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Thaw Noam Paco Gaster A Parenthetical Nomad Press, 1998 |
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Noam didn't have a bio in his book, but all who know and love him have seen his unfettered and imaginative performances at many open mics and poetry happenings in town, as well as his 'POW' hosting stint at the Morseland (look for him at the Bucktown Arts Fest and Around the Coyote). I believe this is his first book. |
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Scandalous Edith A Giles manuscript, 2000 |
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Edith Giles is a local writer who is currently seeing the world courtesy of the Navy. She has a B.A. in Fashion Design from the International Academy of Merchandizing and Design and 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 second book.
She also talks of one-night stands that don't last the night and lavishes praise on Latin men:
Many of her poems hide intense feeling behind her plain-spoken, conversational style, though some skirt the implications of the subject matter. The "menage a trios" poems, for example, don't really get under the skin of the experience, they only describe the physical mechanics of the sex. I got the feeling that she'd thought about threesomes, but she hadn't felt the fantasy in her gut. A Hell Of A Mouthpiece covers her reaction to seeing human flotsam on the Jerry Springer show, but it only conveys her visceral reaction and disgust as an audience member. More effective are the pieces known and loved by regulars on the scene such as Queen Treatment, The Morning After, and Why Women Don't Give Blow Jobs: |
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An Invitation poems by Susanna Lang The Paper Bag Press, 2000 |
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Susanna Lang lives in Chicago with her husband and son.She has received an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award for a poem published in The Spoon River Poetry Review. Other poems, essays and translations from the French have appeared in such journals as Kalliope, Sport Literate, Southern Poetry Review, World Literature Today, Chicago Review, and Whetstone. Book publications include translations of Words in Stone and The Origin of Language, both by Yves Bonnefoy. In addition to writing, she teaches at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Chicago.
With some poems, more is going on between the lines than on the page - September Journal , for all its surface description of a garden beginning the autumn decline, evoked in me the hint of sadness that creepsin at the end of summer, becoming a forced witness to the earth's cyclical change, and its reminder of our own physical and spiritual changes (and the irony of the earth getting a rebirth in spring while we just get bigger or older). |
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possibilities a book of poems by Karen Stockwell West Walker Press, 1998 |
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Karen Stockwell, a native Chicagoan, is a trained visual artist witn a M.A. in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Creative writing was an early interest that she returned to in March 1996. During April 1997 she did her first open mike. Subsequently, she has appeared on the cable access series Touch of a Poet in Berkeley, California, and on cable access in Glenview, Illinois with the Writers Unlimited group. Her most frequent venue in Chicago has been Café Aloha, where she's appeared as a featured reader. There are no pyrotechnics in this handsome book. No hip, catchy, postmodern / millennial performance stylings either. The poems are carefully constructed, traveling the introspective roads taken by many a writer when exploring the aspects of one's own voice. The illustrations scattered throughout are a nice touch as well, unobtrusive sketches adding to the overall design. The book's title is an interesting choice - possibilities, things seen, quiet moments. An ember of dying sunlight grabbing you in a stairway during a hurried day; an office worker escaping the treated air for a few minutes of the real world, lush and hot; reading poems late at night:
I sip mango tea
and read poetry
from New York.
I hear your snore
across the hall.
You, so frustrated lately
because when you read,
you fall asleep.
My eyes will be wearier
than yours tomorrow,
but New York rhythm
is keeping them open
tonight.
