was assasinated for being fairly friendly toward the West, Muslims decided that there was a loophole in the Koran and that they could fight and kill each other. Bin Laden hoped that he could provoke American to attack a strong Middle Eastern civilizaiton like Iraq. That was really when the rise of the extremist Muslim movement took hold and Osama Bin Laden visited America and unfortunately, according to this special, didn’t really like our manicured suburban lawns or our lindy hops. I could understand the lawns, but I can’t really understand who could hate the swooning swing of 1950’s high school be bop and rock and roll dances. It makes no sense to me. Then, again I’m not a devout Muslim. The point being, that as an enemy of American wealth and indulgence, Bin Laden hoped that he could provoke America to attack a strong Middle Eastern civilization like Iraq. And that is exactly what George Bush did after the attack on 9/11, The point also being that after the World Trade Towers in NYC were attacked that day much of the world was on our side. They were pretty sympathetic to thousands of secretaries and even CEOs going up in flames and “W” did the exact opposite of what he should have done. He didn’t use his little grey cells. He didn’t rally international support or wonder what this terrorist movement based in the Middle East was really after. He just went to war against that oil-producting country whose leader his ole’ Daddy had a grudge against. And it created one of the biggest messes in history.

Hugh Fox, poet, writer, reviewwr, anthropological scholar and all-around humane visionary has this to say. He sees what’s actually happening here in America as a result of Bush’s policies and this war:

“I mean they’re closing down schools, reducing the sentences of criminals so they can pay less to maintain prisons, raising the tuition at the university, closing down plants, thousands of people out of work, crime up, on some streets most of the restaurants and stores and factories are for sale/lease.
In the meantime trillions are being spent sending soldiers over to a country at civil war with itself, as if the English had sent over troops to stop the American civil war….

So, it’s not just getting involved with the wrong war and putting the US economy into the worst debt it’s ever been in, not just the killing American troops, all the concentration being focused on nonsense (while the bad-guy Arabs are planning their next big massacre!) but no concentration being focused on the American middle and lower classes, no concentration being focused on manufacuring, on the protection of American foods, toothpastes, you name it.’

Particularly impressive is a 10 part imagistic expose by a NY based psychologist and singer/songwriter named Dr. Mel Waldman who in a montage of styles describes the horrors of the war. It is poetic, and declarative, psychological and metaphorical.

In his intrduction he writes:

“This war is a labyriinth and we are trying to find our way out. But for now, we are lost in a dark dreamscape of unspeakable violence and death, a black holEof depair tht is vast and incomprehensible…”

Other parts are titled 1. THE INVISIBLE SOLDIER, 2. WAR IS EVIL – SOMETIMES NECESSARY / THE STREETS OF PLANET EARTH 3. WAR IS INSANE 4. WAR IS FREUDIAN: A REPETITION COMPULSION 5. THE IRAQ WAR SEEMED JUSTIFIED 6.PRESIDENT BUSH SEEMED ENCHANTED BY LADY VIVTORY 7. OUR SAFETY IS QUESTIONABLE. 8 ADAAM HUSSEIN’S HANGING SEEMED INFLAMMATORY 9. THE WAR IS LITERARY 10. WAR IS TRAUMATIC

As far as I know Presidential candidate Barack Obama is mounting the strongest drive to impeach President Bush and end the War in Iraq. There will be numerous demonstrations in Washington this month against the war though it is interesting that they are not getting the kind of prime-time coverage one would have thought they deserved. In almost every poll the majority of American votesr want the war to end but the Senate and Congress still seem gridlocked about how to ease out of the situatoin gracefully. Bush, it seems, is just trying to save face.

M. Stefan M. Strozier has put together a mighty colleciton of pieces – many of which I couldn’t include, of short letters to the Editor and poems also, about why impeaching Bush could lead to an end to the War and a return to a sense that America is willing to hold it’s highest leader accountable for his worst mistakes.
The journal is available on-line through World Audience Press at www.worldaudience.org.

Lo Galluccio/Ibbetson Update contact her: lo747@hotmail.com>;
Labels: Galluccio on World Audience

CONNECTED VOICES by Natalie Lobe - March Street Press,

CONNECTED VOICES by Natalie Lobe - March Street Press, 3413 Wilshire, Greensboro, NC / rbixby@earthlink.net / 47pps / 1-59661-044-1 / $9.00 http://www.marchstreetpress.com

Thrice segmented, the first is steeped in nature, as in "At the Rim," teetering on the edge of the Grand Canyon, a synonym for the peril of life, all enveloping, before being cast to sea in "Glosa" - "where licorice dolphins/play tag with ships and coral reefs" again, a metaphoric play for the citified destruction of our earth. "Every city a landscape of rubble,/every forest smoldering ash./Then imagine the whole/ocean oil-choked and stagnant,/pelicans shrouded in scum." Then "Moon Uprisings" gives us a Pagan slant, albeit the scene "In Beijing Park, toddlers/with full moon faces/and new moon eyes/smile at long nose strangers/with Nikon hands."
Part two offers a glimpse of Jewish history and tradition, from Israel to "Ellis Island circa 1920," where the mix of clothing customs perplexes the anxious wife on board, 9 years after her "Yaakov" made America his home. "The women in New York City, they don’t wear/babushkas or fourteen petticoats" lamenting that "When I am inside all that cotton/nobody's poke can hurt me." And, inevitably, the Holocaust with her evoking poem, in its entirity;

"Untitled"

No matter how hard she pulls
the wedding band will not slide
off her finger past the swollen joint.
The thick faced guard scowls,
Gehen, and then turns to the next.
Not worth touching the old Jew.
Clutching her sore left hand
she shuffles on.

Later, in the ash a gold circle glows
incongruous, defiant.

Part three brings us back to a perfect blend of matriarchy, nature and my favorite, "Henrietta's Garden." Lines of note;

She nurtured her garden with kitchen slops:
potato peels, apple cores, watermelon seeds
steeped inside a white pail half full of dishwater.
When the pail grew heavy with liquid muck

she flung her brew on the flowerbeds.
Vegetable seeds from the swill took root
pairing zinnias with cantaloupe, lilies with peas
...
The crazy quilt of purple, red, gold, green,
the fragrance of rose in zucchini,
finger-length beans, a cucumber's girth
still dazzle my brain.

Snippets of childhood into adulthood with a keen eye for detail and a feel for emotion has this collection ending, appropriately with "Ode to a Landfill" - "Keeper of the past,/cracked vessels,/broken bedsteads,/tarnished crass./Baby dolls/eyes gone" as I fear we all, too, shall someday be. A strong fabric of life, meant to last, to endure, to give history, to evoke and to share.

Cheryl A Townsend/Ibbetson Update/ Sept. 2007

One time editor/publisher of Impetus/Implosion Press. Most recent poetic appearances are in Zygote In My Coffee and Abbey.

