Ghost Soldiers of Volcano and other poems by Arthur Webb (1968)

Ghost Soldiers of Volcano and other poems
Arthur Webb
Mother Lode Publishing Co.
Fresno, CA
(c)1968

I like the cover stock.

Three Grange Halls by Jordan Smith (2002)

Three Grange Halls
Jordan Smith
Swan Scythe Press
Davis, CA
(c) 2002

There are reproductions of sketches from Edward Hopper's notebook sprinkled around this chapbook, very handsomely presented. In fact, I think the poems are sprinkled about as well. Tumbleweed. Milkweed in autumn breeze. Dandelion "helicopters" floating on a summer's day.

And I think that's my problem with poetry like this. The breeziness. The lack of depth. It's 2002 and the poetry in this collection like so many other collections anticipate the surface emptiness of "Instagram Poetry" perfectly. It's singy-songy nothingness. I read the whole book feeling like my hand was out of a window on a hot summer day, feeling air. Feeling air because there was nothing there. Nothing I would remember tomorrow. Chinese food for the soul.

Rattlesnake Press

a full house of Rattlesnake Press books, all of them defanged.

Spiral by Kate Wells (2007)

Spiral
Kate Wells
Rattlesnake Press
Pollock Pines, CA
(c)2007

Chapbooks like this one become journies into new and different threads that are the tapestry of small press history in this country. This chapbook was part of a lot that I found & bought online and I mostly got it because I didn't know any of the poets nor any of the publishers. Like Rattlesnake, which seems to be a big-deal West Coast regional press. Poetry with fangs, or something. That's what the website says. "Poetry with fangs."

Kate Wells' poetry is fangless. But it exists and I am acknowledging it. So, there. Next!

Julia Vinograd 1943-2018

Sometimes it's worth noting.

You should read her, now that she has left our dimension.

Pit Stop by Pat Parker (1975)

Pit Stop
Pat Parker, editor
the women's press collective
Oakland, CA
(c)1975

I bought a small press lot of books from a seller in California who was highlighting this book in particular, but I bought the lot anyway because of the variety of authors and presses I have never heard of before. It wasn't until it arrived and I looked through the books that I started to feel uneasy about this one - this Pit Stop left me a bit cold and it took me a few extra minutes to work through my brain why that might be and it wasn't until after I read over the publisher information that it dawned on me that I had seen "the women's press collective" before, and that it was in an unsavory context.

I quickly looked through my own blog and also typed in "Lesbian Poetry" for the name of this publisher and found that it was linked to Diana Press out of Baltimore. Ah, that's right - Diana Press out of Baltimore. Lee Lally's book that they stole. Lee Lally's book that they published without permission and never gave a dime to the original publisher, Some Of Us Press. Yes, scumbags. Yes, dirtballs. Yes, uprooting themselves from Baltimore to merge with/become the women's press collective. And that name : Pat Parker. Her name was involved with both Diana and the Oakland re-grouping.

Lee Lally passed away years ago now and my own involved with any of this was a stillborn effort on my part to publish an inclusive "Some of Us Press" anthology. While it didn't come to bear, it did enlighten me about this unethical action by Diana Press. I found it interesting that in the Lesbian Poetry Archives listing of the books published BY Diana Press that there was no mention of the pirated publication, These Days, but I just looked through my copy of the book and it clearly states that it was printed BY Diana Press. Someone is attempting to airbrush history a bit.

Since this is now the second time this incident has come across my screen, I will now have to research a bit more. I do want to get to the bottom of this sorted affair simply because whoever made this underhanded decision should not go unpunished.

Drinking the Light by Laverne Frith (2007)

Drinking the Light
Laverne Frith
Finishing Line Press
Georgetown, KY
(c)2007

Laverne Frith is a widely published, award-winning poet and a nationally published reviewer of literary journals and magazines. Laverne is on the reviewer panel of the New York Journal of Books. He is the proprietor of Frith Press and co-editor of Ekphrasis. He is the author of a handful of chapbooks including this one. However, this one is from Finishing Line Press and I do not much like Finishing Line Press. At all.

Black Sparrow chapbooks?

I have been writing this blog for a number of years now (12) and admittedly several of the postings have been pretty "surface". I haven't dug into either the subject nor the work terribly hard. But then - well : I have a new query – I bought a chapbook printed in 1967 by BLACK SPARROW PRESS. Now I always thought that Black Sparrow only did full books with spines and that it started out to publish Bukowski but this chapbook undercuts that narrative. Because it’s a chapbook of James Purdy’s work and it’s a signed copy. So, if the Press WAS formed in 1966, as the history on Wikipedia states, then this is a first year project that predates Bukowski (?). The evidence I have so far found online suggests that the Press was created for Martin, the publisher, to promote Bukowski, “the new Whitman“ (Martin’s words – not mine). And here is a chapbook that is an outlier. Purdy is as underappreciated as Bukowski once was. So Black Sparrow worked with other unknown authors before striking the chord with Charles.

