GAS Featured Poet: Mike James

 Mike James makes his home outside Nashville, Tennessee and has published widely. His many poetry collections include: Journeyman’s Suitcase (Luchador), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), and Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog.) He currently serves as an associate editor of Unbroken.

That Same Vincent of Alehouse Fame

 

If he found wrinkles he called them timelines, 

And read between. Firmly believed in survival 

Of the sleekest. So he put on makeup when 

He kissed up to anyone on stepstool or ladder. 

Despite a fear of his own height he played 

Through, was well played. 

Normally, kisses happened on clean shaven 

Days. That was not quite every day

Because of leap year extras. He was always 

Pocket-mint fresh, perfumed. So, of course, 

He loved daisies. There are over 

Twenty thousand daisy varieties. 

At night he counted them instead of sheep. 

He seldom dreamed of falling, but often of fields. 

Leigh 

 

She had a lot of secrets.

Some in the pockets of the summer dresses she wore year-round.

Some kept out back in an old shed beside oil cans and butt-busted cane chairs.

A couple were lonesome in the sugar jar, after she gave up pie.

Some were in the blonde first curl above her forehead.

One of the secrets was the type of music she kept in her glittery, flapper hat.

She kept that hat in the spare closet at the end of a hall she seldom went down.

 

GAS Featured Artist: Alicia Starr Ryan, by Sylvia Van Nooten

I first saw Alicia Starr Ryan’s work on the Facebook page, Asemic Writing: The New Post Literate.   I instantly stopped scrolling down the page, caught by the tension and beauty of the image.  Alicia does this, she creates art that is both perfectly balanced yet unsynchronized, she draws the viewer in as we concentrate on the contrasting elements, each detail adding another thought to the image.  I’m honored to present her here with her own words and paintings.  The following four pieces are from Poisonwood Bible Notes.

In Alicia’s Words:

I found a photograph in an album my mom put together as I grew up. One photo stood out among countless others. Looks to be first grade. I was sitting in the first row. The class was making what appear to be Valentine cards. The entire class was facing the camera while I was busy focusing on my masterpieces. My art journey began.

When We Were Close

Some of us--poets, musicians, visual artists--begin our works with one word, one chord, a scrap of paper, a mark, a stroke of color that carries us on a journey, an adventure. It is as if we dare ourselves to take a chance to make something work. Most often this is my jump-off into the project at hand.

Looking back through the years of “art” it became apparent it was often the media directing the outcome, not so often an idea. The various collections are obviously period pieces and easily identified as such. Whether a painting, collage, performance art, they all have a period and memory associations.

Eleven years ago a friend introduced me to IUOMA (International Union of Mail-Artists), an eye opening connection to the international art community. After eight years of college majoring in art, this community revealed a newfangled world - mail art. I have met outstanding creative people through these exchanges. Artists who introduced arty slides, artistamps, rubber stamping, book making, and the official word for scribbling, “asemic writing”.  Cheryl Penn, to name one of the people from the early group I exchanged with, offered encouragement and inspiration. Her art calls led to what I consider my best work. She pulled me into making books.

(Many thanks to Sylvia Van Nooten for her invitation to take part in this project.

And Picasso Gaglione for the kick in the bum to follow through.)

Alicia doesn’t necessarily have preferred medium.  She uses mostly mixed media, collage and paint.  She writes, “Painting over images enables an ownership of sorts.” 

On her process, “Collage altered by scratching with an Olfa knife because it is difficult to control the end result. With that said, some types of paper allow writing words, mathematical equations by using the scratching method. I enjoy the surprise of what may be considered mistakes. Just painting. I tend to paint over almost everything. Add, cover, add, cover, add.” 

A Review of Wilson Loria's STRANGE PERFUME by Su Zi

Buy here.

    It’s been painfully obvious for awhile that the large publishing companies are not particularly concerned with marginalized voices beyond tokenism. One of the many results of this profit-only view of literature has been the necessity of the small press. Unfortunately, the hierarchical view sweeps even into small press consideration, and there are teensy presses fighting against university-funded presses for readership, and sometimes just for pure status. The reader is left to happenstance, or to reading in genre and the wise small press will posit a title within a genre or topic. Within the topic of written works on LGBTQ considerations are histories and memoirs, poetry and fiction, and sometimes works of a more intersectional nature. Strange Perfume by Wilson Loria ( Breaking Rules, 2018) is such an intersectional work, as the first-person, memoir-toned narrative concerning the life of a gay man is augmented by five letters that speak of a separate topic, of the Cuban revolution and life under Castro.

