----------------------------------------------------------------- TTTTTTTT AA PPPP RRRR OOOO OOOO TTTTTTT T A A P P R R O O O O T T AAAAAA PPPP RRRR O O O O T T A A P R R O O O O T T A A P R R OOOO OOOO T ----------------------------------------------------------------- Issue #2.0, section b 4/93 ----------------------------------------------------------------- TapRoot is a quarterly publication of Independent, Underground, and Experimental language-centered arts. Over the past 10 years, we have published 40+ collections of poetry, writing, and visio- verbal art in a variety of formats. In the August of 1992, we began publish TapRoot Reviews, featuring a wide range of "Micro- Press" publications, primarily language-oriented. This posting is the first section of our 2nd full electronic issue, containing all of the short CHAPBOOK reviews; a second section contains all of the zine reviews. We provide this information in the hope that netters do not limit their reading to E-mail & BBSs. Please e-mail your feedback to the editor, Luigi-Bob Drake, at: au462@cleveland.freenet.edu Requests for e-mail subsctiptions should be sent to the same address--they are free, please indicate what you are requesting-- (a short but human message; this is not an automated listserve). I believe it is FTPable from UMich, which also archives back issues. A cummulative, searchable, and x-referenced HyperCard version is under development--e-mail for status & availablility information. Hard-copies of TapRoot Reviews contain additional review material--in this issue, reviews & articles by Jake Berry, Tom Beckett, geof huth, Kurt Nimmo, Tom Willoch--as well as a variety of poetry prose & grafix. It is available from: Burning Press, PO Box 585, Lakewood OH 44107--$2.50 pp. Both the print & electronic versions of TapRoot are copyright 1993 by Burning Press, Cleveland. Burning Press is a non-profit educational corporation. Permission granted to reproduce this material FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, provided that this introductory notice is included. Burning Press is supported, in part, with funds from the Ohio Arts Council. Reviewers are identified by their initials at the end of each review: Tom Beckett, Jake Berry, Luigi-Bob Drake, R. Lee Etzwiler, Bob Grumman, Roger Kyle-Keith, Bill Paulauskas, John Stickney, Nico Vassilakis, Thomas Wiloch, and Ron Zac *** Many thanx to all contributors. *** ----------------------------------------------------------------- 'CHAPS: Al Ackerman: PROUD CRAY--Popular Reality, Box 2942, Ann Arbor MI, 48106. 30 pp., $4.00. Ackerman's reminiscences of Crowbar, the founder of Popular Reality, and Keester House, the combination flophouse, youth hostel, warehouse for stolen appliances, amatory chiropractic clinic, home for the feeble-minded and insane asylum that Crowbar runs with the help of a spirit guide he contacts by inserting his finger into an actual hole in his head and twirling it. In short, standard Ackerman humor, which is to say, an absolute howl.--bg Curt Anderson: BENT ANTENNA--e.g. press, 1506 Grand Ave #3, St. Paul, MN, 55105. 44 pp., $5.00. A series of prose vignettes, each based on a "classic" 60's TV series (Gilligan's Island, Twilight Zone, Hogan's Heros). Each one is as inspiring & deeply philosophic as their mass- culture predecessors. In the Get Smart episode, Max & Agent 99 are called in to fight a new, more depraved chapter of K.A.O.S.: L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E. Agent 99 draws out the villains by reciting work by Sylvia Plath & Robert Penn Warren at a poetry reading--once the evil- doers are identified by their hysteric reaction, they're rounded up, while Max & 99 go back to the apartment and do what we all knew they did but never saw. Great.--lbd Bruce Andrews: STET, SIC & SP--Case Books, PO Box 292, Salisbury CT, 06068. 18 pp., $6.00. Four recent texts by so-called L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry's Ayatollah of political scat song. The first piece, "Time Expansion," explores in twenty short sections the microtechnics of reading through an aesthetic of delay. It was originally presented to the public as part of the music accompanying the choreography of Sally Silver's "Oops Fact." "Secret Refracted Somewhere Else" is a vintage Andrews collage poem -- short, quickwitted rhetorical jumpcuts. "Improvisation," the transcript of a thirty-five minute performance piece, is the heart of the book. Improvised in the act at St. Marks Poetry Project in NYC during the first week of the first war with Iraq it crackles with humorous rage and some of-the sassiest and most refreshing political backtalk I've heard in a long time. The volume closes with "Black" an elegant abecedarian list poem which effectively and economically underlines the basis of racism in America in the first half of each line. The last five lines: white vote white who white xerox white yanking white zeitgeist STET, SIC, & SP. is a bulletin from the frontlines of politically committed formally innovative writing. It's a rare bargain.--tb John M. Bennett: LEG--Luna Bisonte Prods, 137 Leland Ave., Columbus OH, 43214. 