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15 Image Poems - by Norman J. Olson.
Beaver Lake Press, 946 N. McKnight Rd. Maplewood, MN, 55119-3635. Price: you gotta write and ask.

Recently, I meeted and talkted with Norman J. Olson but I guess you who read this will have to wait till he comes to your space to do just that. You should invite him. Anyway, Norman writes with sharp insight into the work, the poem world of Lyn Lifshin and you should read his reviews of her books on the Lifshin website or is it web site - two words? But I am just cranking up this AM here and want to get on to his poems: poems that I will return to again and again: They are filed with the names of animals and the animal world is alive here in this poetry. Perhaps it is a primal instinct of the untamed, well, yes it is, that allows Norman J. to record succinctly what is about him. Yes they are observations but enhanced via the talents of a form of animal observation - clearer, more focused, sharper than the dull wits of humanity. Here are some lines form Norman's "On Sunlight,": The black and bottomless/ sky wears a blue mask/ and thermonuclear/ eyeballs gleam/ like suns. And then in this poem by Olson called, "If I were to Paint the Madonna," these lines: When icicles drip/ form the fat man's lip/ and dinosaur bones laugh in the air like donuts,/ then violin music that slips though/ a hole in the ceiling seems less out of place than/ the mace/ on the security guard's Sam Browne. Hear the music? I hear it. So, yeah, well you might find Norman Olson at Ryan's Bar because two poems name the place. Or you might recognize now Norman's name because his art, his drawings are here and there in magazines, zines and about the web. But mostly, I think you should write Norman. Say, Hello, Norman, I am interested in your poems and I wanna see them all. Norman will say, I think, OK. So write and send a buck or two.

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The Man No One Hated: - To the Memory of Bob Kaufman (1926-1986)
by Gerald Nicosia. 12 Gauge Press, P.O. Box 6011, San Clemente, CA. 92674
(write for price).

A sweet, sad, delightful one poem book by Gerald Nicosia in loving memory of Beat poet, San Francisco poet, street poet, political activist poet and icon Bob Kaufman, Bob Kaufman author of "Abomunist Manifesto," "Ancient Rain Poems," "Cranial Guitar," "Golden Sardine" and "Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness." Tender. Real. Heartfelt. Loving. Loss.

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The Author's Not Quite Dead - by Gerald Locklin.
2001. Showerhead Press * pob 5506 * sherman oaks, ca 91413 usa - For price and
more information see: http://showerhead.org

A small collection of new poems in a small chapbook that could fit in your shirt pocket except that it is bound with sandpaper so you can read while sanding the callous off your left foot or while sanding your finger tips before you begin your nightly safe cracking. But let us venture into this fine, fine collection of new poems by Gerald Locklin, Emperor of the subconnonical of American poetry. These poems are short poems, quick poems, poems that explore and celebrate the humor, surprise and irony of life and language, when obvious life becomes language and lit and poetry. They are poems of our lives, things that happen that are transformed into poetry, thoughts that you think but pass. Locklin writes them down for poetry springs from living in the poems of Gerald Locklin and his quick wit is a pleasure for all. Now, after I leave a book like this, all things become poetry. And to heck and hell with all the gymnastics and olimpdicks of overly worked wrought poetry, poetry where the metal fags-out from over manipulating masturbation. Yes, all things are the poem. This, friends and readers, makes them art, a radical and powerful form of intrepid art that breaks open the oak doors of high culture cathedral and brings the worship of the gods back to drinking buckets of freshly brewed beer. For instance, let me quote in its entirety, Locklin's poem: "Was Charles Bukowski A Greater Writer than William Shakespeare?" No.

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Poesy: - A Publication for Poetry and the Arts.
Issue 16. Spring 2002. C/o Brian Morrisey, 106 Campbell Street No. 5, Santa Cruz, CA. 95060. Issues are $1.00 for postage.

Printed on newsprint, distributed for nearly nothin, Poesy is passion for poetry - Brain Morrisey's passion and Doug Holder's passion. Passion. Even in these dark days of oil drilling and war there are those for whom the poem becomes the all. Here it is folks. In this most wonderful issue is a most interesting interview with R. D. (Raindog) Armstrong editor and publisher of Lummox and poems by Edward Obuszewski, Mark Wisniewski and Radomir Luza Jr. Wisniewski's poem sticks in mind. It relates the abouts first love of wild, that is grown up, woman, real woman. And also there are poems by David, Kelley, Alan, Kurt and Ryan. And work by Gerald Zipper. And work by Arthur Knight and Alan Catlin and A. D. Winans. And there are reviews. Well - you get the drift. The magazine is about poetry and these editors work to get the good poem in print. Do not have to be the poem of the worshiped. But the good made sandwich - good with lots of ham and mustard and a banana and horseradish and zebra puke, refrigerators, sorrow and sunshine. And see Holder's article: "Bold Enough to Never Give Up." Seems like a good enough definition of this magazine. I give it five out five yeses: yes yes yes yes yes.

