Small Press History: Michael Hathaway/Chiron Review 1980s-Present

 

BE: It is my recollection that I was in Germany and I had already produced at least one perfect bound issue of Gypsy, some chapbooks and cassette collections of original poetry and music from many countries when I received a letter from you asking advice about starting a new magazine. Is that in your recollection too and what are a few other small mags you were following at the time and what did you like about them?

MH: I do remember writing you a fanboy letter and asking for advice after seeing Gypsy for the first time! I fell in love with it. Gypsy was among the publications that introduced me to the “small press,” when anyone asks about my favorite literary magazines, Gypsy is always on the list, you’re a publisher and poet I’ve always respected and looked up to.

I remember asking you once for Bukowski’s address, as he had poems in Gypsy, and I wanted to invite him to send some poems, which he did several times. I do believe publishing him put us on “the radar,” so I have you to thank for that!

I also remember a compilation issue that Gypsy did, which I thought was just brilliant and gorgeous. (When it’s my turn to host Poetry Rendezvous, that’s how we do our anthologies.)

To name a handful, other mags that I enjoyed back then were Calliope’s Corner, Fire!, Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, Poetry Motel, Raw Bone, Wyoming: Hub of the Wheel, Forum for Universal Spokesmen, Raw Dog Press, Yellow Butterfly, Newsletter Inago, Mockersatz, The Devil’s Millhopper, Bogg, Impetus, Abbey, Gargoyle, Psychopoetica, Tears in the Fence, Atom Mind.

I liked them because they were all so individual, so different from each other in style, tone, subject matter, life experience, and voice. They didn’t censor, didn’t hold back. They were a refreshing antidote to mainstream literature. Some were intense, some profound, some irreverent, some funny AF (Mockersatz). The artwork was always interesting, all the different mediums of presentation fascinated me. And they came from all over the place! To a country bumpkin stuck in rural Kansas, all the return addresses on the envelopes were exotic places.

BE: What were some of the deciding factors to begin Chiron?

MH: I’ve told the story before, but history doesn’t change. My cousin Connie showed me a sheaf of poems she’d written. I thought they were wonderful, and tried getting publishers interested. Of course, being 19, I had no idea how such things worked and encountered one slammed door after another. (Two of Connie’s poems appear in the forthcoming All the Colors of Life: An Anthology coming very soon from Ruth Moon Kempher’s Kings Estate Press.)

A year after graduating high school, I took a job working as a typesetter at a nearby daily paper. After a year of working there, I realized I could publish Connie’s poems myself. And anything else I wanted! I wrote to a few friends and pen pals and asked for poems, stories, art and photographs, and that’s how the first issue was born. My supervisor, Jim, let me use the composing room to put the issue together, the guys in the press room printed it. I paid for the printing.

At one point, my supervisor told me I could use the photocopier and any of the machines in the composing room as much as I wanted at night, if I would stay as a typesetter until he retired. I typed 126 wpm, and he said I typed the cleanest copy he’d ever seen since he started in the newspaper business (1961). Whether that was true or not, I don’t know, but the praise did wonders for me at that young age. (And believe me, I took Jim at his word and gave that photocopier a workout!)

But I was extremely restless (still am). I quit work there and returned four times in 13 years. Even though I was immature and could be a pain in the ass, I think my work actually was good enough that he wanted to keep me on anyway. He (and his successor) would always hire me back. I did enjoy and take pride in the work, and had great respect for the role a free press plays in society.

My longest stint was three years. The last one saw me promoted from the composing room to society editor. That lasted six months. Chiron was actually the reason for that job ending permanently, but that’s another tempest in a teacup for another day …

BE: When did you first publish Chiron and how was it received? I remember most of us reviewed or mentioned other small mags in our publications. 

It was first published Feb. 19, 1982. I was oblivious to the small press world then. The first issue went to friends and family. It got mixed reactions. My great-aunt Goldia, was scandalized as was my elderly piano teacher, Mrs. Budge, and her sister. But a lot of people had positive reactions. Many readers liked Connie’s poems as much as I did; and there was experimental fiction and poetry that was fascinating and fun. I especially loved the work by my friend (now Rev.) Maggie Duval, who also created the beautiful unicorn that graced the cover of the first six issues. Robert O’Hara’s photography page was perfect and beautiful.

