A Review of Bart Solarczyk’s TILTED WORLD (Low Ghost Press 2019) by Heidi Blakeslee

 Bart Solarczyk lives in Pittsburgh PA with his dog & cat. Over the past thirty-eight years he’s published poems in a variety of litmags & anthologies. His work has recently appeared in Big Hammer, Street Value, Live Nude Poems, Rasputin, Winedrunk Sidewalk, The Pittsburgh Book Review, River Dog & Roadside Raven Review. He is the author of nine chapbooks. Tilted World is his first full-length collection of poems.

When diving into this copy I thought, hmm, “Tilted World.”  Could he mean like, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?” Were bats indeed flying over the windshield?  Or perhaps just that everything in our society is askew?  After reading half the book in one go, I think it might be the former.  I don’t know.  Alcohol, poetry, and smoke have long been bedfellows, and frankly Solarczyk’s work makes me hope they stay that way.  

    Solarczyk’s poetry is a nod to Alice’s little white rabbit with alcohol standing in as the Jabberwocky. We follow him in and out of paisley rabbit holes.  While there, he shows us gritty and honest things.  He shows us quirky things, as in his poem about his daughter eating Lunchables, “My Strange Daughter.”

    Some of the poems are sparse, abrupt, and jarring.  Other poems delivered a depth of thought about the ugly side of life that I didn’t know I was craving.  Although some of the work is playful, there is a bleaker side to some of the lines.  Still, they satisfied the corner of my brain that longs for oddity and edginess. Solarczyk is very much a writing-man’s poet, dedicating a poem here or there to other prominent writer friends.

    His truths about how a body gets through life with the aid/horror of drink and how a mind gets through life with the balm/curiosity of cannabis play prominently throughout.  I enjoyed “Tilted World” because Solarczyk’s meticulous “real deal” writing captivated my interest right away and held it through the entire work.  I had no idea where I was going next and I loved that.

    If you’re in the mood for some imaginative lines from the gut, true poetry, give “Tilted World” a read.  You’ll be glad you did.

Tilted World

For every pair of mismatched socks

there’s a blind man happy to oblige

for every sock lost in the dryer

there’s a weary amputee

I walk in peace, I mean no harm

still the crow shits on my head

such exquisite balance

requires a tilted world.

Hear a review and reading by Bart in GAS video show #3.

GAS Featured Poet: Mark Saba

 Mark Saba has been writing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for 40 years. His book publications include, most recently, Two Novellas: A Luke of All Ages / Fire and Ice, Calling the Names (poetry), and Ghost Tracks(stories about Pittsburgh, where he grew up). His work has appeared widely in literary magazines around the U.S. and abroad. Also a painter, Mark works as a medical illustrator at Yale University. Please see marksabawriter.com.

The Sweet Breath of Indifference

Rattles the window panes
on its way to my bed.

I remember its gentle force
dressed in darkness, the way it tapped

my shoulder mid-adolescence,
time travel on its back.

It came up the hill, spring scents
and winter blasts, a blanket that wrapped us

stormy summer evenings sitting
on our grandparents' porch.

Judgments came and went with the news,
professed in classrooms, barked out of relatives'

mouths. I let them dissipate
as that sweet breath of indifference

kept me on my way,
sculpting with gentle caresses

the signature of my self.

Inscription

Pulling a book off my shelf

because I'm not sure I remember it

I open the cover and find a long inscription

written by a friend. I'd forgotten

this birthday gift from youth,

the sweetness of the message

as it lifted from the page.

It spoke of loneliness, and offered

a balm of Kahlil Gibran.

Two passages, above and below her note,

call for healing. I search the pages

for my customary marks, things

to be remembered, even cherished.

But the book is empty.

Now I'm sure I never read it.

Blinders fall from my eyes;
my heart shifts into reverse.
I'm sorry, I say

to an empty room.