8 pp., $1.00. A 5-poem sequence whose first poem ends: "like the window's seen from inside the wall where/ the damp dreams bloom like the mold pressed in where my/ lack churns like an I thinks in." Most of this makes normal sense, even the image of a "lack" that "churns"--or an agitating awareness that something's missing; but "like an I thinks in," in typical Bennett fashion smears us whereless. An eventual semi-comprehension is possible, though. For instance, the "I" might be sinking into the persona's mind as pure thought, but doing so in the churning way some sense of incompleteness might emerge into consciousness. Yes, very mold-murky, but engrossing for those of us that like this kind of adventure.--bg John M. Bennett: TOXIN--Luna Bisonte Prods, 137 Leland Ave., Columbus OH, 43214. 4 pp., $1.00. Two inimitable Bennett poems that, characteristically, seem raved from the mind of an amoeba with a human's viscera--or the thought of some mineral writhing toward semblance of life--or... whatever. The poems are semi-coherently scrawled, with doughnuts, bugs, a skull and other decorations--but typed translations are provided. Also included, two revealing appraisals of his poetry by Susan Smith Nash.--bg John M. Bennett & Susan Smith Nash: OUTLIERS OF EXTINCTION--Luna Bisonte Prods, 137 Leland Ave, Columbus OH, 43214. 4 pp., $1.00. Bennett's poetry is so wonderfully pre-logical, slithery and large that it lavas on regardless of any non-Bennett boulders it picks up. So his many collaborations, like the five here with Susan Smith Nash, are almost always as fascinating as his all-Bennett benders--not to diminish the added boulders. One title from this set should give a taste: "LIKEN PHYSIOGMETRICS SUNLIGHT, HOME & MY HAND HOLDING SERUM, SOFT W/HOWLING." This pamphlet also has another worthwhile prose observation by Nash on Bennett's poetry.--bg Lynne Micon Bruno, Cindi Brockett & David Goldschlag: UNRAVELLED-- PO Box 7392, Van Nuys CA, 91409. 20 pp., $2.00. This set of poems, actually three sets by three different poets, covers a wide area of interest. From drive-by shootings to grandmother memorials, alcoholism to Greek gods; death, executions, Jamaican Dubs, and AIDs. lt is neatly done, clean, and the art work is by Wayne Hogan. Poetry from a keen eye and a cool mind, it makes you think. For two bucks how can you miss?--rle Didier Cahen, translated by Cid Corman: A WORLD IN PROSE--tel-let, 1818 Phillips Pl., Charleston, IL, 61920. 34 pp. Poems that tick off various greys and nullities in flat usually two- to four-word sentences like- "all secret/ sky infirm/ distant runs the other shore." But the poems, in sequence, subtly (and secularly) sneak from genesis ("Man comes/ day breaks") to a poem in which "the fable is renewed" and "all is carven in you/ life envelops night/ dying is impossible."--bg jw curry: RE: VIEWS: RE: SPONSES: COLLECTED CONCRETE CRITICISMS, 1981- 1990--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte, FL, 33949. $10.00. An 8 1/2 X 11 book of visual poems, each one being a "review" or response to a different book. The pieces are in response to works by Miekal And, bill bissett, Charles Bukowski, d.a. levy, Frank Zappa, and several others. Regardless of their "usefulness" as reviews, these are all lively and inventive poems, using a great variety of techniques and approaches: no two are alike in fact. This is work from one of the liveliest and most experimental minds around.--jmb jw curry: THAT FUCKING LINE THAT--Writers Forum, available from Rm. 312 Books, 1357 Lansdowne Ave., Toronto ONT, CANADA, M6H 3Z9. At long last curry has collected his poetry into a single volume: most of it is from the 1980's, much of it previously published in scattered journals and broadsides. Having his work together is a great pleasure, as it reveals a distinct intelligence at work, combining, often in the same poem, a lively concern with visuality, deliberate processes of thought, and a zen-like delight in the ineffable juxtapositions of words. The poems range in length from one word to a full page, and many are collaborations with other writers. An essential collection.--jmb Daniel Davidson: WEATHER--Score, 125 B Bayview Drive, Mill Valley CA, 94941. 26 pp., $5.00. This long poem of short, linked segments has a peculiar sort of Raymond Roussel meets Bert Brecht with Basho quality. Parentheses continually interrupt the text's flow creating a surreal alienation effect haiku sequence that's really quite fascinating. There are so many parenthetical partitions it is almost as if the other materials have leaked out in loco parenthesis. This is an innovative little book.--tb Mike Davis: BEYOND BLADE RUNNER: URBAN CONTROL, THE ECOLOGY OF FEAR-- Open Media, PO Box 2726, Westfield, NJ, 07091. 