Then browsing at the Great Bend [KS] Public Library, I found a copy of Len Fulton’s International Directory of Small Presses and Little Magazines. That opened up the world to me and the magazine. I sent copies to them, got listed in that directory (“the Bible of the business”) and Small Press Directory. And ordered a few “sample copies” of the other mags, and sent copies of my magazine to them. I had no clue that was the beginning of the most amazing, far-flung, life-long network of writers, editors, publishers, and friends that I could have ever dreamed up.

I was totally enamored of other alternative/underground/small press publications, all of them. From the traditional to the experimental, to the hand-made stapled booklets with rubber stamp art, and collages, to the high-end glossy journals. I exchanged with other publishers frequently, was honored to promote them in Kindred Spirit/Chiron Review. We helped each other with “exchange subscriptions” and “exchange ads”. I wrote a column titled, “News, Etc.,” in which I tried to mention and quote from every single publication that crossed my desk. I didn’t live up to that, but tried.

One publisher told me back in the 90s, that a mention in my column would bring “$60-$100 in sales” (for publications that were 50 cents-$5 each back then). That made me happy. We ran lots of book and magazine reviews, I had a nice staff of writers who would review books I sent them, or books they obtained other ways. And we accepted unsolicited reviews. Being part of, and helping to foster the small press community was a marvelous joy. (I didn’t realize that’s what we were doing back then, I was just making friends, “participating in the dialogue,” having fun.)

BE: What were some of the high points in your publishing history, both Chiron and personally?

MH: High points were publishing great poets such as Bukowski, Wanda Coleman, William Stafford, Lorri Jackson, Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel, Marge Piercy, Lyn Lifshin, Gerald Locklin, Robert Peters, Felice Picano, Charles Plymell … Lorri Jackson’s poem, “A Prima Donna Poet Replies” was selected by Robert Peters for Morty Sklar’s Editor’s Choice III anthology, back in the 1990s. That was the highest “award” we ever received. But we had lots of good reviews in various places, including Library Journal, and one by Merritt Clifton in the final issue of Samisdat. I was on Cloud 9 for weeks after that. Judson Jerome named us one of the “Top 100 Poetry Markets” in the USA in Writer’s Digest.

Other high points include making such amazing friends, and the poetry gatherings and parties, such as our Poetry Rendezvous, which started in 1988. It brings in poets from many other states, and since 1998, sometimes happens in other states. I’ve likened Rendezvous to seeing the pages of Chiron Review “come alive.” If you look on a map and see where St. John, Kansas is, you’ll see how isolated we are from civilization. Where they were a nightly, weekly or monthly occasion in the big cities, poetry readings here were nonexistent. These gatherings meant the world to Mom and me. She’s one of the reasons I kept doing them, to bring all these wonderful folks to central Kansas so we could meet them, hear them read, and enjoy their company.

And there were the cross-country travel centered around poetry readings/parties, meeting such wonderful poets, artists, musicians, and publishers all over the USA. 

BE: I remember how every small mag editor/publisher sent a contributor’s copy to each contributor as a matter of honor and respect and it was quite expensive. In the new era of POD the expense is now on the contributor to buy a copy and the editor/publisher makes a little money from the contributors by charging a couple more bucks over the print price. Many book and mag “mills” have popped up. While POD gives everybody a chance to publish whatever and EVERYBODY (who wants to) has books and POD is here to stay, I don’t see how they would ever be collectible and the vanity stench still lingers a little, to me. Any musings on the subject?

MH: I don’t think I can add anything new to that, you said it all, rather perfectly. But have a few thoughts on it. I only began noticing what you’ve described as “book and mag mills” in the last couple of years, the glut of publications due to Internet and POD. This won’t be a very popular opinion, but it somehow does make being published seem less special.