GAS Featured Artist: Paula Damm, by Sylvia Van Nooten

Paula Damm

Paula’s work is a powerful statement about women’s traditional ‘work’ and art.  I’ve often wondered how many brilliant women artists expressed themselves through their textile art but were never recognized as artists.  Paula reflects on that question in her work, in a sense, speaking for and to these women in our collective past and in the present.  I find poetry in her work and voices, voices we need to remember and acknowledge.  Here is Paula Damm in her own words.  ~Sylvia Van Nooten

1)What is behind your artistic vision? 

(Why do you do art?)

Truthfully, it has taken a long time to realize that what I do IS art.  Or rather, as I allowed myself more personal confidence and freedom to expand what I have done for years, I believe it has BECOME art.  To explain, I have always created things with fiber/thread and needle. I always thought of it as being a continuance of honoring the history of women's work this knitting, sewing, embroidery, weaving.   A few years ago I found a bubbling up of dissatisfaction with my “creations” - an acute and discouraging feeling that they were successfully rendered but empty because they were designed by someone else - and copied by me. This coincided with a visit from my sister, Terri Witek, the amazing poet. During her visit she was describing merging poetry and weaving. I had no idea what she was talking about.  We spoke about words, space, void, marking, and pattern, the hidden and the revealed.   I felt the electricity happen and the world opened up. Our collaboration from this visit was actually accepted in Deeper Than Indigo:Southeast Textile Symposium, St. Augustine, Florida (2018). A poet’s statement written on my weaving fiber, fractured and woven into 2 delicate indigo pieces with gold (her words) scattered throughout.  The magic had begun for me.  I gave myself permission to look at my “women’s work” in ways I never would have imagined.  It was life changing.   I realized that all the weaving, sewing, knitting, embroidery I had done throughout my life was my preparation for my future as an artist.  Plus my gratitude to my sister is everlasting.

2) How does being an artist help you communicate with the world

Social media has been great for people like me who are emerging as artists.  I put things out there and I get some likes.  I would get hearts and comments!!  Not tons, but enough to validate and encourage me forward.   I have “met” many other artists and have been inspired by them and their work.   Being in the middle of a pandemic also spurred my creativity and gave me time to work consistently since the school where I am the nurse went remote. 

3) Have you built or joined a community of artists around the world? How did you do this?

As I have said, social networking has been a godsend and people have been very gracious in allowing me to participate in their groups.  I was astounded at the international reach these groups have - really, I was very naive - yet most were kind and welcoming.  I felt embraced when I joined  GAS: Poetry, Art & Music, Women Asemic Artists & Visual Poets//WAAVe.   I am most proud to have built a community through my TogetherVoice project.  I reached out to people from around the world and asked them to send me an audio clip of their voice saying TOGETHER in their language.  I then changed their voice into a sound wave and embroidered it onto a lovely piece of vintage linen.  When I received a request to participate from individuals in the Casina Project in Milan Italy I was blown away.  The piece contains the lovely voices of women in a prison in Milan, Italy and individuals from the Casina Project as well as my mailman, family members, friends, other artists -   I cried and realized this piece was no longer mine but belonged to everyone, whether they have participated or not.  My latest masks using a plaster cast mold of my face were a direct result of viewing Miya Turnbull’s masks on instagram @miyaturnbull.

Heidi Blakeslee's review of TODAY IS A MICHIGAN GHOST TOWN by Matt Borczon (Concrete Mist Press)

Matt Borczon’s writing has grace. If I see a Borczon poem anywhere, I immediately know it is his just by looking at the form.  The idiosyncratic line that he has developed for his unique voice is both superb and bold.  Every word belongs.  Every simile fits.  He never misspeaks. 

The poetry flows down the page and the speed of the lines can lull you into a false sense of comfort, but only for so long.  I know that there is almost always a punch in the gut, or three or four coming soon.  Truth bombs.  Unequivocal, relatable, and sometimes downright dirty.  Every poem has at least one and every bomb resonates throughout the rest of the book.  He expertly weaves his musings on the rough sides of life with the delicate skeletons of his past. 