Shin Yu Pai "sightings," selected works, (200 - 2005)

Shin Yu Pai "sightings," selected works, (200 - 2005) $16.00 1913 Press www.1913press.org 1913 pressbox 9654hollins universityroanoke, virginia 24020


The rhythm of Shin Yu Pai’s book, ‘sightings’ reaches
from present form to past particles. her form often
sings. broken into four parts, each section holds it’s
own beat. ‘the love hotel poems,’ blast us with
reality…”jesus the name of just another john.”
consumerism and the philosophy of consumerism are
attacked in a sublime soak, and we readers blot up the
excesses.

the second set of poems kick off, “unnecessary
roughness,” the locker room, band practice lists, the
ever present dilemma poets face in presenting their
own time. Shin Yu Pai plucks us out of the ordinary
and dips us in the opposites. the poet ties us up and
makes us listen. she sits us in front of a video
screen, “concave is the opposite of convex,” her
explanation an assumption in explanation. the line
surface reveals the motionless scenes taken from
books.

“nutritional feed.” i don’t think the poet
understands; (or perhaps she does) she doesn’t have to
hide messages, need not hussied up with old
typewritten, bold face text, tests. she ventures off,
ventures in space without….. she presents an array of
images that might work better through integration,
words crossed out don’t make it visual. If the reader
scrapes off some of the presentation within the last
section, we come upon universal
thoughts…experimentation, the need to differ and
relate.

Shin Yu attempts to orchestrate a new approach to say
what each generation needs to say, (life is not what
we thought it could be). This book is the beginning of
an aging form, the beginning of what appears to be new
and challenging. it is worth the read. check this book
out of your library and if they don’t have a copy,
then make a suggestion for them to purchase this book

irene koronas is the poetry editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review http://whlreview.com

Washing the Stones, Linda Larson, Ibbetson Street Press, September 2007, Reviewed by Lauren Byrne

Washing the Stones, Linda Larson, Ibbetson Street Press, September 2007, Reviewed by Lauren Byrne $10.


This collection begins in the South, where “Cypresses take on the shapes of native women/Surrounding the black water like an extended family…” and where, after hard rains, “the red clay dirt turns into gumbo.” The American South is part of the geography of Linda Larson’s past that she mines to reveal a life lived with a poet’s intensity. Even when the subject is death, her words dance with life, as in “Sweet Chariot,” recounting the funeral of a 16-year-old cousin, where:

“A canopy of roses covered the casket/like the winning colt at the Derby,” or “Catfish Catch,” where a gutted catfish reveals “in the dull gray lining” of its belly, “ruby-colored, wet roe,/a handful of bright beads.”

Before I go any further let me divulge the fact that I’m a friend of Linda’s. She’s even been kind enough to mention my name in her book. I remember the day I read some of these poems for the first time when she was putting the collection together. The short poems, in particular, seemed like gunshots of clarity—little explosions of comprehension that lit up the beauty of so much in life that we take for granted.

One of her shortest poems, “Daily Bread,” is also one of my favorites, suggesting as it does that only by its absence is the luxury of the ordinary revealed:

“How glad Isolde/Would have been/To rise at six/And put the coffee on.”

Isolde of Ireland in the Arthurian legends was betrothed to King Mark of Cornwall, who sent his nephew Tristan to escort her to his kingdom. The pair fell in love, and as doomed lovers never knew those routine times couples often don’t recognize are contented until they end. Linda’s moving long poem, “Schizophrenia with Features of Unrequited Love,” allows us a glimpse into the mental illness that has claimed stretches of her life, but which has also contributed to her heightened appreciation of the ordinary and the everyday. Her experiences have helped her shape poetry that imparts a lasting sense of what a privilege it is to simply live simply.

-- Lauren Byrne/ Ibbetson Update/ Sept 2007

Lauren Byrne is a freelancer writer living in Arlington, Mass.

Lyn Lifshin on Jack Powers

I got this statement from the acclaimed small press poet Lyn Lifshin. http://lynlifshin.com There is a birthday party for Jack Powers Sat Sept 15 30 Gordon Street Allston 5PM Reading Potluck dinner more info: http://jackpowerspoet.blogspot.com



From the time I met Jack Powers, I think in the mid seventies when he invited me to do one of several poetry readings to go along with the Boston Marathon, I never stopped being incredibly amazed at his generosity and gentleness. I had published a handful of chapbooks and books when we first met. Before that I had heard of Stone Soup and I think on my trip to Boston to Beacon Press, just as my first anthology, TANGLED VINES, was accepted, the writer I came to Boston with tried to find Jack but we couldn’t.

But from that first meeting and reading, I’ve rarely had so considerate and generous and supportive a host. He was so kind at all the readings. I know he paid me when he did not have the money and could not afford to. There was always a feeling of vibrancy and fun and excitement reading for Jack and talking with him. There was always an idealistic feeling that anything could be accomplished with poetry. I always felt he was a leader and in the little time I spent in Boston, always saw his gracious generosity and kindness with people from all backgrounds.

Not only did he pay me for reading when he couldn’t I’m sure afford to, at my last reading in Boston Jack refused to let me pay to ship my books back. I insisted and I’m sure it was not easy for him to box and mail the books I hadn’t sold but he simply would not take my check. I think I sent it and he tore it up.

Jack is unique. He has helped so many poets, been so sensitive. In a time when poetry has become so careerist, Jack’s passion, community concern and sweetness is very special. He towers over many poets, literally and metaphorically ...

Lyn Lifshin has written more than 100 books and edited 4 anthologies of women writers. Her poems have appeared in most poetry and literary magazines in the U.S.A., and her work has been included in virtually every major anthology of recent writing by women. She has given more than 700 readings across the U.S.A. and has appeared at Dartmouth and Skidmore colleges, Cornell University, the Shakespeare Library, Whitney Museum, and Huntington Library. Lyn Lifshin has also taught poetry and prose writing for many years at universities, colleges and high schools, and has been Poet in Residence at the University of Rochester, Antioch, and Colorado Mountain College. Winner of numerous awards including the Jack Kerouac Award for her book Kiss The Skin Off, Lyn is the subject of the documentary film Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass. For her absolute dedication to the small presses which first published her, and for managing to survive on her own apart from any major publishing house or academic institution, Lifshin has earned the distinction "Queen of the Small Presses." She has been praised by Robert Frost, Ken Kesey and Richard Eberhart, and Ed Sanders has seen her as "a modern Emily Dickinson."

The republic of Lies: Poems by Ed Ochester.

The republic of Lies: Poems by Ed Ochester. (ADASTRA PRESS
16 Reservation Road, Easthampton, MA 01027 (413)527-3324, (413)549-2201 fax


Ed Ochester, 68, has had a long career as a poet and editor. He is the editor of the Pitt. Poetry Series and co-editor of the poetry journal 5A.M. Ochester, is well into the second half of the rollercoaster ride, but still has more than a bit of the rebel flowing through his veins. His poetry seems to cut through all the posturing and smoke and mirrors society throws at us, and cuts to the chase. In the poem “ Butterfly Effect” the poet takes broad swipes at the lies we all tell ourselves as we “plod along.”