I recently saw a Facebook thread that discussed “contributor copies.” A poet was upset because he didn’t get a free contributor’s copy. The publisher was insulted and explosively hostile about the concept, which shocked me.

Like you say, contributor’s copies were always a matter of honor and respect. It was simply the custom, the unwritten rule. Since I couldn’t pay writers with cash, I figured the very least I could do is give a contributor’s copy. It was a matter of integrity, the mark of a credible publisher.

It is expensive to send contributor copies. But I never published Chiron for the money. With Chiron, it always balanced out. Writers frequently bought extra copies and subscribed when they could. I’ve always sent free or discounted copies to readers/writers who can’t afford it. Patrons who can give more support, do. If you let it, it will balance out. (And just for the record, I’ve never been rich. I work for our local history museum for $10.64 an hour.)

My thought is that if one can’t afford contributor’s copies, one maybe shouldn’t be publishing? It seems exploitive to give a poet nothing in return for use of their work, to make them pay to see their work in print. As you said, there’s a “stench of vanity press” to it.

But then again, things are changing, and I’m just an old dinosaur who will soon lumber off into the sunset, so what do I know?! haha

DRIVING W/ CRAZY by Jack Henry, reviewed by Belinda Subraman

 

This book begins with multi-layered poems and stories/essays recalling Jack's relationship and memories of his father.  It rings true with no sugar coating. Anyone who has sat with or attended a dying parent will identify strongly.  Even if you’ve never sat with a loved one dying you will find the writing beautiful, moving and deep.  Below I will give excerpts from a few pieces.  Hopefully you will buy the book, Driving W/Crazy to gather a full experience and appreciation of Jack Henry's writing.

From My Father

as my father grows older / i watch intently / knowing one-day i will be in the same place / the same space / the same chair / fighting against and losing against / time itself / 

at 80 he's lived a while /
at 55 i am not sure i will make it that far / 

From Finding the Strength to Lead my Father Home

for a moment. 

we share the same eyes,
same nose,
same giant head that could be used as advertising space. 

we share everything. 

my reflection is 80. his is 55.
he is dying.
i am barely here. 

Last paragraph from The Time I Remember Best

"We probably got home late and I probably fell asleep in the car. But I know I couldn’t wait for the next game, and there was a next game, but not like that one. That game was the best, the kind of baseball game that becomes a memory, not because of the game, but because of a father that stood up for his kid, and lost his voice in the process." 

By page 30 poems appear with tales from youth which sometimes involve fist fights, kicks, knives, guns and bullies woven in among poems about his father’s bi polar behavior.

From Lemons and Oranges

on the day i took
lemons and oranges
to the crossing guard,
the big kids,
the bullies,
quickly cornered me
and my friends, trying to tear the bag away from me. 

my mom always
told me not to fight, she thought i
would hurt someone. even in 4th grade. 

turns out, she was right. 

Sweet and tough, like life, this book will resonate with all.

From My Father's Eyes

we all dance in front of a mirror 

and only stop when they take 

the mirror away, 

and blue eyes slowly close. 

Jack Henry is a writer/publisher/editor based in Southeastern California and has been an announcer on the Blogtalk Radio show Rob&Jack America, publisher of Heroin Love Songs, and editor in charge at d/e/a/d/b/e/a/t press. In late 2009 Jack started to gain acceptance with a variety of on-line and print lit zines. Several chapbooks followed as well as two full-length collections, With the Patience of Monuments (NeoPoesis Press) and Crunked (Epic Rites Press).

After a 9-year hiatus from all things writing Jack returned in late 2019 to the small press world.

Driving w/Crazy, from PUNK HOSTAGE PRESS, is Jack’s first full length publication in 12 years.

GAS Featured Poet: Glen Armstrong

 

Glen Armstrong (he/him) holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters. He has three current books of poems: Invisible Histories, The New Vaudeville, and Midsummer. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and The Cream City Review.

 

Year of the Sea Monkey CLI

 

 

Body postpones head. 

Today is about late summer

and its soft rumble.

