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.

Poems Cradled in the Horn by Edel Ahmed (2017)

Poems Cradled in the Horn
Edel Ahmed
self published
(c)2017

I am writing to acknowledge this book. Perhaps the translation fails to bring forth the color of the original language, but I see a dull palate here. The downside of self publishing is that there is no one to suggest that an author not move forward with a project. Perhaps too this does speak to people from the Horn and I am simply missing the context that informs the pieces. Perhaps, maybe, but

The Metaphysical Salvage & Scrap Language Yard by Kenneth DiMaggio (2007)

The Metaphysical Salvage & Scrap Language Yard
Kenneth DiMaggio
Plan B Press
Alexandria, VA
(c)2007

I am wearing a t-shirt right now that has the slogans “Made in America Store” on the front and “Because China Is A Long Drive to Work!” on the back that was made by the Save Our Country First.com (company). At the time I bought the shirt, it reflected a knee jerk reaction on my part about how everything that we used to make in this country was no longer made in this country but was being produced EVERYWHERE ELSE. Now the store still exists, in Elma, NY and they still have a website but I remember feeling cheated about a store that proclaimed its “Made-in-America”-ness that basically was selling bobbles. Kitch. Grab bag stuff, nothing substantial or essential to my life in America was being sold in this store. But I bought a t-shirt to express my outright at – globalization? In this context all “globalization” means is that corporations and companies make deals to produce good in foreign countries to screw American workers out of decent paychecks to improve the bottom line for CEOs and shareholders. And, I fell for it.

But that knee-jerk reaction, that Nativistic impulse to flip someone off, that comes from somewhere in this country’s experience too. As the head of Plan B Press, I realize that I in fact published a chapbook that dealt with that “somewhere” when we published Kenneth DiMaggio’s 2007 The Metaphysical Salvage & Scrap Language Yard.

DiMaggio is an educator and he wedged these poems together out of left over bits of unfinished and unpolished pieces that in hindsight presented a lead up to the current “know-nothingness” of the Donald Trump supporter. It starts right away with the first poem : PROPAGANDA which contains the lines

Oh don’t tell me your
ideology or your religious
affiliation just quit your
job and let someone else
clean up the mess


the future is not our responsibility


the future is our ongoing art project
titled Anarchy


In the poem INSOMNIA DiMaggio wonders

where did your education disappear
but into an electric TV-screen
of quicksand


And as sharply as the pointed tip of the reality we are living through right now, he presented us this Polaroid image of the future in his poem THE LAST CLASSROOM CHALKBOARD:

Johnny may not be able
to read or write
but so long as he knows how
to salvage pieces of the Emancipation
Proclamation and the First
Amendment into marijuana pipes
and Kalashnikov rifles illegally made
in metal shop then he will still
have learned his lessons

DiMaggio leads us “astray” through the lens of an educator who is being outflanked on all sides by forces indifferent to values and principles that made this country the envy of the world – once – asking at the end of the last poem in the collection, WHERE IS PARADISE?


so don’t we need
to embalm

what was once vital and alive

Robert Lawson / Blue Bathtub Books

Robert Lawson
Blue Bathtub Books

I don't recall exactly when I met Robert Lawson electronically because I never met him in person but I met him a handful of years ago when he was just starting his Blue Bathtub experiment of creating a book of poems a month for something like 3 years. (Correct me if I am wrong, Robert). Lawson is a teacher of English in Spain. A Brit. A man of boundless energy and a bit of Brautigan/Bukowski in his soul. The books he created and sent me in the mail monthly were both explosive and more than occasionally written on a typewriter with drunken fingers.

The covers began humbly but over time became more distinctive and dare I say it - professional looking. The poems were mixed but definitely immediate. I completely enjoyed Robert's experiment and results thereof.

Once his project was completed, he went silent. Onto his next endeavor. Whatever that might be. It will be nearly impossible to find any of these chapbooks since he didn't mass produce any of them. What was most important was immediacy and that he accomplished.

Rough Cut : Independent Japanese Animation by Stephanie Weissberg (2017)

Rough Cut: Independent Japanese Animation
Stephanie Weissberg
Pulitzer Arts Foundation
St. Louis, MO
(c)2017

This thin pink booklet is an exhibition guide to show by the same name held in St. Louis. The booklet is tiny thin since it online deals with 3 animations and some additional words which to a non-film maker read like "blah blah blah".

The Life Story of Charles Dickens 1812-1870 by Walter Dexter (1937)

the life story of Charles Dickens
1812-1870
Walter Dexter
The Dickens House
London, England
(c)1937

A staple-bound biography of Dickens with B&W images. Very informative booklet. 85 pages. 

cunt. bomb. by Jessica Helen Lopez (2015)

cunt. bomb.
Jessica Helen Lopez
Swimming with Elephants Productions
(c)2014

Slam Poetry has created in 1990 by Marc Smith of Chicago who lamented that no publication would print his work. So, he "invented" a poetic form in a competitive format where money could be made via the performance of one's "work". I am oversimplifying, perhaps, but I am also not a fan of slam poetry. No one who has come up through Slam has been successful on the page. This particular chapbook is typical of the chasm between poetry on the page and poetry from the stage. The most shocking words in the entire book are the two on the front page: the title words CUNT BOMB. Those are some words alright, surprised that WHORE wasn't scribbled across the back cover for good measure.

Even as recited work, slam poetry is shallow. It's performance but there are rules about what qualifies as performance (no props, no visuals) so really it's a performer, com'on really that's what they are - they aren't poets, the language is in no means "poetic", a performer who can recite his/her work. And if they stumble, if they forget a line they tend to attempt a reset; they start over. What does or does not work on the stage does not at all translate to the page. Nearly even. Perhaps Saul Williams bridges that divide, depending. But for the most part no. And I speak as someone who has slammed and come up during the early years of slam when the film came out and the movement was fresh but even then I felt and sensed and knew that what was on the page was empty bullshit and what was on the stage was written for performance and did not come from the page. And these slam'vocates who proclaim they are heirs to the Beats are delusional. Yes, they all were outsiders. All were derided by the establishment, however one defined it, but not all Beat poets read their work well in public whereas the very existence of SLAM is performing in public.

I have been saying since the mid-1990s that a slam artist should release a CD of their work SPOKEN and not a book. Never a book. Because it does not translate and I maintain that to this day. I have repeated told poets who have sent me their manuscripts that aren't at all manuscripts but skits, pieces to be performed on stage that they need to present their work in some electronic way since I (as Plan B Press) would not publish their work as a book. This book reenforces my view entirely. Perhaps Ms. Lopez's stage presence is awesome; but her book is extremely lame.

2 booklets by Tilak (1991)

Sumithrayo organization published a series of staple-bound booklets in 1991 to promote the "teachings" of this fellow named Tilak. Not much to see here, really. Breaking Reality is 12 pages. Inner Visions is 10. Not a perfect 10 but a mere 10. And without the space is the title of one of Stevie Wonders greatest albums.

Just acknowledging them before pulping. Pulped. Move along.

Hawk High by John McKenzie (1974)

Hawk High
John McKenzie
self published
(c)1974

This is a dated chapbook. Yes, 1974 but also dated in that it's really not poetry as much as its song lyrics. I guess, I guess it's song lyrics because as poetry on the page it really isn't good. The singer-songwriter/poet is still with us. Living in Florida. There are some illustrations throughout the book and the copy I have was signed at some point by the author. But..... save a tree! (like the one drawn on the front cover!)