“ I am thinking of all the Americans, who believe that in former lives,
they were Catherine The Great or Nefertiti ,
and all the ones who believe,
in the butterfly effect…

some jerk who farts in Albuquerque,
might trigger a typhoon in Sumatra,
though if that were true we’d have more storms then Jupiter and
the earth already would be destroyed…

all of us poor dumb fucks,
heads filled with shit
muttering to ourselves
as we plod along.”

And here is a poem that pays homage to all those “ rebels without a cause”: “Why I love Teenagers::

“In Holiday Park, PA
the Burger King
has put out a signboard advertising
for late-night employees
and some kid
contemptuous
of minimum wage
the ‘free enterprise system”
and possibly even
“In God We Trust”
has stolen the “C” from the sign
so that it reads:
“Now hiring Losers.”

Highly Recommended.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update

JAZZ AND GOSPEL CONCERT TO BENEFIT VICTOR ROSARIO’S LEGAL DEFENSE FUND

JAZZ AND GOSPEL CONCERT TO BENEFIT
VICTOR ROSARIO’S LEGAL DEFENSE FUND





WHERE: OLD CAMBRIDGE BAPTIST CHURCH
1150 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE
CAMBRIDGE, MA

WHEN: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 7:30 PM
(ENTER THROUGH RED DOOR ON LEFT SIDE)

WHO: GEOFFREY DANA HICKS ON PIANO
JIMMY SMITH, LO GALLUCCIO
& OTHERS ON VOCALS
WILLIE SORDILLO ON SAXOPHONE

ADMISSION: $20.00 TO BENEFIT LEGAL DEFENSE FUND COME SWING AND ENJOY FOR A GOOD CAUSE!

Review of Drinking The Light by Laverne Frith

Review of Drinking The Light by Laverne Frith



Drinking The Light ($12.00 U.S.A.) (Finishing Line Press, P.O. Box 1626, Georgetown, Kentucky 40324) finishinglinepress.com

By Laverne Frith



Laverne Frith’s Drinking The Light is an aesthetically astute poetry book. At first glance, the reader may think the 29 page chapbook will be a religious experience, but it isn’t really that. It’s a highly crafted collection of poetry that seems to teach the reader a lot of things, especially about beautiful writing, visual art, photography, as well as nature.

Through economy of words, enjambment, and concrete imagery, Frith explains everyday situations and aesthetics with immediate insight. He teaches the reader about light’s importance in photography by writing about life and inanimate objects and the effects of light upon them. With ease and skill, Frith has the reader “Drinking The Light”, understanding photography and art and poetry in a reading experience that is visually oriented.[1]

In his opening poem, “Toward Clarity: The Power of Contrast” (p. 3) , Frith lets the reader know the speaker of the poem is interested in art.



I find the picture

much too muddled



I play it stark

strip out the middle tones



go from negative to positive

to negative to positive



over and over again



only the outlines

matter now



here I find

all the subtleties



for my attraction



Here Frith has created a beautiful, flowing piece about a “picture”, probably a photograph, that metaphorically sets the tone for the chapbook to follow. Like a photograph with a “muddled” or disordered scene, the speaker reflects that the book to follow isn’t clear in its intentions. This is similar to life’s path. The speaker seems to suggest that the following poems contain messages that are hidden, as he says, “here I find/all the subtleties//for my attraction”.

The speaker is interested in photography and the effects of light and immediately lets the reader know the journey isn’t going to be that clear, a lot of contrasts will happen, as often seen in photographs.

And, yet, the experience will probably be a smooth, flowing and speedy one, as Frith indicates through the poem’s lack of punctuation. Frith doesn’t even capitalize any of the words except the word “I” which give a focus – a focal point – to the piece and the chapbook.

Frith writes poems about light several times in the book. “In Reluctant Light” (p. 7), “In A Vase” (p. 11), and “Drinking The Light” (p. 24), the speaker tells about the dramatic effects light has on subjects and in scenes. Frith has captured with words visual images that a photographer or a painter portrays in artwork.

In “In Reluctant Light”, the speaker says, “the window sill is deep/in cobalt blue/bottles lined abreast//so many varied shapes/and densities/translucent warnings”. Frith has described this scene so articulately and with such clarity that the reader can visualize the setting as if he was viewing an actual photograph. The reader can easily imagine “the bottles filled/with dry flowers/herbs and ornamental fans” written further down the poem, as well as the “cobalt blue/bottles lined abreast” because Frith has written so concretely. He does get a bit abstract and “muddled” when he explains “so many varied shapes/and densities/translucent warnings” and about “contained regret/overlaying anxious moods/of the afternoon”. But this can be attributed to the darkening of the daylight where “a candle here and there/I only need/to strike a match”. Through words, Frith has captured the tone of light so important to understand in a photograph.

Again, light is a focal point in “In A Vase” where “of early morning/window light/mums float//lower tendrils/spread/in counterpoise”. The reader can easily imagine this quaint scene. Frith has created a beautiful poem by making the reader visualize “window light” hitting the “mums (that) float//lower tendrils/spread/in counterpoise.” This poem is written at a distance, as if we are viewing a photograph.

“Drinking The Light”, which is the title of Frith’s chapbook, is written at a distance, after Frith has viewed a photograph. The person who took the photograph remains a mystery, but the concrete imagery again plays an important part in helping the reader visualize the artwork being described. The effects of light in a dark setting are revealed. The speaker explains:



in the wee hours

on this vacant street

the storefront mannequins hold sway



their window dresses seize the stage

drinking the light

like tonic water



light that shadow-drips

from their broadbrimmed hats

obscuring the plasticity of face…



We have a sense of time, place, subject, and light so clearly and gracefully depicted through

the use of words.

In Drinking The Light, Firth has also poetry about things that live in nature. The poems “The Jay” (p. 8) and “White Arachnid” (p. 9) describe a blue jay and a white spider and a moth doing what is expected of them. In “The Jay”, Frith writes:



there are so many

blue aspects of the Jay

that are so difficult to capture







with its flitting nuances

of hunt and capture

its exercises



from break of day

through transient shadow

through bright full sun…



The speaker tells the reader of his observations about the Blue Jay’s habits, “with its flitting nuances/of hunt and capture” all day long or “from break of day/through transient shadow/through bright full sun. Frith has evoked visual imagery, like that viewed in a photograph or a painting, through economizing of words.

Frith portrays the spider in a distinctive light in his symmetrical poem “White Arachnid”, a poem which is offset in the final stanza with its single line “will not wait.” Just as spiders have the tendency to surprise their prey – and human beings, too –, the speaker “Startle(s)” the reader at the start of the poem. Frith has capitalized the word “Startle”, which is what the spider has done to the “waiting moth” who has been captured in the spider’s web spun “on the night glass”.

The moth couldn’t easily spot “the night glass” in the “ephemeris of the night” with its “incandescent light”. Frith has created a beautiful piece about the habits of the spider and “a waiting moth”, the captured prey. Frith seems to have viewed this scene often enough to realize

“Neither will rest for long/The permitting night//will not wait.” Through Frith’s simple observations, the darkness of the night is visualized in its “incandescent light”. It’s as if the reader is reading a photograph made from words.