22 pp., $3.50. What will Los Angeles (or any major city) be like in the year 2109? Davis sorts out the possibilities in this chap, the 23rd in OPEN Magazine's pamphlet series. While it probably won't be like that depicted in the film Blade Runner, it probably won't be any better either. Projecting a "Gibsonian" map of future L.A. and drawing somewhat from the work of Ernest W. Burgess and his diagram projection of Chicago from the 1920's, Davis brings current socioeconomic-political factors to bear on his vision. From this basis we see our cities becoming technologically and physically segregated into zones of protection and/or terror. We have begun to build cages to sustain ourselves in an urban landscape grown increasingly hostile due to vast economic disparities. The rich live in gated protected regions while the poor are relegated to a high-tech maintained urban wasteland that amounts to an anarchic prison colony. Current and potential municipal strategies provide ample evidence that these agencies of control are already established and need only augment themselves to "perfect" the dystopia. The most provocative aspect of the whole thing however is that this may be the future not only of the megalopolis, but small cities and towns as well. Does your town have Neighborhood Watch, or a SWAT team? These ideas originated from the Los Angeles Police Department's attempt to control the burgeoning multi-ethnic population. As always with the OPEN series of pamphlets, this is a chilling indictment of the forces of control. Ignorance is slavery.--jb Bill Dimichele: HEART ON THE RIGHT--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte FL, 33949. Very tight literal surrealistic images that want to involve the reader in the poet's interior turmoil. This is somewhat of a painful trip... not too many laughs here. Has a political edge and combined with the apocalyptic visions this kind of writing can wear one down if you're looking for a romp in the hay with *LANGWIDGE*. But then, Garcia Lorca wasn't exactly a Groucho Marx either. Large fullpage format. --bp Lainie Duro & Edward Mycue: A MURDERED ETERNITY/GRATE COUNTRY--Oyster Publications, 1015 E. 49th., Austin, TX, 78751, 56 pp., , A dos-a-dos chap, each poet starting at one cover of the book and working towards the center. The dos-a-dos format always reminds me of "69" oral sex-- the head of each at the tail of the other--and while sexual imagery is abundant in the poetry, such equality & mutual satisfaction is not. Lainie laments love lost or lacking; Edward's woes are added to by homophobia and AIDS. Honest rather than polished--Lainie is the rawer of the pair, while Edward wraps his wounds in wordage--in the end, we're not sure if either one is healed in the process.--lbd john e.aton: EUROPE'S LOWER EAST SIDE and BROWN, MANUSCRIPTS ON MEXICO--Shattered Wig Productions, 523 E. 38th St., Baltimore MD, 21218. 40 pp., $3.00. Right away this book strikes you as peculiar because it contains large fold-out maps inside either cover. One of the U.S. and Mexico, one of Hungary. But these are more than a traveler's observation of the people and land he visits--these poems are rich with a life all their own. In terms of both substance and technique the words and phrases flow and work around one another. The boundary between inner and outer reality dissolves and we are drawn through a world of images charged with emotion. These poems are explorations of what it means to be in these places, confronted with these circumstances. e.aton has done his work well and Shattered Wig should be commended for bringing it to light.--jb Evert Eden: I'M NOT A WHITE MAN--G. Marie Press, PO Box 211, East Meadow NY, 11554. 4 pp., $2.00. In two parts: "Song of the White Man/Curse of the White Man"--the first part running down all the cliche bad things white men are/do, the next repudiating the same. The author is from South Africa, which makes it all the more pointed. He runs one of the Poetry Slams at the Nuyorican Cafe in NY, and these would work well in a Slam: accessible, PC, and under 3 minutes.--lbd Theodore Enslin: GAMMA UT--tel-let, 1818 Phillips Pl., Charleston, IL, 61920. 32 pp. Deftly, even masterfully, inept attempts to communicate, as an the following untitled poem: "So much/ to think/ to say of it// I cannot/ words excuse/ me simple// diction/ yet I have not said." Wonderful epiphanies occur, such as a look through branches "to catch the glint of light/ that follows water/ out where more than water is."--bg Csar Espinosa (ed.), translated by Harry Polkinhorn: CORROSIVE SIGNS--Maisonneuve Press, PO Box 2980, Washington, DC, 20013, 129 pp., $9.95, A welcome dose of international perspective on experimental underground literature. Visual & concrete poetry has a strong heritage in Spanish-speaking countries, and this anthology presents a variety of essays on it's history & practice. They are collected from a variety of sources, and don't hang together in any kind of order, but taken as a whole seem to cover a lot of ground. Includes a couple-dozen examples of work, which mostly serve to whet the appetite for more--a 50/50 mix of samples/essay would've been nice.--lbd David Gianatasio: BEND BACKWARD FOR SHARPER RECEPTION--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. A series of short poems making use of various forms of minimalist and elliptical expression. Most of the poems also make use of an implied narrative or discursive structure. The contrast (or balance) between that and the haiku-like techniques can be extremely effective: the deserted parking lot engine regards a vacant space "grrrbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," it says "grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" it's saying your name no it isn't --jmb David Goldschiag & Lynne Micon Bruno (eds): DIAMONDS IN A FROZEN CAVERN--PO Box 7392, Van Nuys, CA, 91409. 