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Diary of The Red Inkwell, Edith A Giles 1999, Self-Published |
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As a child, Edith Giles used to make clothes for her dolls and write stories about her life. As an adult, she earned a B.A. in Fashion Design from the International Academy of Merchandizing and Design in 1997. She began writing poetry in December 1995 when she debuted in the open mic at lit-X when it was in Wicker Pk. This is her first book. "The Diary of the Red Inkwell" is made up of four sections - an introduction, the everyday life of a poet, the issues we all contend with, and personal issues that Edith says formed the core of her emotional personality. Her book is a self-portrait, an affirmation, and a tribute to those who have inspired and helped her along. Her no-nonsense poems tackle their subjects head-on, whether it's accusations of male-bashing: |
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Party Calvin's Freedom Frolic and Fun Poetry Book, Calvin Glaze 1999, Poet Star Promotions |
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Calvin Glaze comes from LA. I've seen him read almost everywhere on the poetry scene, adding his exuberance to the mix. This book is huge and full of life. Calvin says it's a children's book for adults - "poetry with a smile, a wink, a touch of whimsy, that encourages you to disengage from the clutter of life and not take yourself so serious." The only thing missing is a coloring section. Dance and movement help to set the book's tone through the vibrant images scattered within, a complement to the poems that dance and celebrate, as in the three-part piece "Warrior Thoughts": |
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Quiet Sulphur Nights, John Martinez 1999, Self-Published |
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John Martinez was born on Chicago's South East side. He's been reading for over ten years at open mics locally and across the country, and he's hosted readings at three poetry venues. These are the most intense and personal poems I've ever seen from John, with vulnerabitities laid bare and secrets exposed. In the first reading, I had the impression that John was being too defensive in some poems in the middle section, straying into the hated territory of 'whiny poet', but after reading through the book and taking the poems as a whole I realized that he was purposely leading me through the state of mind we all find ourselves in sometimes, in the pre-dawn, when we're too drunk or not drunk enough, with only ourselves to confront and confide in. One of the last poems, "Six Thirty P.M., June 30, 1999", is an excellent closure to the book. It feels like the end of a journey, a resolution echoed in watching the day end from a car: |
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Rosedust, Larry Winfield 1999, 12.23 Press Reviewed by John Martinez |
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"Rosedust" is chapbook size, only 28 pages, but in them Larry expands the mind beyond any 28 pages I've read in a while. He is thoughtful, insightful, and tries to let the reader know there is more to him than poetry. His book is interspersed with not only poetry, but short stories. Right now I'm going to highlight three of his selections, and if and when you pick a copy of his book up, i hope you'll like them.
In the title story "Rosedust" we read not so much a story, but an explanation for an existence of the lead character's being. She was once a human, and through her death she becomes an angel, and is sent back to earth to assist others. I shouldn't give away too much more, because you'll like the ending. I first read this story on Larry's website back in the winter of 1998, and it is still just as effecting and powerful as it is now. The poem "A.G." in my opinion, is right on the money. There are poets out there we haven't heard from yet, and one day they're going to get up on stage and blow us all away, and yet we worry about our supposed icons like Allen G., among others, and whether they slept on this side of the bed or not in the ENDLESS biographies written about these folks. However, we know virtually nothing about our neighbors on the scene outside of sitting together for a few hours at a dimly lit venue. In "venues past", we are actually seeing a parade. Instead of elephants, though, we watch the sad parade of dead poetry venues, those killed off by economics, lack of attendance, or whatever. He names names, too, referencing bars and cafes on the far north side, to even my old one in Bridgeport. This poem is straight from the heart, and it is true what he mentions at the ending of this particular poem. If we don't support the poetry scene out there somewhere, his lists will get bigger. I have no college degrees and I will not attempt to bore you into apoplexy with some inane justifications as to why or why not you should read this. However, I know well-written, thought-out verse when I read it, and this is the real deal. Larry has made a valiant effort with the space he has been given, and if I were you, I would search him out and get a copy of this book. I am not glomming on him because this criticism is in his magazine. This is a damn good chapbook of poems and stories and he deserves it, pure and simple. |