Besides photography and nature, Frith also has published poems about visual art, as seen in “An Artist’s Self Portrait”(p. 5), “Young Girl At The Piano” (p. 14), “Mosaic” (p. 16), and

“Arrival Of The Normandy Train At The Gare Saint-Lazare” (p. 17). These poems are also about the tones of light in artwork and very good readings.

All in all, Laverne Frith’s Drinking The Light is aesthetically pleasing and a thought-inducing poetry read. If you have an interest in light and its effects in art, photography and life, you should enjoy reading this chapbook. And if you don’t necessarily want to put your thinking cap on and learn about light’s tone in various stages, you probably still will find Drinking The Light a delight to read.


Pam Rosenblatt/Ibbetson Update/Somerville, Mass. Aug 2007





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[1] Alain Briot, “Aesthetic and Photography”, http?//luminous-landscape.com/columns/aesthetics-l.shtml,

p.1.

IBBETSON STREET PRESENTS: FROM MIST TO SHADOW by Robert K. Johnson

IBBETSON STREET PRESENTS:

From Mist To Shadow: Poems by Robert K. Johnson


Fred Marchant (Director of the Poetry Center at Suffolk University) writes of Johnson’s work: “His is an art of transparency, an art in which language through its own devices becomes nearly invisible and what is seen through the scrim is usually an epiphany… The ordinary life is under the poet’s gaze transformed into something approaching the sacred…”

“From Mist To Shadow” is an apt title for Robert K. Johnson’s newest collection of poetry. The poems offer a wide range of subject matters and styles. The book’s first pages concern the poet’s early years, and the final pages his later years. In between we have meditation on family, literature, career, movies and a host of characters who have weaved in and out of the poet’s life.

Robert K. Johnson was a Professor of English at Suffolk University (Boston, Mass) for many years and is the author of six collections of poetry. His work has appeared in a wide variety of magazines, journals and newspapers. He is currently the submission editor for the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, Mass.






To order: send a check for $12 to:

Ibbetson Street Press
25 School St.
Somerville, Mass.
02143
dougholder@post.harvard.edu

I HAVE MEASURED OUT MY LIFE IN COFFEE SPOONS.I HAVE MEASURED OUT MY LIFE IN COFFEE SPOONS.

I HAVE MEASURED OUT MY LIFE IN COFFEE SPOONS.

I was staring at my usual oatmeal scone at the Sherman Café in Union Square, Somerville last Sunday when I realized to some extent that : “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons,” as T.S. Eliot wrote. For as long as I can remember coffee shops have been a balm; a comforting presence in my life. My late father was a consummate New York City PR man from the 1950’s until his death several years ago. He wasn’t a coffee house sort of guy, but he did frequent the popular watering holes of the time like “P.J. Clark’s” and the “Twenty One Club.” And even in his 80’s he hopped onto the train into the city to met his old cronies from back in the day to down a few and chat. My late uncle Dave Kirschenbaum, a noted rare book dealer, and the owner of the Carnegie Bookstore on New York’s Book Row, had breakfast at the same hotel near Central Park for over 50 years. When he died they affixed a plaque to his table with his name on it.

Well, I have not frequented such illustrious places on a regular basis, but through most of my 52 years there has been a coffee shop, house, or counter in my life. When I first moved back to Boston after college in 1978 I lived in a rooming house on Newbury St in the tony Back Bay section. I used to habituate the counter at the Guild’s Drugstore which was on Boylston Street across from the Lenox Hotel. I always had a glorious hash and eggs that stuck in my stomach like an anchoring lead weight. The sight of a bright yellow yoke sun oozing over a pungent hump of corned beef hash was a simple, daily pleasure. Behind the counter was Ethel, a tough-talking, middle-aged lady from Southie who spoke with the heavily accented r “s” of a true native. She had an arsenal of stories about life in the Colonial Projects, about her ner-do-well husband, and the hijinks of an insufferable son. Both food and anecdotes were generously served to all. David Brudnoy, the WBZ talk show host and cultural critic was a regular. He was always leafing through a stack of newspapers, while he ate a rather pedestrian meal of toast and coffee. I never got up the nerve to speak to him, although he was my idea of what the urbane, man-about-town should act and look like. There was also Walter, the obese candy counter clerk, who had an impressive breakfast of a half dozen eggs, several English muffins wading in butter, and of course a pile of grease-infused hash browns. Walter was forever talking about the novel he was working on and nobody seemed to want to challenge that notion.

Later, Brueger’s Bagels and the Au Bon Pain became my morning refuge. Over a series of regular breakfast with my friend Richard Wilhelm, we birthed a literary
baby at a corner table and we named it the “Ibbetson Street Press.” Later, at the bustling Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square, poet Harris Gardner and I came up with the idea of the “Bagel Bards” a weekly writers’ group that meets at the Au Bon Pain in Central Square, Cambridge and Davis Square, Somerville throughout the year.

When I moved to Union Square some 6 years ago, I had a short-lived affair with the Grand Café. I even managed to organize a poetry reading there, and nurtured a friendship with the owners. But just like friendships- businesses are fickle and they come and go.

And now the Sherman Café has been a long commitment of mine. I mean I have gotten more than a few poems from the fertile “grounds” of the place. I am such a steady presence that the staff becomes concerned when there is a slight deviation of my pro forma order—from iced to hot coffee for instance.

But there is something about these shops. Amidst the chatter I have clarity and concentration. Amidst the din I can write. When I bite into a scone I am home. Maybe this was a reason the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer used to haunt the cafeterias in New York City.

I really don’t want to think about it. In the end I am happy to sit, and sip.

PUSHCART NOMINATIONS 2007 Ibbetson Street 2007

PUSHCART NOMINATIONS 2007 Ibbetson Street 2007




Robert K. Johnson submission editor and myself have made our selections for the Ibbetson Street Pushcart Nominations. ( 2007) Best--Doug Holder/Ibbetson Street Press

"How To Know A Prairie Poem." Ellaraine Lockie. Issue #21.


"Morning Trek." Michael Keshigian. Issue #22.


"Passages." Linda M. Fischer. Issue #22.


"Diving" Laura Rodley Issue # 22


"Rhaposdy in Blue" Patricia L. Hamilton Issue #22


"LOWERED EXPECTATIONS IN THE LOWER 48"
Jared Smith Issue#21










The Pushcart Prize - Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America. Hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in the pages of our annual collections.
Writers who were first noticed here include:
Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, John Irving, Philip Lopate, Philip Levine, and many more. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series.

Our Pushcart Prize editions are found in most libraries and bookstores. Each volume contains an index of past selections, plus lists of outstanding presses.

“Further Fenway Fiction” edited by Adam Emerson Pachter

Further Fenway Fiction. Edited by Adam Emerson Pachter ( Rounder Books. One Rounder Way. Burlington, Ma. 01803) $17. http://www.rounderbooks.com

Fenway Park would seem to be a natural setting to center works of fiction and poetry around. The stadium is a house of melodrama, history, bipolar highs and lows, all the right stuff for writers to mine. Former Somerville resident and author Adam Emerson Pachter edited an anthology of fiction aptly titled” “Fenway Fiction,” that came out in September 2005. In 2007 a second anthology: “Further Fenway Fiction,” edited by Pachter and released by the local imprint Rounder Books has hit the street, and features poetry and fiction focusing around the old town team. And as always Somerville or Somerville - connected writers are represented on these pages. Author Timothy Gager, cofounder of The Somerville News Writers Festival, Steve Almond author of “Candy Freak,” and Festival regular, as well as long-time Somerville resident and novelist Mitch Evich, all have found homes for their work.