20 pp., $3.00. "Nine Los Angeles Pierce College Poets Speak Out On AIDS." If you are socially aware this chapbook will send your thoughts nebula. It creates a flame which begins mentally, becomes physical, and ends up altering one's social concerns. Poetry can indeed alter the way we view the world. It can alter this view forever and become an enlightening, spine-tingling (I mean literally) adventure of learning, changing, and evolving socially. I guess art does free the spirit and enlightens the masses as a friend of mine once said. A friend I loved dearly. A friend who died of AIDS. I prefer to think of it as "Harsh art for harsh times." This becomes a chant which rumbles through my mind whenever I read something which affects me as deeply at this chapbook. Yes, these are harsh times, and Diamonds in a Frozen Cavern is a work which will awaken the reader with it's indicators of the heart and mind. These are words bound by our society's press of necessity.--rle LeRoy Gorman: HEAVYN--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. A thick little book of one-line texts consisting of what at first glance look like words with arbitrary spaces between the letters. For example: sur plu sti des ubs eed Each of these texts, however, is a protean object for meditation. Different words appear and/or are suggested to create the effect of a much larger and more complex work. A maximum example of minimalism. --jmb Robert Gregory: BOY PICKED UP BY THE WIND--English Dept., Emporia State, KS, 66801. $9.95. How does all this fit together and work so well? Zany, tender, surreal, curious, imaginative. How do these poems sound conversational and/or informative while taking such abrupt shifts in scene/tone/angle so seamlessly? Poems entitled "They Wash Their Ambassadors in Citrus and Fennel" and "Thomas Jeffersons's Garden of White Machines." A sense that this language sees, opens and cuts through, maybe sometimes victimizing/stranding the poet. A wide range of emotions and of questions, but I want to got there, a net to fall up from. "The doctor's yard is full of bones/ and the dream-work is just a kind of golfswing, by father said." It amazes and encourages me that a book as avant and energized as this won a university press competition.--dan raphael Jessica Grim: THE INVETERATE LIFE--O Books, 5729 Clover Drive, Oakland, CA, 94618. 61 pp., $7.50. This is a volume of prose format poems, a newer sentence, if you please, enacting a kind of drama of the daily fact transmogrified. Jessica Grimm's work shirks nothing. It's always on, attentive to synapses and lapses of thought, sounding well-envisioned thinking, feeling out amongst a thorough listening. Recently I read Twyla Tharp's autobiography and wanted to dance. THE INVETERATE LIFE makes me want to write--it is that inspiring.--tb Bob Grumman: MATHEMAKU 1-5--Tel-Let, 1818 Phillips PI., Charleston IL, 61920. $4.00. A small book of six (1 is in 2 parts) haiku-like poems constructed as if they were mathematical formulae. They are amazingly effective in eliciting a sense of place/time using the barest of means. No. 2 reads: March= (meadows.)(:/.), slowly --jmb Fritz Hamilton: NO DIFFERENCE--5976 Billings Road, Parkdale OR, 97041. 25 pp., $2.50. Ten poems composing a mini-chapbook and devoted to the testimony of helplessness, dereliction, and addiction. The characters are winos, a Vietnam vet, and a woman amidst family tragedy. Their stories are combined into a Beat-Rant style similar to a subjective Gonzo Journalism where Hamilton has immersed himself in the scene, becomes deeply involved, and passionately spews out the frustration and anger in long, unpunctuated, rants; with long flowing cadences and repetitions. There is a touch of divine nothingness here as it appears all are abandoned, trapped within a life of selfdestruction and decay. Jesus in a Detox Center, and a dead wino in a plastic bag waiting for the garbage truck to pick him up are just two examples of the frightening symbolism here. The connotations are not subtle,and futility is the icon of repetition. This poetry is dark and depressing, evoking fears of failure with visions of street people as powerful as a national disaster. This then is why No Difference is an important work. It has the ability to draw the reader into the scene, this device creates a potent self-awareness. For example these lines: "Old Joe Corbett sleeping/ on a pile of plastic/ garbage bags filled/ with winos' souls..."--rle W. Joe Hoppe: HARMON PLACE--Primal Publishing, 107 Brighton Ave., Allston MA, 02134. 