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Can I Hang? Tara Betts 1999, Self-Published |
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Tara Betts has been writing and teaching in Chicago for a number of years. Published in both national and local magazines and journals, she was a member of the '99 MadBar team at the Nat'l Poetry Slam and received the '99 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. I've never seen Tara give a bad reading. The title poem is the direct answer to a question asked, "can you handle me being your man?" The answer becomes a declaration of love past time, past history: Other poems evoke the physical as spiritual ("Loving You is Church"); a pause to take in that moment between the urge, the intent and the contact of a first kiss; how lovers from the past never truly leave us. Tara pays her respects to the past in hard meditations on the roots of rock, in picking up fragments of bracelets and necklaces on the beach that holds the memories of nations swept here, in remembrance of a Memphis atrocity a century old, as old as last week in the land of the free... The last piece is an excellent poet's declaration, relayed with love: |
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Conversations With Friendly Demons and Tainted Saints Nina Corwin 1999, Puddin'head Press |
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Nina Corwin is a poet and psychotherapist with a national reputation for her work on behalf of victims of violence. She has been featured at poetry events and radio programs across North America and is the producer of poetry ensemble pieces such as Odes on The Whimsy of Gender. Originally conceived as an ensemble performance piece, most of the themed poems in the book take a probing look at mythological figures and other heroes. Nina views them (God, Zeus, psychologists, for example) as mere self-important, ineffectual males who continue to oppress the women who have to deal with them - Eve talking back to God; Daphne defying her father and paying dearly; Orpheus chided for his lack of absolute trust, etc. Before dismissing these poems as a PC feminist treatise, though, read them. She has a point: When you carved us in your image did you expect a mindless clone? And with the biggest sack of magic tricks protected for your own Would you also have us grovel in the shadow of your throne? Other poems that flesh out the book covers subject like the Viet Nam quagmire, a golf course built on sacred Native American land and an episode in youth dealing with the everyday bigotry inside a cabbie hangout. While some of the poems seem to miss a beat outside of a performance setting, this is still an impressive collection of works. I look forward to Nina's next book. |
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Mindclock Lubricant Steven Glabman 1998, One Day Productions 020 |
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Steven Glabman is a writer and visual artist, an insightful creator of visual anarchy as well as a charter member of the Unofficial Soup Kitchen, a global cyber-commune (his discussion forum there is called "There's A Garden In My Face"). He has been regularly featured at the Around the Coyote arts festival and his work has graced walls and screens at home and abroad. "Mindclock Lubricant" is a limited edition 100 print book, beautifully laid out and designed by Mr. Glabman. It's a melding of color, form and metaphor, an art book worthy of the term. The words are characters in their own right, sparking separate reactions within the poems, many of which are stream of consciousness duets with the reader having to wrap his or her imagination around multiple meanings suggested by the form of the lines - you can hear the voice (is it yours or Steven's) floating up from the page. Among the poems: The title poem on the last page is an encapsulation of the life of the subconscious at play: |
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Lady Rutherford's Cauliflower JJ Jameson 1999, Puddin'head Press |