Now mind you, I am no longer a real baseball fan, although truth-be-told I was a rabid 1969 “Miracle Mets” freak during my freshman year of high school. But over the years the passion for the game has dissipated with the weight of more wordly concerns…well you know the drill. But I still can remember a time when a Mets’ loss could bring me to tears, or when the crack of a bat could me salivate like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

This collection brings some of that heightened awareness through humor, pathos and some right-on writing.

Tim Gager’s short satirical piece “Fantasy Camp;” appealed to the mired middle- aged man in me, as Gager sends up a group of over-the hill, never-have-beens at a baseball fantasy camp. Gager has these hapless campers practice fantasies of firing managers; has withdrawn, nerdish men trained to be bombastic,” buck-stops- here” umpires, and even has women “of a certain age” train to be baseball groupies.

In Steve Almond’s “The Tragedie of Theo” ( “Prince of the Red Sox Nation”) Almond uses Shakespeare’s ‘”Hamlet” as a conceit to capture the tortured “to be or not to be” dilemma of the young Dane, I mean… general manager of the Sox,
Theo Epstein.

Mitch Evich’s “Johnny Boy,” examines a man who had a fleeting taste of success as a ballplayer, but now in his mid 30’s he is captured in a second rate city job and the banalities of a longtime marriage.


The poetry section has works from Jonathan P. Winickoff, Bob Francis, Al Basile, and Ron Skrabacz.



Adam Pachter, the editor, has a romantic piece “Cuttyhunk” that pulls at the heartstrings. Other contributors include: Rachel Solar, Henry Garfield, Bill Nowlin, Michelle Von Euw, Cecilia Tan, Jennifer Rapaport, Steven Bergman, Sarah Green David Kruh, Tracy Miller Geary, Elizabeth Pariseau, and David Desjardins.



Whether you are a fan of baseball, fiction, poetry, or all three, there is much to recommend in this anthology.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update

Jared Smith reviews "Of All the Meals I Had Before" and "No One Dies At the Au Bon Pain" by Doug Holder

*This review appeared in the July/Aug 2007 issue of the Small Press Review

OF ALL THE MEALS I HAD BEFORE: Poems About Food and Eating
2007; 23 pp.; Cervena Barva Press, P.O. Box 440357, W. Somerville, MA
02144-3222; $7 http://www.cervenabarvapress.com and
NO ONE DIES AT THE AU BON PAIN; 2007; 28 pp.;
Sunnyoutside, P.O. Box 441429, Somerville, MA 02144; $8 http://www.sunnyoutside.com

Both books by Doug Holder
Reviewed by Jared Smith

These books have a big appetite, lean with both white breast and dark-meat
muscle, flavored with sad humor and regret, while reveling in all that goes
into a man. Doug Holder is perhaps the most family centered poet to emerge
in recent years, and yet he carries the literary heritage of the small press
proudly, with an awareness of and closeness to the chosen isolation from
which it evolves.

In Last Night At The Wursthaus, without apologies to Harvard or merchants
for his enjoyment of the pun, he observes: “…at the bar/scholars of the
academy/and everyday scholars of life/share the same expanse of polished
wood.” Yes. A whole urban culture dwells here, laid out for inspection and
ingestion. In Rotisserie Chickens, it is “Strange how they are displayed-/a
chorus line/propped on wire/chests out/breasts shimmering/melting flesh/legs
spread/wings/posturing/on their plump hips…Which one will I choose tonight?”

Which one indeed, where no one dies at the au bon pain? But, of course, we
are a marked and confused society. And Doug feels the pain and the pun, the
twist of the knife through bread and flesh. The Au Bon Pain is a chain of
cafes, and no one dies in cafes at leisure. But of course, they do…as every
moment and every bit of flesh taken in works its way down into the bone. In
I Am Not Afraid Of Bones, he writes “I trace them/through a façade of
flesh./ My tongue/is often crowned,/tipped with/marrow…Bones--/they are
what/make us/most human.” Nor are the bones only of the body; they are of
the institutions surrounding us as well. They have a beauty, and a purpose,
and a hollowness—and therein lies our beauty and fragile vulnerability.

These books are printed and produced in the finest tradition of the small
press: well laid-out and speaking to the mind rather than mass market.
Centers of artistic energy seem to move around the country periodically, and
it’s good to see rare meat on the finest tables again.

--Jared Smith.

*Jared Smith received his BA cum laude and MA in English and American Literature from New York University, studying under poet/critic M.L. Rosenthal, former Library of Congress Adviser Robert Hazel, and New York Quarterly founder William Packard. He is the author of six collections of poetry, including Where Images Become Imbued With Time (Puddin'head Press, Chicago, 2007; Lake Michigan And Other Poems (Puddin'head Press, Chicago, 2005); Walking The Perimeters Of The Plate Glass Window Factory (Birch Brook Press, New York, 2001); Keeping The Outlaw Alive, (Erie Street Press, Chicago, 1988); Dark Wing (Charred Norton Publications, Camillus, NY, 1984); and Song Of The Blood (The Smith Press, New York, 1983). His poems, essays, and literary criticism have appeared hundreds of times in journals over the past 30 years. His poems have been adapted to modern dance at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and to stage in Chicago. He is a member of The Advisory Board of The New York Quarterly, Poetry Editor of Trail & Timberline, past president of Poets & Patrons, and a member of The Academy of American Poets. He was the 2006 judge for the Jo-Anne Hirschfield Memorial Poetry Competition in Evanston. He currently is a frequent lecturer and reader at universities, colleges, libraries, and other venues across the country.

JACQUES FLEURY: INTERVIEW WITH THE “HAITIAN FIREFLY”

JACQUES FLEURY: INTERVIEW WITH THE “HAITIAN FIREFLY”

Jacques Fleury was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti but has lived in the Somerville/Cambridge axis for many of his 36 years. He is a poet, freelance writer, journalist and hosts the Cambridge Access TV show: “Dream Weavers.” His poetry and writings have been in The Boston Haitian Reporter, Spare Change News, The Somerville News, The Alewife, The Bridge, What’s Up, etc…He is currently working on a short fiction collection and his most recent book of poetry is the collection: “Sparks in the Dark…”

Doug Holder: You grew up in Haiti, a country known for its oppressive dictatorships. How is poetry viewed by the people and the powers that be?

Jacques Fleury: The government exiles poets who incite “subversive ideologies” in public. The government doesn’t want musicians and artists ‘educating” the public. In Haiti you are taught to recite in school; you are not taught to think. You are not taught to examine things and come up with your own original point of view. I didn’t even know what critical thinking was until I started college here in America.