 

Head will have to wait.

A second head approaches

cautiously, lips

 

tightening their loops.

This is still about the head.

No one knows the exact

 

moment that the weather

arrives, but it’s late.

It builds slowly and “is

 

what it is” as my sweetheart

says when she’s tired

enough and wants to disengage

 

from a conversation.

Sleep is another season.

Leaves turn color

 

as do the teenagers

necking under the Chinese

restaurant’s neon Buddha. 

 

Interview with Featured Poet, Carlo Parcelli

 

Carlo Parcelli is a poet living in the Washington DC area. He has six books of poetry including ‘The Canaanite Gospel’, ‘Newton’s Scalder Prophesies the End of the World and Other Poems’ and ‘Canis Ictus in Exsilium’. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. But mostly he loves to perform. 

 

BE: On your website you referred to yourself as a “Poet Vaudevillian”. Are you primarily a satirist, entertainer or poet?

CP:  All three as regards the Canaanite Gospel.  The website is my vain attempt to get gigs – readings. But I’ve never been very astute at promoting myself. Witness – Vaudeville is dead.

(Sample Canaanite Gospel here.)

For the first 35 years of my poetic life, I wrote in Ezra Pound’s Canto style where the balance was tenuous between Phanopoeia, Logopoeia and Melopoeia. I wrote thousands of lines in the Canto style. The poems are long and referentially and intellectually ambitious. I had a strong reputation as one who could write in this difficult style. Roxana Prada, President of the Ezra Pound Society and editor of Make It New, wrote that I was like a “shark” in that I and my poetry seemed to never rest. Another critic compared it to John Coltrane’s ‘sheets of sound’ always probing.  

As I’ve said elsewhere, my mentor at the University of Maryland was Rudd Fleming who translated Greek drama with Pound when the poet was incarcerated at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital here in Washington DC. Rudd thought my early style was suited to the Cantos. Working in such a highly referential form, I read widely.

Though I had some initial success, my first book, Three Antiphonies appeared in 1976, few publishers were interested in long ‘intellectually transgressive’ works. Cultural transgression as exemplified by the Beats or the Confessional movements was in vogue in poetry. But, for all the rhetoric to the contrary, the iconoclastic ‘intellect’ was held in disrepute in America, a line of thinking fostered both by the materialism of corporate culture and the forces that combated it. America just had to loosen up. It didn’t have to die.

The Canto style was indeed most amenable to my poetic project of exploring western philosophy and poetics spearheaded by philosophical approaches to experimental quantum paradoxes. The poetics of Charles Olson was aphoristically central in this regard. For example, his ‘field theory resembled the quantum conundrums found in ‘position/momentum’ paradox in sub-atomic physics.

But I quickly became concerned with the ‘scientific method’ itself specifically the mathematization/quantification of ‘reality’ especially the late Renaissance/Enlightenment acceleration of it.

My concern from the beginning veered toward the apocalyptic. The most obvious development was nuclear weapons. But gradually other scientific technologies, ones associated with ‘progress’ and progressive thinking began to ratchet up my concerns. Now, we have global climate change. Why bother about the mechanism destroying the planet if that mechanism is so rooted in the dominant, western epistemology that no matter the operator’s intentions the resultant solution will be inherently Apocalyptic.  

So I was looking to move on even though it was obvious if that canard Jesus ever did dare come back, he’d be playing to an empty house. 

I was the poetry editor of a literary magazine called FlashPoint . One of our favorite poets was the Welsh/English poet/engraver David Jones. One of our staff members, the 20^thcentury poetry scholar, Professor Brad Haas was a member of the David Jones Society.

It just so happened that Georgetown University here in Washington DC was bequeathed a huge collection of Jones material. The Jones scholars gathered here in DC for a 3 day symposium where it was decided that we would publish the papers being delivered.

In the process of  ‘editing’ the papers, I was energized to re-read much of Jones’ poetry. In a collection of ‘fragments’ called ‘Sleeping Lord’ Jones’ speaker is a Roman principalis. I always loved that voice. So I wrote a monologue along its style. It’s the first Severenus monologue in the Canaanite Gospels.