76 pp., $5.95. In this collection of short stories Hoppe confronts some of the nastier elements--landlords, bad hotels, drunks in the hall, brutal poverty, etc. Occasionally he breaks into Kerouacian euphony and beatitude, but for the most part it's beat dead on. No melodrama, no romanticization, Hoppe is a man unafraid to witness the horrors in front of him for what they are and then bring it home in our face. To say he lives his work is a gross understatement--there appears to be no difference between the two. In case you haven't noticed, if you turn off the TV there's a real world out there. These are tales of that world.--jb Marshall Hryciuk: THE GATHERED GALLOPING SYNTAX STRANDS--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte, FL, 33949. Mysterious experimental poetry and xerox visual overlays and scrawls on found text and it's got a unity which is Hryciuk's intelligence and ability to outwrite any naive attempt to fit the images together into Procrustean sense... whatever THAT is. It reads like a 19th century transcript of a mad alchemist's diary/secret formula hoard. This is an original voice that reaches out and grabs you. Large format, full of ideas and language-rockets. --bp Albert Huffstickler: WORK--312 E. 43 St. #103, Austin TX, 78751. 8pp. A tantalizing taste of Huff's experiences over the past 20 years and more. The most recent addition to his incredibly prolific output, WORK documents some of the many jobs that Huff has held in poems titled "Day Labor," "First Day at the Furniture Factory," "Apprenticeship," and "Short Order Waiter." He has clearly been inside and felt what the average worker feels but often cannot express--the pain and sweat, the relationships, the liberation and frustration that can only come with the exhaustion of hard labor. "Skirmish" describes an experience in a day labor office after someone is kicked out for wearing a marine field jacket--attire the dispatcher felt was disrespectful. The frustration and pain of fellow laborers is felt, yet they all are resigned to go on to the jobs they so desperately need "...the stranger in the field jacket forgotten,/ another nameless casualty in the war against the system." In "Sanctification" he compares writing poetry to the grease, sweat, and long hours of restaurant work--In either job, the speaker learns from Holmes, the 14 hour a day cook, that it is necessary give oneself fully. The speaker chooses poetry, "...it was the only thing I/ ever found that I could give myself / to the way Holmes gave himself to/ restaurant work: it was the only way/ I could ever be sanctified." --rz Geof Huth:I'TS--eXpeRimeNtaL (basEmeNt) pReSs, 3740 North Romero Rd., #A-9191, Tucson AZ, 85705. $1.00? A series of distorted and highly suggestive (like the title) printed on a cleverly cut and folded single sheet, so that any number of different arrangements or sentences are possible. For example, one might begin, "Its fhe mesure ofor lvl..." The possibilities are endlessly folded, unfolded, closing, opening...--jmb M. Kettner: FULL PENNY JAR--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. Intros. by Noemie Maxwell and Nico Vassilakis; computer illus. by Mike Miskowski. A collection of Kettner's haiku--he's written hundreds over the years--that includes some of his best. Some of these are essentially traditional haiku in form and perception, though eschewing the cornball "fireflies and sunset" content: "house to be demolished:/ on its side,/ refrigerator in the front doorway." Others break new ground: "siren distant pine tree." This is haiku not as a "literary" exercise, but as a practice in attention and expanding awareness.--jmb David C. Kopaska-Merkel: UNDERFOOT--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. Intro. by G. Huth; illus. by Sheila Kopaska-Merkel. Many of these poems arise from the world of speculative and fantasy poetry, but avoid the excesses of much of the work in that genre. The best of Kopaska-Merkel's work in that vein shows a concision that pulls toward the other pole of this book, a kind of minimalist expression that betrays an interest in language as a means of expressing the inexpressible: "wrong side of the/ white sky surf/ knife edge over mountains."--jmb Stephen-Paul Martin: THE FLOOD--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte FL, 33949. 100 pp., $7.00. Intro. by Richard Royal, afterword by Harry Polkinhorn. Represents six months of experimenting with a SmithCorona 2500 typerwriter by Martin, in which time he has covered scores of pages with concrete typetics, prose, and verse which seems to "center" on biblical/presidential moments. The presentation is greatly enhanced by the quality of Martin's use of language and imagery. Visual puns, cutups, letters overlaid on each other, it's all here and in a format large enough to give you the feel of seeing it in its original size.--bp A thick 81/2 X 11 sequence of visual texts (really one long work) all created using a Smith-Corona electric typewriter. The work refers to the story of Noah and to "the President" among other things, and combines a narrative flow with the more suspensive or static approach one may take with each page. Noah and "the President" are topics of a dialectic between the world destroying itself and moving toward hope. A major work in a genre Martin excels in.--jmb Larry McCaffery (ed): AVANT-POP: Fiction for a Daydream Nation--Black Ice Books, PO Box 241, Boulder CO, 80306. 