 

Favorite themes in this work include: the strength of nature, feeling like you are one against the world, getting lucky, dogged determination, music, and loves both lost and lingering.

Best of all, at the end of the work is an interview with Scott Thomas Outlar which provides a wonderful cap of information about Matt’s start in writing, and his inspirations.

 I would recommend TODAY IS A MICHIGAN GHOST TOWN  for anyone looking to dig a little deeper.  For those gnarled punk rock souls who love the stew.  For hard-fighting dogs.  For hard-drinking youths who need communion.  This is for all of them, and you.

Southern gothic

Beneath 

unblinking stars

blind cats

bump along

the alley

and nobody

begs change

on the

street corners

of this

dead city

ghosts haunt

the doorways

and the

diners as

lost children

call home

and leave

messages

on ancient

answering machines

in the

hum of

the tape 

noise they

tell their

parents

they are

ok still

alive still

moving like

sharks swimming

across the

deep south

where they

listen to

thunder 

without lightning

and know 

it is only

the devil

setting the

table

they know

this because

the devil 

is the

only one

who doesn’t

have to

wait for

the rain.

Matthew Borczon is a poet from Erie Pa. He has written 15 books of poetry so far. He publishes widely in both print and online journals. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net. When not writing he is a nurse for developmentally disabled adults. He is married and has four great kids.

GAS Featured Poet: Tom Montag

 Tom Montag's books of poetry include: Middle Ground; The Big Book of Ben Zen; In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013; The Miles No One Wants; Love Poems; and Seventy at Seventy. His poem "Lecturing My Daughter in Her First Fall Rain" has been permanently incorporated into the design of the Milwaukee Convention Center. He blogs at The Middlewesterner. With David Graham he recently co-edited Local News: Poetry About Small Towns.

"The Woman in an Imaginary Painting is a series of more than 350 poems which explore, I suppose, the intersections between imagination and reality, between surface and substance, between hope and loss of hope. The series started as an attempt to understand and record a very clear initial image of the woman sitting as a model which came to me out of the blue of imagination; and it has since spread to the far reaches of a possible life and death on the other side of the surface of that painting."

from
"The Woman in an Imaginary Painting"

She does not have a land-
lord, for she pays no rent.
The room she inhabits

is imagined, an artist's
rendition of the space
around her. The museum

the painting hangs in is
honored to have her there.
People pay to see her.

At night, in the darkness,
she is grateful to have
a place to call her own.

______________________

from

"The Woman in an Imaginary Painting"

She has
only this
morning, this

moment.
The artist
painted

the room to
enclose her.
There is sky

out the small
window.
Hope lasts

a long time
if you've got
nothing else.

Attachments area

Kevin M. Hibshman's review of DARLING (CD) by Jon Bennett

According to his bio, Bennett is “a longtime member of San Francisco's underground music scene who mixes narratives with a finger picking style sometimes referred to as Texas flat picking. He is also a novelist and poet and his writing can be found in on line zines such as Red Fez, The Indiana Voice Journal, Medusa's Kitchen, Mad Swirl Poetry and many others. His music can be found on Pandora, iTunes, Spotify, Deezer and other music streaming sites. Darling is his sixth CD release and is available on Amazon.

        His phrasing and slightly raspy voice bring Bob Dylan to mind immediately. The lyrics reflect the concerns of gifted waifs longing for love but spending most of their nights drunk, roaming inner city bars. Each of the ten songs paints a vivid and complete picture of wayfaring wounded souls under three minutes time. The music sucks you in and ends leaving the listener gratified but wanting more. 

        I detect a little of The Flaming Lips on the whimsical “Awesome Possum” and the ghost of Nick Drake drifts by on a couple tunes. These possible influences in no way prevent this from being a highly original work. Bennett clearly has developed a signature style, showing it off to great effect. A sampling of the lyrics from “Black and Blue:” 

" now there's a razor blade/in a pool of after shave/maybe I will/on second thought, well maybe not/it's always been the time/that I need to kill"

                                                                                                                          

To be honest, I've fallen in love with Darling and recommend it strongly to any music fan who simply admires true artistry when it decides to rear its lovely, rarely seen head. This ranks with the best indie folk available.