Eventually the work became the Canaanite Gospel with its 67 or so ‘voices’ all dealing with events surrounding Judea/Perea in 33AD. 

BE: What was your primary reason for writing the “Canaanite Gospel” and how are people reacting to it?

CP: The primary reason for writing the Canaanite Gospel was to abandon the Canto style which I had exhausted and had exhausted me. Also, there was the opportunity to utilize the voice Jones established in his two poems, ‘The Fatigue” and ‘The Wall’. But more importantly, I wanted the monologues to serve as an allegory for all empires especially the US imperialist empire which heavily resembles the brutal Roman version and its denouement.

This is where the swearing and the racist slang come in – both intimate facts of the language of empire and the clash of cultures it heightens. Empire ain’t pretty and neither are the Canaanite Gospels. This also helps to keep my readership down for as T.S. Eliot says in the Four Quartets, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality” -especially, poetry’s ‘humankind’.

As for reaction, I sent out about 200 invitations when I premiered the CG monologues. About 17 people, mostly old friends, came. After my hour and a half performance of 12 of the monologues, Gene Rosenthal who owns Adelphi Records offered me a recording contract. Now Gene is also the guy who released Patrick Skye’s “Songs That Made America Famous”. I was proud that Gene liked the monos after all he had had the guts to record Skye’s Luang Prabang. It seemed like good fit.

Another friend in publishing wanted to publish the CG. But nothing came of either project and Mark Kuniya and his Country Valley Press ended up publishing them in 2012.

Rosalie and I went to at least 100 open mics flogging the Gospels. Generally they were very well received especially by people who despised poetry. No one dosed off. No one was bored. Bars were the best. Patrons felt entertained by the humor AND the pathos – read Gesmas. The characters are real, not sentimentalized puppets rushing toward a two line sentimental bathos. 

I got to do my ‘intellectual transgression’ thing in an atmosphere that was entertaining for much of the audience and me. And I loved performing.

The ‘heavy’ accent as you call it, is my version of East End cockney. David Jones uses it in his epic poem ‘In Parenthesis’. This is all explained in the introduction to mark Kuniya’s publication of the Gospels. Also, I’ve tried to train my ear to Elizabethan prosody. It’s so much richer than any of the shit we spout now. 

Of course, with such ‘controversial material’ there are back stories galore; the city councilman who a decade after still raves about a performance of mine he attended.    

 

There’s the crowd that stared at me with grim hostility when I performed ‘Lazarus’. Turns out the jazz guitarist I was billed with was also a Deacon in his Baltimore church. So when Jesus says to his Uncle Lazarus “Don’ talks ta me maw like that, you fuckin’ lushy’ or ‘If he’s resurrect where the fuck is he’ for a moment things got tense. But it was a great experience. I got to feel what Lenny Bruce or Dick Gregory felt when they did their more risky bits.  

Sometimes I was flat out banned. A Christian biker bar outside of Annapolis proved inappropriate. I also was blocked from the stage at the Bossa Bistro round robin performance in the Adams Morgan neighborhood in Washington DC. I did the ‘Gesmas’ mono and then was physically blocked from retaking the stage.

This is notable because the MC was Shahid Bhuttar, the same who ran against Nancy Pelosi for the democratic nomination for Congress and is one of the country’s premier FIRST AMENDMENT, FREE SPEECH attorneys. 

Now, I know it wasn’t the government suppressing my speech, but still I couldn’t help feel that I was on to something when I got the bum’s rush from that bar with Bhuttar just letting it happen. No hard feelings. Shahid is a good man. 

There are dozens of other stories arising from experiences around the Canaanite Gospels and the more recent monologues of which there are legion with titles like ‘Henry Colburn Writes His Solicitor Concerning the True Authorship of ‘The Vampyre’’ or ‘Satan’s Imp in Milton’s Ear’ or ‘Jonathan Swift’s Letter to his Friend. Alexander Pope, Upon Lady Montagu’s Rejection of the Latter’s Protestations of Love’ which left a crowd of amateur poets slack jawed in a motel conference room in Darnestown Maryland. 