250 pp., $7.00. Fictions ranging from cyber-punk SF to PostModernLiterature, with plenty of sex & violence and enough sense to laugh at it(self) sometimes. Some older hands like Kathy Acker & Samuel R. Delany, lots of newer punks, and some surprizes like Harry Polkinhorn in the SciFi mode. Bite-size bits make this easy to get into and out of--if you like, say, Wm. S. Burroughs, it makes for a "pleasant read". One of the initial offerings from Black Ice Books, somehow in cahoots with a resurrected Fiction Collective, which has seen several incarnations.--lbd Thom Metzger: THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!--Autonomedia, 55 South 11th St., PO Box 568 Williamsburg Station, 11211. 181 pp., $6.00. A collection of unrelated rants, roars and other misc. stuff culled from Metzger's Zigguart Press. Advertised as a anarchist horror novel (it's not). Still, anyone who chooses James Brown, not Jean Baudrillard, is on the right tract. Ouch.--js Judy Murray: HE SOFT SIGHS OF IF--Runaway Spoon Press, Box 3621, Port Charlotte FL, 33949. $3.00. Poetry, with photographs of highway scenes. These poems are suffused with a playful surrealism that expresses a pleasure in being in the world: Oh you have a silly buckle in your mouth this morning Did you swallow a pillow of happy as you lay down my love Beside Churgle and Who Hah and Howdey Legs I think I'll take a sun tickle bath myself Pull out the Wha Hoo plug --jmb Stanley Nelson: IMMIGRANT, BOOK II--Birch Brook Press, PO Box 81, Delhi NY, 13753. 110 pg. The second of 4 installations, this series is a valuable guide to the mystique of Brooklyn, New York. Like William Carlos William's Paterson, there is rich historical support, as well as contemporary reportage. Ten years in the making, Nelson has fashioned an homage to Brooklyn. Immigrant is a 400 page poem which chronicles the poet's memories alongside Brooklyn's own past. It is written in a very readable cut-up verse that welcomes both linguistic and ludic reader. There is an ease and effortlessness that shines through; the mark of a strong writer.--nv F.A. Nettelbeck: ECOSYSTEMS COLLAPSING--Inkblot, 439 49th St., #11, Oakland, CA, 94609. $10.00. An elegantly produced perfectbound book containing "expanded and rejuvenated" (the author's words) sections from his well-known BUG DEATH (1979). This book functions as a single whole, however, and provides an excellent taste of Nettelback's art, which is perhaps harder to appreciate through short takes appearing in magazines. ECOSYSTEMS COLLAPSING is really a single long poem, creating through a variety of literary and visual techniques the impression of a multitude of voices speaking through a single totalizing consciousness, a consciousness that judges while at the same time being all it contains: exciting intriguing breathtaking sleep "Best/ legs twitch in blasting dreams new character, good. we'll see" Essential reading.--jmb A.L. Nielsen: EVACUATION ROUTES--Score Publications, 125 B. Bay View Dr., Mill Valley CA, 94941. 28 pp., $5.00. A series of 13 "routes", with occasional sidetrips, each originating in a letter: ROUTE U Rub Not seen since page one? "There's the erase." He broke hiscollar-bone swimming with an abandoned baby. A pal; an ode. AMr.and Mrs. Van Winkle died in their sleep last night in a four alarm blaze which destroyed their home... This beginning is typical of the work in this compelling book: coherent sentences juxtaposed often with little in the way of "logical" discursive relationship. The logic, however, lies in a subjective linking: one thing suggesting another, sometimes by the sound of words, sometimes by conceptual opposition. At other times one feels that perhaps a paragraph of exposition has been removed between sentences. There is a kind of deadpan surface to these texts which does not prevent them from being quite humorous at times; or eerie, or desperate, or sarcastic, or...--jmb Kurt Nimmo: SUSAN ATKINS--Persona Non Grata, 46000 Geddes Road #86, Canton MI, 48188. 64 pp., $4.95. This is a novella which looks like a chapbook, composed of nineteen sections and a variety of writing styles and techniques; from courtroom entries to journal entries, from scatological ravings to bizarre sexual fantasies, from play scripts to multiple choice quizzes, from nihilism to exploitation, and all of the paths and layers and levels which pile-up and cross the weird landscape of Nimmo's making. This is indeed an eclectic montage of exuberance and eccentricity. A fable built of the boldest name-saying where movie stars, murders, politicians, and princesses rub body parts and fantasies across our minds. The central icon of this fantastic delirium is Susan Atkins, Charlie Manson's Femme Fatale, murderer turned convict, and idolized sexual object. This is pop-cultural sensationalism at its finest, you couldn't have this much fun with a ten foot stack of National Enquirers. Kurt Nimmo's ability to transpose cultural images and unexpected atrocious behavior creates a fertile ground for epiphany. Once again, this is Nimmo at his best,-- not for the weak-of-heart or close-minded.