In a few poems I picked up the sense of their being too controlled, of emotions (and the more visceral words that accompany them) restrained and held off the page. Watermark is about the inevitable scars that results when love crashes and burns, but I didn't get the intensity of the love that died or why hope for reconciliation still exists: |
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On an Irish Country Road Daniel Cleary 2000, Self Published |
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Daniel Cleary was born in Tipperary, Ireland and grew up there. In the early sixties he moved to London, where he worked and studied art. In the late sixties he moved to Chicago. A passionate and devoted painter of oils and acrylics, he has been shown at a number of art festivals, including Around the Coyote, and he is a wonderful singer. I've known Daniel since my early days in the local poetry scene in the early nineties. He has a previously published book of poetry, The Green Ribbon, available through Enright House of Ireland (distributed by Puddin'Head Press) On an Irish Country Road isn't an arranged and assembled collection of poems - the book is a single lyrical poem with a verse centered on each page. You can almost hear him reading the flowing lines that carry you along. The book has the feel of a preamble to a longer epic or fable, introducing the hero and setting him at the beginning. |
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The Demented Kewpie Doll's Manifesto Kate Cullan 2000, Self Published |
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Kate Cullan is one of Chicago's newest poets. She moved here in 1998 to pursue a career in improvisation and stand up comedy. In the fall of '99, she attended "Shag's Little Thing" open mic (at Phyllis' Musical Inn) and read some of her 'serious' poems as a lab experiment. When they got more laughs than her comedy bits, she decided to add poetry to her performance art repertoire. Kate can now be seen regularly at various open mics in Chicago. This is her first book of poetry. |
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Plainfield Follies Lee Kitzis 2000, Writers Club Press |
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Lee Kitzis is a young poet who's definitely been around. He first read at Fitzgerald's open mic at 14; at 15 he edited the Anti-Mensch anthologies published by Puddin'Head Press, with cover art by Skip Williamson. In August 1997 he was the publisher and contributing editor of Beat Street Tales: A 'Zine for the Beat Scene. Encouraged by the personal correspondence and support of William S. Burroughs, Mr. Kitzis has been a prolific author, with poems published in many independent periodicals, including two issues of Flipside magazine. He is currently a student at Columbia College in Chicago. Plainfield Follies is the first half of a two book volume (the second part, Israel To Prague Poems, will be reviewed in a future edition - Ed). The poems were written at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, in Philadelphia, in Montreal, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and Ocean City, New Jersey. Plainfield Follies has a nice blend of non-travelers' poems mixed in with the love poem to Montreal, memories of the White Mountains, of Philadelphia, Chicago and Lee's hometown of Oak Park - "Sexbomb" is a tribute to Joanna Marshall; "The Dawn O' Gone" observes daybreak with bop pretensions; "Poem for the Keys" rhapsodizes Lee's old Classic 12 typewriter; "Poem for Cannonball Addderley" is short and sweet jazz verse: |
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Thought Bombs # 12 Published by Anthony R. Rayson (South Chicago ABC Zine Distro) |
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Shortly after the publication of the Spring 2000 issue of CTR (containing the interview with local anarchist and poet Joffre Stewart), I received a letter from Chicago area anarchist and zine publisher Anthony R. Rayson, along with a copy of Thought Bombs # 12. In his critique of the interview, he stated that while he finds Joffre kindly and intelligent, he feels that Mr. Stewart is a "determined obstructionist who lives to disrupt gatherings with his rude and often racist (anti-Jewish) ramblings." "Confusing, racist, off the wall poetry and rants are not what anarchism is all about," Rayson writes. "Anarchism is clearsighted analysis, genuine committed useful activism, solidarity, work, cooperation, mutual aid, etc." While Rayson disagrees with efforts to ban Joffre from events, he calls for challenging Mr. Stewart with a genuinely anarchist, anti-racist response. "I consider myself a 'pure' anarchist and not fixated on the evils of Zionism...I am fighting on many fronts and am a dedicated organizer / propagandist." |
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Bucket of Questions Chuck Perkins Self-Produced CD (On Track/Que Studios), 2000 |