BE: Who are some of the poets who have influenced you?

CP:  Homer, Dante, James Joyce, Virgil, Hipponax, Sophocles, Ovid, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Pope, Swift, John Wilmot, Holderlin, Catullus, John Milton, Villon, Blake, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Mel Tolson, Charles Olson, David Jones.

But since my work, especially my earlier work is so heavily referential other influences include Adorno and Horkheimer, Hans Blumenberg, Bruno, Hegel, Kant, Hume, Schopenhauer, Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Turing, Godels. Bohr, Heisenberg, Paul Feyerabend, Smedley Butler, Francis Jennings, Richard Drinnon, Noam Chomsky, Lenny Bruce.

Negative influences include John von Neumann, Nietzsche, Willard van Orman Quine, La Mettrie, Leibniz, Descartes, Karl Popper, Edward Bernays, Philip Larkin, Walt Whitman, Allen Dulles, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Nobert Wiener, Marvin Minsky etc. ad nauseam.

BE: What bugs you about the poetry/poets of today?

CP: Their lack of ambition in and for the work itself. No interest in keeping an audience awake. Poetry that looks for nothing more than self-affirmation. Reliance on feeling, sentimentality. 

Dominant poetic paradigms that exclude outsider work. The CG flies in the face of current literary thought that the best poetry is written at elite institutions. There, I just made the ghosts of Pound, Eliot and Byron laugh.    

BE: What are some of your greatest accomplishments?

CP:  Predicting the global apocalypse of climate change THROUGH POETRY. Being on the right side of history when it came to the Vietnam War, Iran Contra, the Gulf Wars etc., Seeing America for the murderous, imperialist, bloody shithole that it is. Turning down an invitation to meet the Dali Lama. Being named Beat Poet Laureate for Maryland.

BE: Any advice for young aspiring poets?

CP:  Don’t let your resume be your best poem.

 

LITERATI: The Advent and Impact of POD on Poetry by Hex'm J'ai

 

Then: There were the large established publishers.  There were University Presses. There were Journals and Magazines.  There were the small independent and underground publishers and press.  There were self-published ‘zines’ and chapbooks (the route I typically went with limited resources- gutter punk publishing a la photocopier and hope).  There were even what was termed Vanity Presses which were predatory in nature. 

To be published, these were options or avenues open to the hopeful poet/artist.  Yet, there was the issue of accessibility. Would your work meet the aesthetic taste or sensibilities of those reviewing it?  Was your work marketable (concerning the larger entities)?  Did you have access to a university press as either a student or as faculty (and would said press even consider publishing something that wasn’t ‘academic’)?  If there was an independent or underground press that would potentially publish your work, were you even aware of it or have a way to connect with it?

To be published, these were options or avenues open to the hopeful poet/artist.  Yet, there was the issue of accessibility. Would your work meet the aesthetic taste or sensibilities of those reviewing it?  Was your work marketable (concerning the larger entities)?  Did you have access to a university press as either a student or as faculty (and would said press even consider publishing something that wasn’t ‘academic’)?  If there was an independent or underground press that would potentially publish your work, were you even aware of it or have a way to connect with it?

Now: With the advent of publishing on demand, we are presented with an entirely different environment and therefore a different set of, both, advantages, and concerns.  Granted, many of the above entities still exist and continue but in a much different landscape.

The Central Question- “What is the impact of “Print on Demand” on poetry now that EVERYONE can publish a book?”

Well, before answering this, I conferred with a few other poets/artists I know.  As this is a potentially double-edged blade, I wanted in-put.  That said, the responses I received were remarkably similar!  Before getting to that, though, let us explore the potential ‘cons’ and ‘pros’ of the “Print on Demand” phenomenon.

The Cons:

Market Saturation- Now that everyone can publish a book, regardless of skill, talent and caliber, everyone does.  Those gems, those shining stars of the poetic, literary and artistic worlds are at risk of being lost in the crowd.  Their ethereal light being drowned out or muted by the cacophony and echoes of the dross.