--rle Stephen Peters: DIVERGENT TALES FROM A MAN WITH THE SMELL OF BOOZE ON HIS BREATH--105 Betty Road, East Meadow NY, 11554. 32 pp., $?. Hard hitting nihilistic poetry which races through a postmodern landscape of alcohol haze spiked harsh and fluent realism. Experimentally structured and punctuated, capitalization optional. Black and white art throughout. Unemployment, garbage, dead cats, sweat, death, blonds, loneliness, love, liquor, and sex embroiled in decadent abandon, Nice dose of real images smeared with a youthful fetish and played like white-boy blues. Recommended for those who don't like their poetry pretty but do like it honest.--rle Brian Richards: EARLY ELEGIES--Bloody Twin Press, Box 253 Rte. 1, Blue Creek OH, 45616. 28 pp., $12.00. The cover photo of Bill Evans at the piano is cast in deep blues, the mood and music of these personal elegies for the lost vibrance of the late 60's--early 70's. Richards mixes detail and dialogue in the fast dance of meaning and emptiness. His opening quote from old Beat, Zen poet Han Shan foretells a kind of Taoist unravelling of facts that somehow rise to a heart break of moment and memory. This beautifully crafted letterpress book concludes with the long prose poem "Tommy" which caps an era when risks spoke a sweet madness 'til friendships vanished before our eyes.--larry smith Franklin Rosemont: LAMPS HURLED AT THE STUNNING ALGEBRA OF ANTS-- Surrealist Editions, 1726 West Jarvis Ave., Chicago IL, 60626. 48 pp., $5.00. Twenty-seven poems which touch the marvelous, in the tradition of the continuing surrealist revolution, they relocate you among the dreams. With pen and ink drawings by Czech artist Karol Baron.--js Penelope Rosemont: BEWARE OF THE ICE & Other Poems--Surrealist Editions, PO Box 6424, Evanston IL, 60204. 64 pp., $6.00. Beautifully produced, with drawings by fellow Surrealist Enrico Bai, this collection seem a bit more lyrical than the above collection but just as surprising. Powerful work.--js Leslie Scalapino (ed): WAR (O/3)--O Books, 5729 Clover Dr., Oakland, CA, 94618. 32 pp., $4.00. The first two anthologies in this series were thick perfectbound productions filled with fine fine writing, dance (i meant to type "dense", but maybenot) with language & its illusion. The writing's still here, tho less illusive & more direct-- but the package is fragile & immediate, letter-size pages xeroxed direct from manuscript, staples already tearing thru the black construction-paper cover. It all works to re-call the urgency of action & emotion brought on by the Persian Gulf War, all too soon forgotten. Impassioned work, as it/we should be. From Norma Cole: "Walk in beauty like the dead/ the dark is at its zenith, etc./ a kind of iridescent/ or even near blur/ given for possibilities/ forgive the echo". Other contributors: Jerry Estrin, Alan Davies, Laura Moriarty, Fanny Howe, & editor Leslie Scalapino.--lbd Sam Silva: DE LA PALABRA--5976 Billings Rd., Parkdale OR, 97041. 37 pp., $4.00. A deeply philosophical, Christian-based work of romanticism revisited. The poet guides us through his agenda of faith, nature, and spirit in three chapters (Faith Of Our Fathers; An Act Of The Sun; A Spiritual Revolution) totaling twenty-eight poems. Although this chapbook is described in the forward as a work of it sensitivity, a "Work of grace and pain and wisdom," its lyrical nature tends to dull the senses and fails to provide surprise, mystery, and the edge needed to push/pull the reader towards a climatic catharsis. lt is pretty poetry, yes; subtle in meaning, obscure in image, but crisp in metaphor, and touching in its degree of spiritual fervor. This is a vastly different work than a lot of other poetry today. At first read, one wonders where is the tension, the interplay between mind and reality? A second read shows it is indeed there, cloaked in the beat, images peering out from behind rhythmatic slants. If you are looking for nice examples of rhyme, off-rhyme, and alliteration in a lyrical free verse format give Sam Silva's DE LA PALAMBRA a try. --rle Herschel Silverman: BLUE LUDES--The Beehive Press, 47 E. 33rd St, Bayonne NJ, 07002. 60 pg., $5.95. Beat literature is both word and image rant. The rant is an ancient technique. With BLUE LUDES we have a language that slices through, perpetuated by its very design. There is a restless attraction toward contact. There is a field of sound, of verb--an immediacy of moment that riles the reader. It is jazz and blue, NYC and beat. They are poems of skin, worn on skin where the present tense conducts its business. There is a zeal for life here. Silverman writes his life in this place.--nv Nathaniel Tarn: DRAFTS FOR: THE ARMY HAS ANNOUNCED THAT "BODY BAGS" WILL FROM NOW ON BE KNOWN AS "HUMAN REMAINS POUCHES"--Trout Creek Press, 5976 Billings Rd., Parkdale, OR, 97041. 8 pp., $1.50. The horror of modern warfare is only compounded by the official newspeak euphemisms that try to cover up what would be intolerable if confronted honestly. Tarn makes the honest call & calls mechanized murder what it is--not valor or patriotism, but only death. The language harks back to Whitman, but where Walt could see heroism mixed up in the carnage, here we only see "where there had been the principle of hope,/ not there is none--/ nor human nor divine,/ no condition forward."