DH: What can happen to an artist if he expresses his “opinion” in Haiti?

JF: You can disappear. Your own family member could be waiting to turn you in for a few bucks. You can be killed. My mother has horrific story in which she was almost killed for wearing a red dress. Red supposedly represented some subversive ideology. She had to be pardoned of that. Enjoy your individual rights here in America because in countries like Haiti people can slap you and walk away.

DH What would have your chances of becoming a writer been if you remained in Haiti?

JF: Not much. All the artists I knew as a kid who were evolving, and got to the point of influencing people, were exiled or killed. The government gave you the option. They didn’t want the public to think: “Hey maybe I got a raw deal, so these artists were dealt with.”

DH: Is it still like that in Haiti?

JF I think policies are a little less draconian than they were—but I haven’t really been looking. I have been too busy with my own life right now.

DH: You don’t ‘prune” your poetry. I have often compared it to a wild jungle of words.

JF: That was an accurate description. I do grow and write like a wild jungle. That’s just my personality and it is reflected in my writing. I never know how long or short a poem is going to be. I never intend to make it short or long.

DH: Do you revise at all?

JF: Sometimes when I am writing a poem I do revisions, but I never go back to it. I don’t think about editing. I think about getting it on paper. I’ve never took a formal class on poetry so everything you see is natural. I never had to control my energy. I am a diamond in the ruff.

DH: Are there any Haitian poets locally of that you admire.

JF: Patrick Sylvain, Danielle Legros Georges, to name just a couple.

DH: There is a strong sense of your ethnic identity in your poems. Do you expect your work will grow more “assimilated” as you go on?

JP: I plan to concentrate on more “spiritual themes” in the future. I don’t want to be stuck in a ghetto of my own ethnic themes. In the past I have been dealing with my multi-ethnic identity. But
in the end I am going to do what comes naturally to me. I want to concentrate more on fiction than poetry. And if it happens to be Haitian-themed so be it. If it is more mainstream than that’s fine too. I will not compromise my work to fit someone else’s category. I am not going to be a mouthpiece for my people; I am going to speak for myself.


Free!

Dock
we'll dock stones
roll and
we'll unroll
In my america
the big flying eagle
birds well done abroad.
Two groups of people
the rich and the poor
the young and the old
the white and the black
and three tons of fat
all in procession
silent tales are blooming
flowers growing shells
olive branches
climbing white house walls
two candles burning
shades of gray
I trust in god
holy bloody sunday comes
sunday morning
god bless those whose veins
bear none
twilight swallows the moon
darkness
descends
soldiers gone awol
run like panthers
here and gone
they've staged a snare
running rivers very dry mouths
Dutiful soldiers beat their drums
paragons of strength and honor
masquerade balls
dinky shoots smack and
the dumb blond flunks
fall down stand up
walk the line
walk backwards
juggling well
will set you free

--Jacques Fleury


Doug Holder

Alice. Louis E. Bourgeois. (Presa Press POBOX 792 Michigan 49341 www.presapress.com) $6.

Alice. Louis E. Bourgeois. (Presa Press POBOX 792 Michigan 49341 www.presapress.com) $6.

Louise E. Bourgeois’ poetry seems to want to break with everything: convention, tradition, time, place, etc… The Bush administration would undoubtedly find him a dangerous live wire and tap him, and the rest of us would feel like our collective fly is perpetually down. Good. That’s some of the things a good bard does. Bourgeois wants to shed the old suit of universal authority and live by where his instincts take him. In “The Danger of Telling Someone What to Do”, the poet takes on the teacher or the master and gains purity or freedom from what he views as the tyranny of mind control:

“He couldn’t take orders; he considered them dangerous to his
freedom, his artistic freedom. Out of habit,
sloppily following
the example of others, he had attached himself to a Master
in order to write poetry and philosophy.
But after ten minutes
into his first lesson, the pupil wanted to kill the Master…
Every invective the Master exclaims takes
something away from me—a lesson is really a slaughter of consciousness…
The student stabbed the Master in the back with a switchblade
and the master hit the ground hard and died quickly. The pupil
immediately felt a surge of knowledge that would have taken a
lifetime to achieve had the Master lived.”

In “Mr. Homburg” Bourgeois takes a swipe at obsessive rationalization that can stifle an artist natural inclination:

“He kept a daily chronicle of himself without knowing why. Why
should I write about myself everyday,
not liking my life or even
the lives of others?
Why should I do anything I find to be
annoying and beneath me?

But every day he wrote and wrote, he is still writing, not
knowing why and no longer caring.”

Recommended.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update

Ferrovie" (poems) by Anthony Russell White

"Ferrovie" (poems) by Anthony Russell White

Cervena Barva Press $ 5.00

Www.cervenabarvapress.com

Copyright 2007 by Anthony Russell White



Reviewed by Mike Amado



When this reviewer reads prose poems two names always are summoned,
Charles Baudelaire and Robert Bly. Upon further probing of Ferrovie
by Anthony Russell White, it turned out White was introduced to the form
by Bly himself at a workshop. The prose style renders these poems to the realm of
journal entries with easy, open language. But there are twists.



Ferrovie means trains in Italian. All ten poems embody train travel as a grounding
point.
Literally, the speaker is journeying through Italy, though no concluding destination
is mentioned. He meets a cast of characters that are instantly fantastical.
Through these characters, (real or made up doesn’t matter)the speaker finds himself
traveling abstract dimensions.



Told in first person, the speaker retells the encounters with a photographer,
a Reiki Master and a Siamese twin, joined at the ear and hand to her sister.
Ferrovie begins with a Vietnam Veteran retelling his first attack and seeing a
yellow airplane that wasn’t there. Because of that vision, the Vet and fellow train
traveler exclaims "I knew then I would survive."

The poems further unravel into the surreal. In a train station, the speaker finds
a man selling lotto tickets who has with him a "genuine" two-headed dog.
"Second head sticking out from left shoulder . . .
A red tongue lolled just like his big brothers.
. . . He was clearly a right-headed dog."

In the final poem, "Lunch With The Gypsy" we meet a gypsy who presents a map,
not of places and landmarks but of souls. (The soul, of course, being one of the
most abstract phenomena is easily inserted here among the journeying as almost
an everyday thing.) The gypsy proceeds to show how individual souls coil,
connect and link to one another in "Delicate colored webs of relationships.",
Summing up for the speaker the soul-interactions of his life.

"Then he folded it (the map) . . . down to a single glowing point . . ."



Ferrovie is the latest collection by Anthony Russell White and the winner of the
2006 Cervena Barva Press chap book contest. White considers himself "a pilgrim,
a poet and a healer" who is an admirer of Rumi, the mystic poet, born 1207 in what is
now Afghanistan, who was the impetus of the Whirling Dervishes. Along with
American poet William Stafford, these influences blend and are prevalent.
The surrealism in these poems adds a Twilight Zone / Amazing Stories appeal,
where this reader wonders what within the poems came from White’s dreams,
imagination or real events. All in all, Ferrovie equals one good trip.