Exposure/Promotion- A vast amount of the work being endorsed and promoted by the entities that provide the POD service, those that are reaping the financial benefits outside of the corporations as well as additional promotion and distribution are not those who necessarily have merit or skill as an artist or poet, but those who draw attention and have notoriety via social media.  This has become a new facet of the cult of personality or celebrity.  Ultimately, as one poet pointed out, these “insta-poets” will probably be forgotten in a decade or so.  But as that may true, those who are of higher caliber but not as marketable, are being lost in the shuffle and perhaps, could be lost altogether in time as well.  This brings us to the next…

Corporate Sellouts- “If you can’t beat’em join’em” goes the adage (as I type this, the little crust-punk version of Hex’m J’ai just threw a beer bottle at and tried to head-butt me!).  Most proceeds from POD go to the printing costs and to the corporate overlords and therefore ‘feed the machine’ not the artist.  If you attempt to get a reasonable sum for your creation you ultimately jack up the price for the customer and therefore alienate many who may purchase your work.  The bottom line, if you are not a social media sensation but want a paycheck, you will have to get a job.

Well, enough gloom and doom (well, the boring kind anyway).

The Pros:

Format- So, with many versions of POD you can manifest your work in either a hard copy or digital version!  From an environmental perspective, as pointed out by another poet/artist, this is a huge win as we are not harvesting acres of trees and sacrificing resources for unwanted or terrible manuscripts to be overstocked, end up warehoused as surplus, go to the bargain bin and then the trash.  The only hard copies created are those requested.  Having a low-cost digital version of your creation also makes your work more accessible both physically and economically.

Community/Collaboration- So the flipside of ‘Promotion/Notoriety’.  Through POD coupled with social media you can get the word out!  You can build rapport with other poets, artists, musicians, and creative folk that you would not have been able to reach in decades past due to simple logistics.  The corporate overlords may have their darlings, but they can piss off because now you can collaborate with those of like mind and sensibility!  This, of course, can lead to…

New Forms/Experiments:  Having the ability to interact with and present/receive work to/from others that we could not before promotes evolution of form and further experimentation.  I can now interact with another poet/artist who is in NC, CA, CO, the UK, or Nigeria while on a bus in upstate NY.  We can then take our collaborations and experiments and publish them in the format(s) of our liking to present to others.  We can also continue to be educated by those we interact with as we are exposed to other cultures and styles.  This is ultimately the result of…

Accessibility- This word/concept has appeared in this diatribe repeatedly for a good reason.  Because it is a “Good Reason”.  With POD, those who could not create and present their work in a book format before can.  Those who could not access an appropriate venue for their creative endeavors now can create their own.  Even when kickin’ things gutter-punk, harvesting letters a la serial-killer or ransom note, there were still incidental costs in both money, time, and resources.  Those who could not afford or sacrifice for such an endeavor now can pursue it.  They have the opportunity to present and possess a creative voice of their own and share it with others without having to worry if their particular aesthetic is the correct flavor of aesthetic for the publisher. 

Saturation?  Are you concerned that your gilded letters and verse will be lost in the murmur of thousands?  Are you worried that there will be an onslaught of ‘bad’ poetry? Perhaps, it is a viable concern, in my humble opinion an elitist concern, but valid enough.  Yet, like most terrible art it will erode and vanish in time.  But, that said, what of the poets or artists of excellent quality or of unique experience that would never have been noticed, shared, or experienced due to lack of access? Consider that, for just a moment.   

Consider the work of a young Genesis P-Orridge.  Prior to their projects like Industrial Music or Throbbing Gristle they embarked on an act of guerrilla poetry called Beautiful Litter. In this act, Gen and high school friends (called “Knights of the Pentecostal Flame”) essentially left stacks of cards with random words and phrases on them at pubs and other public places.  The intent was that whoever found them could read them and therefore create poetry/become a poet! 

