February of this year saw the reissue of two of award-winning, North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam’s collections: the aptly-titled Midwinter Fires and the gloriously minimalist MountSeaEden. Originally published in 1990 by French Broad Press, Midwinter Fires is a skillfully-woven tapestry of emotions that fully lives up to the ReBound series’ claim to select:-
“..outstanding out-of-print chapbooks for publication.” Continue Reading »
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Alexandra Singer’s new book Tea at the Grand Tazi, is a dervish of underground secrets and a story full of twists and turns that take you through the rough streets of Morocco, a place where few people dare to leave the main drag. The journey unfolds as Maia is referred to an old colleague of her professor and winds up staying at the once glorious Grand Tazi hotel. Maia wants to be an artist, as she wanders the hustling streets she is determined to paint the women of a culture that so often mistreats them as commodities rather than people. As Maia begins her trials with getting close to these women, she finds herself sucked into the secret life of her boss, as well as the expatriates who frequent the Grand Tazi. After various journeys and multiple discoveries, Maia learns that the chance of escape from the world can sometimes lead to anything but freedom. Continue Reading »
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The Last Man
R.L. Swihart
Kanev Books; March 20, 2012
I am in the habit of agreeing to time consuming tasks that I don’t really have time to complete. The Last Man is one of my recent over extensions but it is also a reminder of why I say yes to most anything written, because if I say no, I might just miss a writer like this. The Last Man is an instinctively, compulsively collection of works. What R L Swihart presents readers is stark raving madness; it is also a bit brilliant. The poems in this collection are at once nonsense and prophesy.
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Teachers and students are some of the worst people on the face of the earth, those which arrogantly pursue truth in the cobweb-covered and archaic spectacle of academia. It’s a demented process. So much so that recent studies have shown that 99.8 percent of English majors and teachers suffer from schizophrenia, deviant sexual gratification, subversive political ideology and repressed homicidal impulses.
The following is not poetry. The following is proof.
Sincerely,
Your Poetry Editor
Luis Rivas
—
THE EX LANDLORD
B.Z. Niditch
With the heart of Cain
behind his one cloth napkin
under a pinched chin
at T.V. dinner time
unshaved for his faith
or gangland injury
wearing a pentagram
he won
at carnival time,
a once ruddy catcher
in a minor league,
pawn broker
stud poker player
or house Dick
depending
on whom you meet,
surprising tenants
every first day
of the month
with unauthorized letters
to threaten everyone,
stoned on cheap beer
claiming to be ex-military
in Angola
or was it Cuba
with his annual cigar
at Christmas
spitting out
of his moist mouth
offering to show us
forged lottery tickets
used Trojans
or fascist posters
of the Forties. Continue Reading »
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Poet, translator, and fiction writer Yuriy Tarnawsky is a founding member of the New York Group, a friend to the surreal, and a fond misanthrope. His newest collection, Short Tails (JEF Books/Civil Coping Mechanisms), from a festival of grotesquerie and the existential struggle, is populated by characters who, variously, absorb Lenin’s verbal and gustatory tics, shed skin and limbs and ligaments until reduced to a single eyeball, or discover that a long-dead father is pulling them into the grave by the jowls. In this fourth and long-overdue installment of “The New Xорошо,” I learn to read less deterministically and Tarnawsky invokes the absurd, leaves us with a phonological riddle, and reminds us that we’re all going to die.~T.M. De Vos
Posted in Editorial, Interviews, The New Хорошо | Tagged T.M. De Vos, Yuriy Tarnawsky | Leave a Comment »
The 1920′s and 30′s are two very different eras that depict themselves well in your work. I find myself going from glamorous, inspiring and lively moods to very moody, ,modest, and misunderstood ones. A purer example of this may be in two of your 2007 acrylic pieces, American Woman and Lonely Heart. It seems like almost the same picture or woman, but extravagantly different. How would you describe the relative difference in these two eras and decades in relation to your art? Continue Reading »
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It’s Spring Break and I am reading pages and pages of poetry. Strangely enough though, it’s rewarding. I want you to think of underage drinking in Florida as boys and girls tan, listen to horrible techno music and ultimately and temporarily fall in love and subsequently contract STDs while you read these poems. The poems have nothing whatsoever to do with Spring Break but I like controlling your thoughts. Pick up the remote, throw it out the window.
Yours Gloomy,
Luis Rivas
Head Poetry Editor
—
ON CAMBRIDGE STREET
By Barry Z. Niditch
That ex-landlord
was wiping
his moist white mustache
in a low pitched voice
smelling of beer
from his stolen school van
hands out
laced brownies
between his dirty palms
when we were ten,
always threatening
the poor neighbors
with “Do not go there”
once rumored to be
a religion editor,
crime reporter,
comic strip writer
in a defunct
yellow tabloid,
an extra in x rated
stag films,
a spy for the enemy
whoever it was
at the time,
once saying,
“Only men could appreciate
his movies,
Male War Bride
or Moby Dick,”
often sitting shoeless
exposing his Navy wounds
and Popeye sailor tattoos,
showing off
those knife collections,
the alley’s feral cat
his newspaper
and toe clippings
he saved
for anyone coming by.
Continue Reading »
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