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JJ Jameson is a longtime fixture on the local scene, a saloon poet in the finest tradition who strives to keep his work true, and doesn't hesitate to point out artistic laziness or pretension. Currently he hosts a monthly set at Cafe Aloha with Kurt Heintz. Many of the poems seem to hinge on relationships, the kind we develop and the ones we're stuck with, whether that applies to lovers, friends, Frango mints, our muses or our pets. For example, "Lawn Mower" introduces us to the Lady Rutherfurd and her need for the appearance of order, but not for him. In another poem JJ muses on the succesful pursuit - we meet, we seduce, we wake up, we may or may not make a clean getaway or a lasting impression, and it's still not enough. There are bittersweet love poems, non-dysfunctional sex poems, and a remembrance of his parents, and the things they never said (around him...). Poets are another part of the weave of relationships found in the book: |
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Growth Maria McCray 1999, Self-Published |
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Maria McCray is an actor, director, a teacher of poetry, conflict resolution and theatre improvisation, a Vietnam Vet and proud mother of three great kids. She has represented Chicago for four consecutive years as a member of the Slam Team at the Nationals. "Growth" is a full-sized explosion of color, with picture poems, photos, family portraits and deeply personal offerings that give you a real sense of the complexity of Maria the person and how she got here. Her life is here - her history, personal and universal, memories of the not-so-old South, memories of her godmother, her grandmother (both representing complete and separate worlds, one Japanese, one Filipino), her parents, her children, her time in 'Nam (and what the military does to you in the name of service, and reclaiming your humanity, even on a battlefield). In the book she watches her son survive a drive-by, remembers cradling him as a baby knowing that he wouldn't stay that safe and protected: |
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Professional Cemetary Johnny Masiulewicz 1997, Puddin'head Press |
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Johnny Masiulewicz is a Chicago-bred writer, poet and journalist. His work has appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including the Chgo Tribune, Strong Coffee, the Reader, NewCity, Indelible Ink, Barfly, U-Direct and Treasured Poems of America, and in the screenplays for the films Freedom Blues & Pale Horse. He and his wife divide their time between Chicago and Jacksonville, Fla. Mr.Masiulewicz's book is a collection of poetry and short prose. Many of the poems, struck me as hard to decipher or incomplete - is the title poem a lover tenderly saying goodbye, or putting things to an end? Is "Sun Voodoo" about an unattainable beauty or a flasher? Is "Frog Envy" about jealousy or just a metaphorical observation of nature? The poems that work are the pieces that take a nursery rhyme approach to episodes such as being mugged and shot in an alley |
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shortness of breath Charles Bernstein 1997, Protest |
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Charles Bernstein is a poet/fiction writer/journalist and has been pursuing his craft since 1976. From 1986 to 1991 he published the fanzine cops hate poetry. Currently, he conducts a regular poetry workshop in Evanston with Michael Brownstein. Some of the poems look like errant stones in a rock garden, adding to their depth. The longer poems I liked as well: 'deathbeds slept in just once' pulled me into it's gloom without being whiny, very cool. 'final notes' is funny and profound, examining an instance when the writer in us questions our existance, our lives as writers. In the forward Charles is asked 'what is shortness of breath?,' by a little old man. He responds, 'it is the shallowness of thought, the laziness of the sun in the late afternoons, a child's restlessness before dinner, the sweetness shared between couples kissing each other for the first time, a baby's first gulp of air and the uttterance of words in less than four seconds.' 'aaahhh,' the little old man remarked, as he slowly stumbled away. I couldn't have said it better. |
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I'm Not Your Bitch Joanna Marshall 1998-99, Scars Publications & Design |
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Joanna Marshall is a third decante Virgo who is a loud Jewish American princess. She has a tendency to be hyperactive so she stays away from sugar. She loves leopard print. When she grows up she wants to be a mermaid. The title of the book sets a theme in many of her poems - she honestly explores woman as modern archetype, clay feet included. Sometimes living wild on the razor-thin edge of life, sometimes being caught immediately after sex, sometimes running the public guantlet of whistles, leers and come-ons that hides an implied threat, and sometimes, reacting to the abuse and betrayl of feminist history committed by some women: You've come a long way baby So it's okay to co-opt radical stances and be a willing participant in your own objectification I mean isn't that what art is all about GETTING ATTENTION Among her other, more personal poems are episodes of powerful romances that burn fast, daydreams of being touched, the sensation of reaching out across the gulf of a broken friendship, or feeling your life is an asylum and you're trapped inside. She also celebrates the sisterhood legacy that reaches back to Lillith's defiance of patriarchy: I've got the blood of Lillith, Jezebel, Queen Vashti and the Whore of Babylon in my veins I will leave the garden of earthly delights and just like Lillith I'll say good bye to the snake. |