In later interviews Martin does seem to gloss over his own history a bit and told people what they wanted to hear or what made them cream their jeans : that in fact the Press was formed to promote Bukowski and while it’s true that he wasn’t the only successful relationship that Black Sparrow formed with authors, they also brought out work by Paul Bowles and John Fante, in our media culture narrative we associate Black Sparrow SOLELY with Bukowski. So, what am I to make with this chapbook I am holding?

That Bird Your Heart by Tasha Cotter (2013)

That Bird Your Heart
Tasha Cotter
Finishing Line Press
Georgetown, KY
(c)2013

Tasha Cotter has been quite productive since 2013. In addition to this book, there 4 other books published in the same time frame and one of them, Some Churches takes its name from the first poem in this collection. The poetry itself is quite good. My only issue with it is that I am not a fan of Finishing Line Press.

Tracing Silver by Deborah Ryder (1999)

Tracing Silver
Deborah Ryder
Cross-Town Publishing
Harrisburg, PA
(c)1999

Another time capsule from the Central PA environs. Ryder has been a poet in the area for a number of years and this is one of her earlier chapbooks. One of the poems was published previously in Experimental Forest which was a mid-state journal that I loved reading back in the day. Mid-1990s. The poetry is good. Worth collecting.

Fledgling Rag #4 (2007)

Fledgling Rag
Le Hinton
Featuring Jack Veasey
Issue Four
Iris G. Press
Wrightsville, PA
(c)2007

Iris G Press & Fledgling Rag are the brainchildren of Le Hinton who has become a regional poetry superstar. This issue features many of the region's finer poets and that region is Central PA to Washington DC but that came later. In the beginning and this is closer to the beginning as FR only began in 2006, Le asked poets he knew or heard while visiting the Harrisburg to Allentown area. I contributed to one of his issues as well, but not this one. Susan Norris acted as his technical assistant and layout specialist. They worked together for many issues. It's a Heroic effort that deserves attention for both of them.

Standing in the Chaos by Steven G. Concert (2006)

Standing in the Chaos
Steven G. Concert
self published
Harveys Lake, PA
(c) 2006

Concert is a mover and shaker in the poetic world of NE Pennsylvania. He has been actively involved in the Pennsylvania Poetry Society for a number of years and have at least one other book out. This one is thin. A mere 13 pages of verse. I am mentioning the book to talk more about the poet and the fact that poetry thrives all across the state. I am glad to have gotten to know or read a good number of poets from all over PA and hope to spread the wildfire of poetry wherever I roam. They have all inspired me. So, thanks, Steven. Thanks!

Third Book of Poetry by Noah J. Augarten (2006)

Third Book of Poetry
Noah J. Augarten
self published
© 2006


Spiral bound chapbook. Plain paper. Unpaginated and yet there’s a table of contents with page count. I mean, unpaginated means no page numbers and there’s a TOC with numbers. Um, yeah, okay: I give up.

It is way too often true that just because someone can doesn’t mean someone should and that’s is especially true of self-publishing books. To friends and family this might be welcomed. But to someone reading it who doesn’t know the writer except for the words on the page, this effort really should have been suppressed.

To be Santa you have to be tested by Joe Donohoe (2002)

To be Santa you have to be tested
Joe Donohoe
little vanity press
San Francisco, CA
(c)2002

When I was in Toronto over the summer I happened across books by Canadian writers Liz Worth and John L'ecuyer dealing with "cool fringe" culture : drugs and music, but mostly drugs. So when I found this tiny sliver of nothing, the chapbook by Joe Donohoe, I thought of the cool Canadians. This one though wasn't quite the others. Reminds me of that Sesame Street tone "One of these things is not like the other". Indeed. Not that the writing is terrible because it does fit what the Canadian writers were portraying. It's that the presentation was god-awful.

So, I found Donohoe's chapbook on a shelf behind a front row of books, and it didn't stand out so much as I was intrigued by the thinness of it. I recognize a chapbook when I see it. This staple bound effort is completely slap-dash in the most kind was of saying it. There are illustrations in the book but they didn't distract from the absolute primitiveness of the book's appearance. They actually make it more blatant since the illustrations look like they were photocopied poorly and simply put in as pixelated and gray and dirty as they were. Plus each illustration has the title of the book above the image. Like I would be confused or something? I am holding a wreck of a chapbook, I know what I am holding. I half expect it to vomit on me at each turn of the page. Like a chapbook form of a bad punk music show where a speaker falls on a teenage girl and splits her head open. Gushing blood and puke and boy did you see that, dude, that was awesome! (except it wasn't) And neither is this chapbook but not everyone feels like way about his work! A different chapbook by Donohoe was actually distributed by Last Gasp. He's a niche artist, it seems. Not my niche, sorry.