--Mike Amado/Ibbetson Update/ Aug 2007

Wilderness House Literary Review Anthology

We anticipate that the Wilderness House Literary Review anthology will be out this Fall. Here is the order and list of contributors--courtesy of Gloria Mindock, the editor. Steve Glines will be designing the book. Our online magazine is at http://whlreview.com

* This will be hard copy and perfect bound.


WHLR Anthology (Order of appearence)

Autodidact by Lainie Senechal
Return from the Cove by Lainie Senechal
Fictions by Charles P. Ries
Ideas of Grace by Charles P. Ries
Irene Koronos painting 5th one that’s in art folder
Love by Robin Dancer
Reverence by Patrick Carrington
Butterflies by Julia Carlson
Fall, 2006 pix painting
Orange On Burnt Sienna by Richard Wilhelm
As We Lay Sleeping by Richard Wilhelm
Mend by Kelley J. White
reconfigured by Stevenallenmay
Eros—Post-Modern by Hugh Fox
Dog Dance by Gloria Mindock
Momentum by Matthew Silver Rosenthal
The Cat Painting image by Deborah Priestly
Four cool cats by Steve Glines
Ruins by Chris Crittenden
First Names by Carolyn Gregory
A Tree of Cats by Deborah Priestly
The Quiet Room by Doug Holder
Chinatown by Lo Galluccio
Our Meeting by Robert K. Johnson
Last Night by Robert K. Johnson
My Heart by Afaa Michael Weaver
Invitation by Doug Worth
Shopping by G Emil Reutter
His Darling by Miriam Gallagher
Partner Swing by Molly Lynn Watt
Pub Dance by Molly Lynn Watt
28th Century Milky Way Conference on Hieroglyph Philogy. Paper 27-09
by Edward Abrahamson
Red Sky at Night by Charles F. Campbell
Come Either Way by Varsha Kukafka
Chapter 3 by Anne Brudevold
Cockroach by Susan Tepper
The Language of Laundry by Pat Brodie
Mouse Trap by Gary Lehmann
Weather Report by Taylor Graham
The View From Coyoteville by Taylor Graham
Thunder Snow by Taylor Graham
October Trio by Clara Diebold
Denver Omlet, Sausage, Hash Browns by John Hildebidle
I Recognized Him As a Neighbor by John Hildebidle
Sermon on Sun Worship by Tomas O’Leary
Comment ca va by Joanne Vyce
Menopausal Philosophy by Ellaraine Lockie
One Streetlight by Bonnie Pignatiello Leer
middleair crosscry by Eytan Fichman
Twenty-One Hundred Hours by Denis Emorine (English Version only)Translation
by Phillip John Usher
French Impression by Kathy Horniak
You’ll Be a Collyer Brothers Hermit!1 by Doug Holder
Detroit For Sale, 1960’s by Barbara Bialick
Moving In by Chad Parenteau
Trees in December by Jennifer Matthews
(Poem has no title) by John Mercui Dooley/ line starts if though and ink with
this is my hand by Irene Koronos
Irene Koronos painting no. 2 in art folder
ellipse and parabola by Irene Koronos
Eddie and Nellie by Jim Woods
October Run in Danehy Park by Sarah Merrow
Scarecrow photo/painting Art
The Guilty One by Marc D. Goldfinger
Amorphophallus Rivieri by Stephen Morse
Frozen Poem, a Friday by Francis LeMoire
Trophy by Harris Gardner
Tractor in Field by Eric Greinke
Wild Strawberries by Eric Greinke
Options by Kevin McLellan
14 Stones, 76 Metaphysical Excursions, 6 Years by Alan Catlin
Bon Voyage by Sue Red
Cybermorphing Forsythias by Bill Costley
Pleiades Rising by Howard Lee Kilby
Strict Objectivity by John Hildebidle
Letter to Doug Holder from Jared Smith by Jared Smith
Whispers of Wrath by Emmanuel Giambi
Gesture by Diana Der-Hovanessian
Camels by Barbara Bialick
Panama Ten by A.D. Winans
pushpa’ poem by Pushpa Ratna Tuladhar
His Dresden Boots by Patrick Carrington
Colorless State of Existence by Coleen T. Houlihan
The Last View of Mortal Man by Steve Glines
Accusation by Beatriz Alba del Rio
A Cambridge Autumn Duo by Sarah Merrow
Four Poems after Xue Tao by Jamie Parsley
Nuclear Fishin’ by George Held
Veterans of the Boy Scout War by Gary Beck
The house at 17 Emile Dunois by Steve Glines
Over life (about my dead aunt) by Irene Koronos
Veer-Zara and Bombay’s Bollywood by Molly Lynn Watt
Rocket Scientist by Laurence McKinney
Meeting at the Pass by Afaa Michael Weaver
Painting of 4 shadow type people by Deborah Priestley/last one in art folder

The Cleveland Indian: The Legend of King Saturday by Luke Salisbury

Book Review, Timothy Gager
The Cleveland Indian: The Legend of King Saturday by Luke Salisbury (Black Heron Press/The Smith)




“If you are not careful, you can research forever, but nirvana better not arrive until the book is written.”
--Luke Salisbury on writing historical fiction.



The Cleveland Indian: The Legend of King Saturday is a remarkable book of astute detail and elegant prose. The main character King Saturday is based upon, Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscot Indian from Maine, who was one of the greatest college baseball stars of the 1890s. What Salisbury gives us with King Saturday is a remarkable presentation of a full-tilted, hard living character. Saturday’s dream is to one day own a baseball team and he will spare no ethics or morality to do so. An incredible admired athlete, as well as a drinker and ladies man, Saturday starts to throw games and bet against the Indians so that he may earn enough to achieve his goal.

As evil as King Saturday could be, author Luke Salisbury manages to create him as a sympathetic, likeable character. The narrator Henry Harrison (lawyer for the Cleveland Spiders) worships the King and is the only man Saturday trusts. Harrison, naïve in the same way Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway is, gets a cruel lesson about life as everything he loves including women, baseball, and friends get taken from him in one way or another. Henry loves Saturday, questions him, uncovers information about him, and because of various events also loathes him. In the end Henry stays loyal to him and that is the essence and hook of the story.

As a fan of baseball I appreciated the novel, yet baseball is not the main focus of The Cleveland Indian. The main focus is the relationships between the characters woven within the historical era of the setting. One could know very little about the game of baseball and still get a lot out of this novel. I found it very interesting to be able to look up the old time player’s information and match the facts with the fiction, thus enhancing the background of the tale.

As a writer Luke Salisbury is remarkably efficient with the developing plot, which reads with ease and without labor. His attention to details about the various settings and locations of the novel is refreshing and exciting. The historical facts were informative but not shoved down the reader’s throat thus not interfering with the flow of the book. Teams, fields and players which no longer exist are brought to life.

Salisbury’s development of his characters is strength of the book. Each character is vibrant, real and the motivations of their actions are very real and believable. Writing in a first person point of view this isn’t always easy to achieve yet Salisbury manages to do it. This clarity allows the plot to advance in a very enjoyable way as I found myself charging through the novel to see how it would all unfold.