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Prophecies Lawrence Tyler 1990, Puddin'head Press |
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Lawrence Tyler was born on the west side of Chicago and has lived in and around the city all his life. He is a Loyola graduate and a veteran of the Army. 'Poetry chose me,' he says, 'at about age sixteen; I chose poetry 'round twenty. No complaints.' Prophecies is a poetic epic in three movements, conveyed through the voice of the hero (or is it anti-hero? I'm not sure): 'History 308: The America' introduces you to a famous physicist pursuing a more perfect mind, seeking happiness, as a future without hope bears down upon him. In death, he dreams of meeting the future and no one's there waiting for him... The second part finds the scientist revived 400 years later, thawed out into a world run by artists and scientists, a paradise where space travel is common and mind to mind communication is standard. It's the future he hoped for, but he's suspicious of it and especially doesn't like sharing his thoughts. He tells everyone his name is Kilroy, he becomes a historical artifact in exchange for pilot training to fly to the stars. He ends up in a lawless port called Midway where he discovers he has a talent for empathic assassination due to the emptiness of his soul. He begins killing assassins and an empathic master is dispatched to try to curb his activity, to help him confront the anger, the old comfortable hole eating away at him, but it's too much a part of him. He confounds the master, escapes, and pilots his ship into oblivion. In 'Prophecies: A dialogue with God', I heard what was almost a lover's lament to God, who never answers until now. This section turned a bit strange - verbal cat and mouse sessions with himself, with a woman who smiles at him, with God, becoming, I think, either a third chance at life with a mission to find God in the faces of humanity, or the scientist waking up from a wild dream. I liked the uncertainty of this ending; does Kilroy find heaven, or heaven in a woman's smile... And has he learned anything? Epic poems are very difficult to write well; this is a great first effort from Mr. Tyler. |
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Dragon Lady: Tsukimi Martha Modena Vertrease 1999, Riverstone |
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Martha Modena Vertreace is a distinguished professor of English and poet-in-residence at Kennedy-King College. She has been Poetry Fellow at the Hawthornden Int'l Writers' Retreat in Scotland, St. Deiniol's Library in Hawarden, Wales and the Writers Center in Dublin, Ireland. She lives in Chicago with her cats Beastie, Bon-Bon, and Morrigan. Ms. Vertreace's book was published in conjunction with winning the 1999 Riverstone Poetry Chapbook Award. It has a wonderful mix of vignettes, dreams and the mythological interacting subtly within lives - 'Creating Space with Light' is a meditation with a lover or friend melding with impressions of the mystic connection between them; 'Dragon Lady' reads like idle, offhand thoughts woven into the body of a daydream of recognizing the heart of your own mythology, what shape it takes, and becoming it; 'Tantric Dream' has beautiful images of organic eroticism; 'Tsukimi' concerns a sacred ritual - the poem reminded me of the effect I felt during the double blue moons of last year: Martha has a lovely, understated touch with her love poems, even when comparing an artist's passion for epiphany to her passion for the artist to the creation of a mandala, as in 'A Grain of Sand'. The pieces have more going on than a single intention; real life details and asides float through. In 'Pegasus Standing among Ladybugs' the chrome equine sculpture at Clark and Winnemac opens a love poem to a carpenter that includes a bit of Virgin Mary lore that made me smile. My only quibble concerns the layout of stanzas in some of the poems. The printed structure - in 'Dragon Lady', for example - tended to interfere with the natural flow of the words. It doesn't detract from the crafted poems within, though. Ms. Vertreace has a pleasant straightforward performance voice, one I've often enjoyed at venue readings. I look forward to reading her next book. |