    Told as the matter-of-fact recollections of the protagonist, Nelson, we first encounter a teenage boy listening to opera in Havana, Cuba in 1960, who then escapes to live life as a gay man in New York. The book’s opening chapters alter in structure between this narrative and letters which detail life back home: “Our people wish to live in peace and all this week, they celebrated Fidel and his guerrillas entering La Habana in the first days of 1959. That was when he took hold of the city, changing radically everybody’s life on the island. Forever ( 25).”   Further letters detail civil changes that usurp individual rights: “Do you remember the Castillo del Morro built by the Spaniards to defend themselves against the pirates at the port of La Habana? That’s where all political prisoners, mentally ill and homosexuals have been taken, and eventually sent to either the camps of the fields (59)”. By positioning these letters against the narrative of gay life in New York, the reader is brought to greater sympathy for Nelson, who can never go home again.

 

  The narrative structure of this work is fast-paced, and a mere few pages after the horror that has become Cuba, the reader and the protagonist discover one lover who had “ on his left shoulder, a bluish bruise, magically in the shape of a rose(64)”. A paragraph later, “the little bluish rose had, like an amoeba, divided and given birth to lots of them, taking over Dino’s back.(65)” until “Dino’s blue roses had taken over his whole body. It was as if the stems of his blue roses had gotten tangled up in such way[sic] on his back that there was no space left, clogging up his weakened lungs (66)’. Loria never names the disease itself, referring to it as “the most-talked-about-four-letter word plague in this century (154)”, and the work’s structure tends to emphasize the protagonist and his doings—a visit to Rio for Carnival , partnership is a drag bar and the protagonist’s relationships.

 

  In the thirty-year period covered in the work, the reader experiences one life lived, yet this is not a strict memoir, it is posed as one: the author is not the protagonist, he is choosing to posit the work as if he were. Thus, we have a historical document written with a conversational style, the confession of a friend. The intimate style of this book, the unfamous protagonist and author, would not make this text one that looks profitable to global publishing corporations, and so such works become the realm of small presses. History from thirty years ago is both necessary for today’s readers and for special collections on LGBTQ topics. Because small presses often do not have reach, the inclusion of such work as this into special collections (private and otherwise) is the work of the bibliographic connoisseur. Let us hope that as we celebrate the loud voices of celebrities from marginalized cultures, that we honor these quiet ones as well. 

21st Century Poetry: Poetry and the Internet by Beau Blue #4

The poetry from the discussion boards and in the Ezines of those boards in the mid nineties was all text based. Everyone was emulating print publishers and reveling in the fact that a lit pub was now easier and far cheaper to produce. POD changed things even further. Some very good independent outfits produced some really good non-print print publications. But the vast majority of those first poetry zines, like the vast majority of all things, was homogeneous and bland.

I started pushing the idea of internet poetry right then.

The poetry Ezines of the nineties missed the point of the internet's power. Some pubs and editors started presenting sound with their printed poems, realizing their audiences longed for a return to poetry's roots .. the spoken word performance. So, Poetry LA opened shop and started presenting recordings of poets reading their stuff and performing poetry on the internet.

More and more people are capitalizing on the inexpensive presentation of color graphics and photos. The Ezines keep getting slicker, but most are still caught in the last century. Pushing paper and ink, resisting e-books and e-periodicals, etc., etc. Depending too much on template driven publication software. Needless to say, I disagree with their approach.

But I feel a flash-over is coming. 

So much for a synopsis of how poetry and the internet are intertwined. Now for a call for group participation: I would like it if some of you dear readers would call out your favorite website and their URLs in the comments section of this post. 

It would be appreciated and just might steer this column to exotic poetic places. Thanks, Blue  

Introducing MoMor: A Plea for Change In Desperate Times by Kevin M. Hibshman

I thought I'd begin the new year with an artist, though not exactly new, has been a recent discovery of mine. Seth Nyquist, a young singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Canada has released three EP's and seven singles on his own label, Don't Guess, to date. His current single is 2020's “Don't Cry.” His first release, Live For Nothing, appeared in 2015 and he has been gaining popularity in his home country since then. 

        Nyquist was born into a foster home in Toronto in 1992. He was adopted into a Swedish family.

“MorMor” is Swedish for “grandmother.” He spent one semester studying sociology at Ryerson

University in Toronto before leaving to pursue music. 

        I became interested in MorMor after my partner urged me to check out the video for his 2018 single “Heaven's Only Wishful.” The track begins with a standard 4/4 rock beat and is anchored by strumming acoustic guitars that build to an unexpected intensity at the close of the song which ends with the chant: “Some say you're the reason I feel this way.” MorMor's arrangements are usually sparse, focusing on his incredibly youthful-sounding voice that conveys a sense of being wounded yet hopeful: “Close your eyes and see it through. Chaos comes to collect the dues.”

