Thursday, September 03, 2009

"Damn, that's a fine book...

Couldn't stop reading it."

This was the heading of an E-mail I received from Greivous Jones editor David Oprava this morning. David lives in Wales and is an author and the editor of Greivous Jones Press.

This is the text of David's letter, which he wrote after reading my new book, Antisocial:


Now this is my kinda’ book. With “Antisocial” David Blaine has tapped into something that I can get, really, really get. As soon as I read these words in the first few pages, “let’s piss on the rules, blow the door off this shit house, and open a window, on our own potential…” I knew I’d have to read the whole damn thing straight through. This book is about me in a lot of ways, a guy getting older, trying to figure out the tangled wires of life experience, getting closer to an unknown end, and mildly, quietly shitting himself that God might just not be there, or even worse, he actually might. I cruised gladly through the quick-witted and visceral poems until I came to “Glitterati” and I was stopped right there, in the moment, in the reflective emotion, and even better, he mentions a Cadillac El Dorado (my dream car) and it was all perfect. But then, holy crap, it got better. I read “They Loooked Like Trash” and tumblers clicked, mental locks dropped their panties, and this was a poem that defines what modern poetry should be. It’s simple, smooth but chipped on the surface, but on closer inspection it goes miles and miles down into the soul of the matter. It’s a poem about humanity, about the faces we are stuck with and our supposed creator, it’s about crap you find at yard sales. I had one of the “those” moments reading it that made my day better. I can’t ask for anything more than that. I’m grateful Dave asked me to read his book, it’s let me know, for a little while at least, until the buzz wears off, that I am not alone in this mess of being. Thank you David Blaine.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

New Poem at Gutter Elloquence

One of my poems, Promiscuous Poetry, has been published in issue five of Gutter Elloquence. Jack does a great job with this zine and he's placed me in pretty good company. Hope you'll visit and read a few.