Anticipating You by Julia Tilley (2002)

Anticipating You
Julia Tilley
Joyryder Enterprises
Harrisburg, PA
(c)2002
Jumping into the time machine for a second time to deal with the previous published work by Julia Tilley, we come upon her 2002 book, Anticipating You, which was published by Jennifer Ryder. Or rather "a" Jennifer Ryder since I was about to snap-assume that the publisher of this book was also related to Debbie Ryder, a Harrisburg-area poet, but the website given at the back of the book goes to an Australian writer of best-selling romance novels. Not sure I can square that circle.

Regardless, this book is much better made than the 2009 effort. The poems are tighter, the presentation is more professional; it's just better. Joyryder Enterprises has disappeared into the ether of time. No electronic footprint left to follow. And to be fair to all concerned parties, I had by 2002 moved to downtown Philadelphia and was trying to lay siege to that fine city. Harrisburg, in case some of you don't know, is the state Capital of Pennsylvania and like some other state capitals is much less interesting than the largest city in the state and in the case of Pennsylvania - that means less interested than TWO cities : Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But it did have a poetry community in Harrisburg that was tighter and more buoyant than most other communities in the state. I tip my hat to them! Uptown Poetry Cartel, et al.

Julia Tilley is still quite active in the arts - she has done a one person show as Emily Dickinson recently and is part of the Flying Marmottes Performance Troupe. Good on her!

Cheez Whizz and Other Processed Poems by Julia Tilley (2009)

Cheez Whizz and Other Processed Poems
Julia Tilley
T+T Press
a Division of Thiaw & Tilley Enterprise
Harrisburg, PA
(c)2009

It doesn't help that I know one of the principals in this endeavor. Back in the day, before I left for Philadelphia, I participated in the poetic scene from Allentown to Harrisburg so I know a good number of the active poets in the region. So it does pain me to say that this chapbook coming out in 2009 with such a horribly pixelated cover image is simply not good. These are 24 pages of unremarkable poetry as well. Unfortunate, especially in light of her previous work (the 2002 chapbook Anticipating You). I will discuss that one next.

Peripheral Debris by Carl S. Kaucher

Peripheral Debris
Carl S. Kaucher
self published

This is the other self published chapbook that Carl made earlier this century. He seems to have a new book out. Congrats on this leap, Carl!

Just Universes by Diana Smith Bolton (2016)

Just Universes
Diana Smith Bolton
L+S Press
Washington, DC
(c)2016

Diana Bolton is the founding editor of District Lit. Her work has been featured in numerous publications. This is her first chapbook. The poems within are good and the visuality of the physical book is adequate but it overall lacks something.

Off-Ramp Omniscience by Carl S. Kaucher

Off-Ramp Omniscience
Carl S. Kaucher
self published

The image is that of a cloverleaf where the by-pass and roads leading into Reading and West Reading, PA convene. This self published chapbook with the quite pixelated photo on front and similar photos throughout is the work of Carl Kaucher, who along with her sister, Candace, were among the local talent around at the time that the poetry scene in Berks County, PA was coming together in the mid to late 1990s as I remember it. See, I was a catalyst of that particular shift in poetic happenings there in Berks County which led to the Berks Bards and the poetry festival that they present annually, Berks Bard Fest. The first year of that festival was 1999 and this chapbook was either created that year or possibly in 2000. I don't recall and since there is no publication information it's impossible to be sure. I do remember seeing it around before I moved to Philadelphia in 2001.

Fast forward to my last trip to Berks County, PA and I visited the same place that I found books from Norman Pritchard's library in 2001 and in a trailer where books are dumped, I found a handful of chapbooks of which this was one. There's a certain amount of symmetry in discovering chapbooks from that period now. The poetry festival is 20 years old now and those poets and artists who made up the first core of the poetry readings across the county from 1995-1998 are now themselves 20 years older. I look that the chapbooks as historical documents, not for the poetry in them per se, but for the time period and the fact that many of them were complete DIY efforts.

Thanks for the memories, Carl. I hope you are well.

A Week With Bejing by Meg Eden (2015)

A Week With Bejing
Meg Eden
Neon Books
United Kingdom
(c)2015

I enjoy the work of Meg Eden. Now, I have to say that I am limiting these comments to the one book of hers that I have - this one, but this one is good. Just sayin'. I got to hear her read in Arlington several months ago. It was a worthwhile experience. All the poems in this collection have to do with a person or city or State that may or may not answer to the name Bejing. Short poems with a zip in each one. Very cool.