        His latest EP, the six-song, Someplace Else,” continues his distinctive sound. There are more electronics used for flourishes and atmospheric touches. The songs are dreamily introspective slices of soul-laced pop. Nothing is ever jarring, MorMor is a chill ride. I'm often reminded slightly of Prince's earlier ballads minus the playful sexuality. There is a haunting sense of optimism in many tunes that I find refreshing. MorMor 's material is generally soothing, quietly contemplative yet hooks the listener with memorable melodies and messages of hope to survivors of all kinds.

     

His debut, Live for Nothing, seems hardest to find, though after a brief search on-line, I did find it available. He has a You Tube channel where you can easily get a taste of this engaging artist. He appears live on KEXP at home, accompanying himself singing on acoustic guitar. He loses none of his gentle intensity being “unplugged.” http://www.mormormusic.com/ is his official web site and you can order some merch and music there.

MorMor is worth checking out and he's quickly picking up interest in the U.S. Going on the strength of his abilities, his future should be limitless.

        

A Review of Brian Rihlmann’s NIGHT AT MY THROAT by Heidi Blakeslee

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    I wanted to sit down and read a couple of poems from this collection to get a feel for what I was about to get into, but that was not meant to be.  One became ten, ten became twenty, and before long I had consumed the entire book like a tube of Pringles.  

I then realized that what I had before me was a looking glass into the soul of Bukowski’s son.  If Bukowski had a son who was hardworking, hard-drinking, and a lover of broads, then this is him.  

The poetry has central themes that are relatable: tenacity, inherited mental health problems, complexities of human interaction, wisdom, and broads. This writing drew me in first with a masterful use of atmospheric metaphor.  Rihlmann’s world is at turns bleak and lovely, and always true.

One of the reasons why Bukowski fans are as such is because of the humor interwoven between the pain and chaos of his lines.  “Night at my throat” delivers tough moments in such a way that makes me think that Rihlmann’s eyes are twinkling as he writes.  Of course, the other side of twinkling eyes is insanity.  Despite this, Rihlmann works the line well so that in the end we’re rooting for him.  Even if he is crazy.  Even if we all are.

“Night at my throat,” published by Pony One Dog Press, is a worthy traveling companion for anyone looking for some poetry that will make you think about life, death, and most importantly, the journey.

From “Hoarder”

I used to watch shows

about hoarders

and think my god....

how can you live

like that?

in houses filled

with rats or cats

in houses packed

with the accumulated junk

of a lifetime

in houses with plumbing

that doesn’t work anymore

so you shit in plastic bags

and throw them in the basement

I mean

what the fuck

is wrong

with you people?

but now

two plus years sober

as I daily navigate

the junkyard and sewer

of my own mind

scraping congealed puddles

of who knows what

off the floor 

under white hot spotlights

of teetotaler awareness…

I don’t wonder

about that anymore

Brian Rihlmann comes out of a tradition that seems to be fading in our country, that of the self-taught poet. His experiences in jobs as varied as car washes, horse stables, construction and warehousing to bartending, truck driving, working as a personal trainer and commercial photographer, just to name a few, have shaped his work and provided an inexhaustible source of material.

His broad work experiences and wide travels in the United States have made him an authentic observer of American values and life. He writes with conviction about racism, the glorification of money, the disrespect for the elderly and the poor, and about the American gun culture. He is currently sheltering in place near Reno, Nevada. He is the author of a previous collection of poems called Ordinary Trauma and is widely published online.

GAS Featured Artist: Andrea E. Lodge

    Since Andrea went to a Catholic university and is very much NOT Catholic, she was able to fill her Religion class spots with any Humanities courses she wanted to take, resulting in her getting a minor in Art.  She loves all art forms but is really into decoupage, collage, mixed media, and painting.  She has recently been doing her paintings with gouache and been focusing on portraits, mostly of famous people.  The portraits are meant to look like photos that have been put through filters.  Though she doesn't care for the title of "A Creative," she has been one as far back as she can remember, making tiny books and creating things out of found objects since she could hold a pencil and resist gluing her hands together.

Amy

Tori

Joker

Madonna

Clothesline

 

 Andrea E. Lodge resides in Philadelphia with her husband and two disabled cats; Budgie, with only three legs, no tail, constantly drooling, and Loki, AKA Poki, AKA, Pokapotamus (because he weighs 20 pounds), a Scottish fold with only one folded ear.  She studied English/Secondary Education at Holy Family University and taught middle and high school Writing and Literature after graduating.  She is now a full-time writer and and artist.

Andrea is on Deviant Art and Instagram.