Jon Bennett

GAS Featured Artist: Kristine Snodgrass, presented by Sylvia Van Nooten

Kristine Snodgrass is an artist, poet, professor, curator, and publisher living in Tallahassee, Florida. She is the author of Rather, from Contagion Press (2020) and the chapbook, These Burning Fields (Hysterical Books 2019) as well as  Out of the World (Hysterical Books 2016) and The War on Pants (JackLeg Press 2013). Her poetry has appeared in decomP, Versal, Big Bridge, 5_Trope, Shampoo, 2 River View, Otoliths, and South Florida Poetry Journal among others. Kristine’s asemic and vispo work has been published in Utsanga (Italy), Slow Forward, Asemic Front 2 (AF2). Her work was just featured in the Asemic Women Writers Summer Exhibition Online. Snodgrass has collaborated with many artists and poets.

I “met” Kristine Snodgrass on the Facebook page,  Asemic Writing: The New Post Literate several years ago.  At first I was intimidated by her credentials and hesitated to get to know her.  Once I got past my own neurosis I found her to be the most supportive, listening, creative and FABULOUS person.  She is not necessarily aware of how much she supports and encourages other writers and artists, but she does.  Her work, both the poetry and art, is enigmatic, deeply thoughtful and with an underlying playfulness that adds to the richness.  In her own words, here is Kristine.  ~ Sylvia Van Nooten

-What's behind your artistic vision? 

I think my answer may be similar to other artists: I do it because I have to. It is not just expression, or a politic, or an outlet, it is my life. A good friend once told me that I had an integrity to my art that was great. My life and my art are the same. There is such a small boundary between what I make and who I am. I think for many of us, we are caught in a gray area that seems liminal, and that is all consuming and becomes a place of ecstasy. I have said this before about ecstasy. Do you know that song, “Starry Starry Night”? Listen to it. Go ahead. There is a recognition there of Van Gogh and his love that cost his sanity. In the song there is a lyric, “With eyes that know the darkness in my soul” referring to VG and his ability to see the human consciousness and if that is the case, if he could see that forever in us, how torn up and diseased he must have been? How years later one observer could look at him, really look at him and understand this. And the loneliness, too. This is the artist. And I don’t want to liken myself to Van Gogh, not at all, but to lay light on this condition. Maybe I see that darkness, too. I think I am misunderstood, mostly.  I don’t know what ppl think about me. I think I make ppl angry. I think I have been angry, too. If I can show them what I see, then that is good.

-How does being an artist help you communicate with the world?

I think I am horrible at communication. People are always mad at me. I don’t know what that has to do with my art. Maybe I suffer and the art is supposed to take that over. The art is something I almost can’t control. So my body must be trying to tell me something, or tell the world something. I often have this fantasy of being in a big space, like a warehouse, and rolling around on the floor in many buckets worth of paint. Yellow, blue, orange, pink. I don’t even have to be naked! What communication! I miss being in public spaces, arting and reading poetry. I think that COVID has made me realize that there is a touching we need from others. I need to see and feel an audience, or watch another poet or artist. Don’t get me wrong, all of the work I am doing now long distance or distanced is so wonderful, I just miss that here, now thing. 

-Have you built or joined a community of artists around the world?

YES! My best friends are artists around the world. I have met so many people in Facebook groups! I also am on Twitter and there are some really cool folks there. I would say, without hyperbole, that being on Facebook in the asemic groups has changed my life. My work has grown so much in such a short period of time. I have been able to collaborate with so many wonderful artists, and to share work through mail and the Internet. I have met dear friends and also some really great mentors. It is so weird because we “hate” social media, you know?