--lbd Cheryl Townsend & tolek: PARALLELS & REBUTTALS--xib Publications, PO Box 262112, San Diego, CA, 92126, 20 pp., $2.00. Call & response form collaborative poetry--Cheryl paints a soft-porn scenario, tolek repaints it from the male point of view. In the intro, Cheryl makes plain the impetus for (at least some of) her poetry: "I want women to know that it's okay to "want it" and more so to "get it." She is the editor of IMPETUS magazine, which often pursues a similar agenda; tolek edits XIB, which is not exactly a monastery newsletter.--lbd Thomas Vaultonburg: POEMS AT THE END OF THE WORLD--PO Box 9101 , Warwick RI, 02889, 11 pp/, $2.00. Twelve poems lightly assembled into a chapbook without a strong theme. A touch of the suburban intellectual. The first poem is strong, using fellatio as a metaphor for oppression in America, but from this strong start the following works seem to drift aimlessly through the miasma of the middle class. But Valtonburg's attempts at social statements sometimes ring hollow-- for example, in "Ionic Matriculations" he states, "There's a death match on TV, and they're/ selling me the universe with garlic./ American Indians want me to buy a Honda/ maybe with four doors, so I can drive/ my two blue-eyed boys to a school where/ we have stolen the dreams of his children." Vaultonburg does hit a fine note once in a while, like in "Lost and Found" where he shows a momentary passion,"Ignoring sad son-of-a-bitch Frost/ Who hid his son's Prozac/ and never raised a tent/ any living being could sleep under." Here I applaud this rare bold stroke of iconoclastic plunder. Still, at only two dollars this chapbook is worth a read.--rle Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop: LIGHT TRAVELS--Burning Deck, 71 Elmgrove Avenue, Providence RI, 02906. $5.00. LIGHT TRAVELS is a collaborative poem of fifteen parts in a beautifully produced letterpress edition. Repetition is used section-to-section as propellant and as framing device, in aid of reflection, underscoring the dialogic nature of this project--as in repeating what another has said to be sure one has heard correctly. Here, by way of example, are sections four and five: 4. close the curtains but playful elaborations of otherwise arrogant variation keeping the window open as it's wrong to shut one's eyes to dream it's raining while it is in fact raining 5. as it's wrong to shut one's eyes to dream it's raining while it is in fact raining ears busied with hearing more than one voice the stream our tears unmirror Throughout the poem alludes to its own creation. It alludes, too, in a fractured way to its Outside. It is always well sounded, always particular. I treasure this book not least because I prefer duets to solos. Together you can get to places you cannot go alone.--tb James L. Weil: IN ART--tel-let, 1818 Phillips Pl., Charleston, IL, 61920. 12 pp. Six conversational poems in couplets, for example, "As Bill Says...": Actually, there is very little, to be said about poetry--which is to say, already too much has been said about it. What there is to say, it says. Thoughtful, easy-to-like stuff, even if you disagree with it.--bg Gail Whitter: INSULAR POSITION--PO Box 64026, 555 Clarke Rd., Coquitiam BC, CANADA, V3J 7V6. 64 pp., $7.95. A series of inter- connected poems on an abusive relationship and codependency. This is a powerful work due to it's perspective: the linking of pain/hate/love into a solid atlas of abuse. This is not pretty poetry. It is potent poetry which is sharp of metaphor and forces the reader to think, to compare their own lives to this. "Pain is an old cave/ you always have/ to come back to" It is a work for those who are involved in a relationship in the 1990's; it is too important to ignore.--rle Thomas Wiloch: LYRICAL BRANDY--Found Street, 14492 Ontario Circle, Westminster CA, 92683. $1.00. A kind of pleated mini-broadside containing 6 dreamy/surreal freeform haiku, e.g., the title-piece: "warm hands/ of/ sleep// (invisible garden)."--bg A series of six minimalist haiku-like poems, printed on a single sheet of paper folded in a delightfully ingenious manner to create a small booklet. The poems form a sequence with erotic undertones: "entice/ the keyhole/ overture// (noctural caress)" Each of the poems contains its own implied narrative, but also forms part of the larger narrative of the sequence. A perfect blending of content and format.--jmb Jeff Zenick: PROTOPLASM and BECAUSE--Wheatcake Productions, Box 877, Tallahassee FL, 32302. 8 pp., $.29@. Two micro-comix of loony drawing's that ooze through dream-logical narratives. Just one clump of text emerges from the two books--from PROTOPLASM, protoplasmically: "IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO CHANGE YOUR MIND." The drawings are a little primitive here and there but densely active and well-integrated.--bg ----------------------------------------------------------------- end TapRoot Reviews Electronic, issue 2.0 section b (CHAPBOKS) -----------------------------------------------------------------