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Mt. Houghton Miscellany. - Volume 2 - Number 1.
March 2002. Tom Blessing, Editor. PO Box 689, Eastpointe. Michigan 48021. Write Tom for price and send him some poems, maybe. peshekee@hotmail.com

This splendid issue features Mike Kriesel: with his poems like: "Heaven's Nail," Hawk/ hangs/ like/ a nail/ driven/ into/ the sky. And poems by Mark Hartenbach - his work most interesting always endowed and rich and frothy with Catholic imagery and he also deeply tangled and twisting with and about in this spirituality of working class, eastern US, industrial folk. He should be in every magazine forever as should and of course, ah…in the kitchen with Ron Androla. He is making eggs - and Ron - yes - my father also died of steel mill stress. And t. kilgore spake works in here a plenty: like his poem: "Gray Beard HMO," winchester "upland game," 2 in., /no. 6, 20 gauge only. And Donna Michele Hill contributions also - Yes - in her Radom Capsule No. 17. I have been - haven't we all been - part of her poem about hospital rooms - yes - go there be captured by poetry. And find her at http://www.donnamichelehill.com
So - well - Tom Blessing got a batch of poems together in a couple pages and said- well - here is it. And yeah: eat it and go sing!

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Channeling Humbert Humbert - by Aaron Bradford.
Bender Books, Long Beach Downtown Station, PO Box 21261, Long Beach Station, Ca. 90801. $5.00

Jeff Epley is the editor and maker of Bender books and he art changing the notion of the chapbook by making it now, not a pathologically hastily constructed transition work to a larger collection, but an event, a form of Great Gatsby party by the pool and an adventure in astronomy that records the place of stars in the sky. Ands he makes only important books. Aaron Bradford's book is one of them. Humbert Humbert by the way, for those of you who have not re-read Nabokov's "Lolita" of late, is the main, male character of the novel. Bradford remains true to the lust, love and passions that this book might conjure but that seems only a postion from which to launch because this book of poems is a senusal love letter from men to women. I would give it (in) as cupid's arrow. Each poem is an erotic kiss. The reinvention, reengagement of love and lust, in poetry is an ancient endeavor and often times the paths are dull and most poets just roll over and turnout the light. Bradford does not. He gets up and writes poetry and I am glad he did. Good to know that his muse is Cupid, cupid with blue balls and a few drinks, with his tongue, his heart.

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The Mystical Exercycle - by Gerald Locklin.
2002. 45 pages. The Chuckwagon Press, Sean Casey - editor and organizer, 9 Robandy Road, Andover, MA 01810. $10.00

This is a greatly focused collection of poems by poet Gerald Locklin and certainly reveals complete a phase that the poet has entered. The poems are reflective poems and philosophical contemplation poems and comment upon human conduct poems, which exhibit the frailty and stupidity of the human race and undermines the arrogance with which and in which we, so many of us, all of us, conduct our puny lives. These works are not so much about this and that or that time past or a memory but are immediately of the present, poet present in the world, interacting with the world and imagination, the imagination of it in words. Locklin really is in it as a poet in the world. He steps in it. He ain't JUST watchin it. And these are the golden fruits of walking in the Garden of Eden poetry and there happens to be some animal shit. Watch out God!, Gods! And Goddesses! Toad is in paradise! The poems are a form of art word pure in the sense that they are involved in/with word fun - the ironic and the humor or ironic humor of fun with words, which is now essential Locklin and is now his program in poetry. The poems are a splendid and solid form of observation, reminds my of Resnikoff - the poem reality that waiting for the elevator takes forever. And also of Fluxus and performance poetry, for example my favorite poem in the collection, and one destined for the selected poems, the magnificent poem: "Where's Wally?" Allow me to quote it completely: fuck Wally.

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Fortune Cookies for The Damned, - haikues, blues, & bullets by Bradley Mason
Hamlin. Free Thought Publications and 12 Gauge Publications PO Box 6011, San Clemente, CA. 92674.

Haiku is the most populous and popular form of poetry in the USA. Check out the Spamku website! The form of poetry in the grip of Bradley Mason Hamlin becomes a fat robin, filled with wiggling worms, with a pig's heart in the jaws of lion. Holy Shit!

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The Whirligig: - Pulp with a Pulse.
Issue 5. Frank J. Marcopolos, 4809 Avenue N, No. 117, Brooklyn, NY 11234. 3 bucks American per issue. Write Frank in the real world at the above address or editor@thewhirligig.com

This is not for those of you who masturbate at the drive-in or in the drive-thru at McDonalds (well maybe). But better this is for those of you, dear readers, who ride elephants off the Alps and descend upon the washed and combed puny pony poodles of Rome (and places like the University of Iowa), with pen sword in grip cutting the falling bodies of professors and poets in sandals with white socks and drinking their blood mixed with Queen-O. Loki and Odin wrestle the frost giants to get their hands on each new issue of The Whirligig. This issue is the wine of Homer and Whirligig is the cup that Christ will not allow to empty. After reading this issue of Whirligig, I imagined that I was a US cavalry private, captured by Apaches in a black and white movie, circa 1958, and I was tied down, shirtless, over an ant hill, with my bindings of buckskin soaked in water, so that when the broiling hot Arizona sun rose and climbed towards noon, my wrists would open and spill my blood on the sand and provide a banquet for mice and fire ants and vultures. Damn - Frank Marcopolos is Lord of Editors! This issue is a festival and Poe would weep big tears of lusty fog just to hold for a second the power of Whiligig and start with Ann Sterzinger's prose work: "A Beautiful Son."

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