In this sense, everyone is or can be a ‘Poet’.  That’s right my elitist friends, EVERYONE CAN BE A POET!

In Closing:

So, the input I requested basically echoed all the above, the real concern being the topics listed as the Cons (obviously), specifically the fact that POD is corporate by nature and that the market is essentially saturated.  Otherwise, the resounding response was that this overall, the POD phenomenon, is positive, the benefits of accessibility strongly outweighing the negative aspects. 

For me, it does not matter if what you are creating is good, bad, beautiful, ugly.  I will gladly sift through the dross to discover that one star, that one gilded spark.  I implore any of you to take this opportunity.  Create!  The phenomenon of Print on Demand is apparently here for the long haul, so as other poets and artists have done in the past, adapt!  Make this phenomenon a creative weapon of your own!

Can you hear that?  That faint crackle in the back of your brain?  

GOOD.

With my sincerest encouragement:

Get to it.

-Hex’m J’ai

[Special thanks to Wolf Kevin Martin, R.M. Engelhardt, Matthew Bowers and Belinda Subraman 

for providing input.]

MICRODOSE Review of The Pull of Autumn by Rosie Varela

 

Welcome to a new feature, MICRODOSE music reviews by  Rosie Varela, writer/musician and G.A.S. member. She’ll be writing mini-review poems (50 words or less) inspired by new music that’s off the beaten path and experimental. She encourages you to listen to the selection and write your own mini poem review in comments as well! 

Artist:  Pull Of Autumn

Song: The Stars Or The Jungle

Review: 

Hot sand burning feet

How is it that each tiny grain harnesses 

Such a feral power 

That makes me run for shade

The same way I ran from that sudden cloudburst

Straight into your arms 

Each raindrop holding my secret longing

Soaked to the bone

Hiding from the sun

Pull of Autumn: The Stars or the Jungle

MIDSUMMER by Glen Armstrong, reviewed by Joe Kidd

 

In today's modern arena, there are few poets that I have discovered, that can do what Glen Armstrong does with such ease and consistency.  That is, to observe what is normal, even mundane, and present it as an unexplored world.  Glen has a poet's talent that enables him to experience and translate his visions into colorful, surreal actual occurrences.  

This book plays with words.  They become shiny stones.  Armstrong writes in a comfortable and relaxed style.  Nothing to prove.  No ranting, no complaining, no diary entries here.  It's not about him, but it is all him.  We can tell that Glen is fascinated by what he sees, and not uptight about what he does.

What he does a lot of is connect images that are not normally connected.  Things that exist with things that do not exist.  The poems in this book are numbered,  not titled.  That is how it must be.  It would not suit the work to give it a preconceived point.   Example:

XX

the poets and folksingers

who weave their parallel universe

have never heard of you

no naked foot

hastens upon its wings

no face brightens

as your name is rescued from

muddled thoughts

yet you breathe

in and out

warm nothings

owing legend everything

free to slip through windows/bricks

pines/sleepy witnesses

saying nothing

maybe

they dream

staying nimble

saving your kisses for now

These poems are free of constraint, they are short, they are brilliant, they are unique.  Their language is captivating and alien.  The book is filled with lines like this:  

"but that largely imagined membrane/separating the night

from my own unseen depths/is thin"

"information the shadowy trees might have/can be coaxed with a feather"

"expose any aperture/and that other world/starts whispering"

"explosives and bugs/big enough for their own middle/initials"

The front cover of Midsummer is a photo of two empty lounge chairs facing the sea on the sand under a palm tree.  It tells me that Glen is on vacation here, he's got this thing.  After reading Glen Armstrong, I am drawn to the classics.  Yeats, Wilde, Keats, those are the poets who are equipped to follow.  I've been considering this review for a few months, not sure of an approach.  Most likely I have left some important facts out.  All I really want to do here is call on those who read poetry and understand poets, to call on Glen Armstrong.

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester Michigan.  He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters.  His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, Cream City Review, and many others.

Reviewed by Joe Kidd (www.joekiddandsheilaburke.com)

for GAS: Poetry, Art, & Music