My only issues with the novel are that occasionally the author allows us background by breaking from the narrative to tell us background information. For example, when telling us about Marty Bergen, the Boston catcher, the narrator tells us he would later chops up his family with an ax. I googled it, and it was true, but impossible to be known by the Henry Harrison. From a writing perspective is this allowed? For me, I found the details fascinating and not intrusive with any major part of the story but for other readers it may be a distraction. The only distraction I found as a reader was that some of the descriptions of King Saturday, especially his hair, were repetitive yet, The Cleveland Indian: The Legend of King Saturday is still a great read and highly recommended.

.

Bear Crossing. Kell Robertson.

Bear Crossing. Kell Robertson. ( Pathwise Press. 2311 Broadway St. New Orleans, LA 70125 http://pathwisepress.com


Well…I am a dyed-in-the wool creature of the asphalt, a denizen of the rarefied air of Boston, a stranger to the West, cowboys, and the charms and horrors of the hinterlands. So I am an unlikely reviewer for “Bear Crossing,” a collection of poetry from Kell Robertson republished by the Pathwise Press. Robertson is a wizened old cowboy poet, songwriter, vagabond, ner-do-well, drunk…if he is telling the truth. Of course he quotes Faulkner, which may bring some doubt:

“I don’t have much patience with the facts, and any writer is a congenital liar to begin with or he wouldn’t take up writing.”

I did find much to recommend in this chap. Robertson works well with the “white trash” vernacular, the tall tales, and the drunken fonts of wisdom he comes across during his sojourn through the backwaters. Here is a well-observed slice-of-life in a down-at-the-heels town, titled: “Taos Plaza”

“… A young girl
lifts her skirt
to scratch
the staph infection
on her plump thigh

the local Mexican lover boys
are disgusted, “Shit
I wouldn’t fuck her
with somebody else’s dick.

Sun Hawk
one of Geronimo’s grandsons
is pleased when
I say hello, says:

“I am glad someone
remembers Sun Hawk.”

then heads for
the infection ridden girl
in a very straight line.”

In the poem “Sue” Robertson uses grotesquely dried apples as a silent Greek chorus to the lives of quiet desperation in some dusty tourist stop along the road:

“Her husband makes faces
out of dried apples
which wrinkle up
into a line
of grotesques
which she sells here
over the cash register.
Since his back went out
it’s about all that he can do
except well, sometimes
he drinks too much.
The tourist couple
in the corner booth
look again at their
Triple A map
again
as she walks into the kitchen
the husband’s eyes
follow her very fine ass
as if it was
the sun going down
for the very last time.”

Recommended.

A response to the review from the publisher:

Hello Doug,
I hope this finds you well. I wanted to thank you for your review of Kell
Robertson's Bear Crossing. As you know, any review for a small press
publication is a triumph...especially as more and more review sources dry
up. I appreciate the time you took to read and evaluate the book. This is
a book that saw many delays but now that it is out, folks are excited about
it.

However, I do take issue with a couple turns of phrase you use in your
review, and quite frankly, find them extremely prejudiced. I have reviewed
many books over the years and have always made it a principle to give honest
reviews, even if negative ones. However, I have never given descriptions of
the poet, simply the work being reviewed. While Kell will be the first to
proudly state that his biography can be found in the lines of his work, we
both know that most writers use hyperbole and imagination. Even when
reviewing the most blantantly Bukowski-worshipping tripe, I've never called
a poet a "drunk"...I've said the poet's work was awash in shallow drunken
metaphor, but that's it. There is a line in descibing the author and the
author's work, especially when one does not know the author personally. Of
course, you do elude to the question of truthfullness in Kell's work, which
mitigates your choice of description somewhat.

To be honest, perhaps the part that stuck me the most was the description of
Kell's writing as a "white trash" vernacular of the "backwaters". To be
honest, Doug, this bites of east coast elitism. I hate to sound jingoist
and the rust-belt, bible-belt, prairie-lands rally type, but when I read
something like that I'm willing to suggest that you rent a car, find the
first highway that takes you west and go discover a bit of America, my
friend. Perhaps it is my Midwestern background raising hackles, but there
is more to this country and its poetry than what is found in Harvard Square.
Kell has been around for many years and I've corresponded with him enough
to know that his knowledge, understanding and depth of history, politics,
literature and the reality of day-to-day living is one born of real
understanding and experience combined with a healthy dose of daily reading.

There is more to lands west of New England than mere backwaters (although
there are plenty of those here and in your locale). I don't take exception
to your background of asphalt and rareifed air (that would be hypocritical
given what I've said above), but personally, when I've encountered a book
that speaks to a life different from my own, I've either taken that as a
sign to expand my knowledge and plunged deeply within or I've politely
declined to read and review. This is a large country and its literature
stretches from Hawthorne's New England to Anderson's Ohio to Faulkner's
South to the pueblos of Leslie Marmon Silko.

Again, Doug, as the publisher, I appreciate the time you took with the book.
And by all means, ignore this message, keep the review on your blog as it
is...that's your perogative...or add this message as a form of debate in the
best Socratic tradition. Above all else, as Kell would say..."Ride Easy"...


Christopher Harter
Pathwise Press/Bathtub Gin
pathwisepress.com

FORTHCOMING BOOK: from Scarecrow Press: "An Author Index to Little
Magazines:
The 1960s/70s Mimeograph Revolution" -- contact pathwisepress@hotmail.com
for information.

Linda Larson: washing the stones

New Poetry Collection From The Ibbetson Street Press.

washing the stones. By Linda Larson.

Designed by Lynne Sticklor

photos by Karen C. Davis and Rob Rusk

ISBN: 978-0-979531316

$10.



The Ibbetson Street Press has released a new poetry collection by Cambridge, Mass. poet and former Spare Change News editor Linda Larson. Larsen was born in the Midwest. She spent a decade of her adult life in Madison County, Mississippi. She worked as a feature writer for The Capitol Reporter and The Jackson Advocate. Larson relocated to the Boston/Cambridge area where she has lived and worked for the past twenty years. For five years she served as editor and contributor to Spare Change News, a homeless newspaper based in Cambridge. Over the years Larsen has struggled with mental illness and addiction. She has been recognized by both houses of the Massachusetts Legislature for her advocacy work on behalf of people with mental illness. This book goes a long way towards recapturing her promise as a graduate of the John Hopkins Writing Seminars in the 1970’s and as teaching fellow in the creative writing doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi.


Howard Zinn (noted historian and activist) “ I am very moved by Linda Larson’s poems. They are about…all the stuff of life--straight from the heart.”

Joseph P. Kahn: (Boston Globe) “In her poetry we see glimpses of the enormous talent that’s always been there-- and the courageous battle she’s fought to keep that talent alive.”

Marc Goldfinger (Poetry Editor-Spare Change News): “Jack Spicer, a unique and wonderful poet in his own right said “ Poets are the dictation machines of the Gods.” Linda Larson’s work proves this statement.”




Ibbetson Street Press
25 School St.
Somerville, Mass.
02143
Ibbetsonpress@gmail.com
http://ibbetsonpress.com