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Chuck Perkins was born and raised in New Orleans and has lived in Chicago since 1992. He has performed at the National Black Theater of Harlem, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Cultural center, the Field Museum of Natural History and a host of bookstores and coffeeshops. As a national poetry slam competitor, Chuck finished in the semi-finals as an individual in 1996 and as a team member in 1998. In 1999, he and Sheila Donohue co-emceed the National Poetry Slam held at the Chicago Theater. Chuck's work can be read in Kente Cloth, Southwest Voice of the African Diaspora, The Oyez Review, and on the Guidance records compilation CD Voices of Urban Renewal. He can be seen most Sunday evenings at the Green Mill in Chicago. Bucket of Questions was recorded at Que Studios in a poetry venue setting, an interesting alternative from the usual spoken word studio treatment. The live interaction between poet and audience, along with the preface Chuck gives each poem makes for a more intimate experience as the words wash over you. Chuck's performing style is clear, declarative and conversational. He tells stories, not merely to entertain, but to expose - his fears, his informed anger, his contradictions, the age-old whirlwind of pressures imposed by this schizophrenic society, the self-destructive cycles we keep falling into. The poems delve into the dichotomy of existence as a black man in the modern world, still dealing with the bullshit schism of being black and being American; sometimes ignoring the beauty of everyday things for what is packaged and sold; transporting you to the non-romantic ritual of a young man's jazz funeral in New Orleans, or the disrespect of scholarship in quarters of poor and black communities, the 'crabs in a bucket' cliche acted out on street corners every day. In other poems, Chuck remembers the love that exists in black neighborhoods, the sentiment that the media glosses over because it doesn't serve the agenda of negative propaganda (how many times have the same tired-ass "Cops" episodes been shoved across the TV screen?). The title poem also deals with the unease, the inconsistencies that threaten to engulf us, the 'education' that's often poorly disguised propaganda: To pick up a copy of BOQ, catch Chuck at The Green Mill, or contact: PO Box 580298, Pleasant Prarie, WI., 53158-5021
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Israel to Prague Poems Lee Kitzis Writers Club Press, 2000 |
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Lee Kitzis is a young poet who's definitely been around. He first read at Fitzgerald's open mic at 14; at 15 he edited the Anti-Mensch anthologies published by Puddin'Head Press, with cover art by Skip Williamson. In August 1997 he was the publisher and contributing editor of Beat Street Tales: A 'Zine for the Beat Scene. Encouraged by the personal correspondence and support of William S. Burroughs, Mr. Kitzis has been a prolific author, with poems published in many independent periodicals, including two issues of Flipside magazine. He is currently a student at Columbia College in Chicago. Israel To Prague Poems is the second half of Lee's two book volume published by Writer's Club Press. This book should really be titled Prague To Israel Poems; the poems begin in eastern Europe and flow to the Middle East - in Prague, the blended old world and old industry city where Holocaust ghosts mingle with the long lost Czech Republic in the Jewish Quarter; where he hears 'Route 66' and is reminded of the universal reach of American culture; where he feels like a true foreigner or "an old intrigued Neruda" as a waitress bustles about in the Grand Hotel. Lee moves westward to Tel Aviv, cosmopolitan mother land. He encounters jazz flowing in the streets of Jerusalem, across the mountaintops and over the Western wall, the complete bop heard 'round the world. I wonder how much of this spirit still exists in the wake of the stepped-up violence that has shattered the uneasy Israeli/Palestinian peace and the new political situation. There's an underlying and deeper vein of emotion in these poems, a feel of pilgrimage, particulalry in "July Night in Macabiam". I've had that experience of lying on my back with friends, looking up into a night sky full of stars, staring into eternity and feeling eternity stare back. The feeling is quiet but intense, sometimes unnerving, but you never want to let it go: |
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Erzulie Larry Winfield 2000, 12.23 Press Reviewed by Tara Betts |
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Larry Winfield was born in Marianna, Ark. in 1956. He studied art and theatre in college and began writing in the early 80's. He has hosted open mics and appeared as a featured artist at a number of Chicago poetry venues and festivals, performed with ensemble groups and produced short experimental films.
For readers unfamiliar with her powers, Erzulie is the Haitian Voodoo representation for Yoruba goddess Oshun originally worshipped in West Africa. Oshun/Erzulie is known for her sensuality, sweetness and is associated with honey and beauty. Larry Winfield seeks to implant this image in your mind as you read this collection of love poems. Winfield offers glimpses of arousal through senses and ventures into voyerism and fantasy then challenges how we perceive relationships with regard to gender and race.
He makes it clear in several poems that he is a Black man delving into his sexuality Such as the untitled poem where he explains a relationship with a white woman:
In Strip the narrator agrees to strip as a woman reads her poem, offering some of his insights before he begins: In moments like these, the vulnerability and the sense of humor becomes evident in potentially tense yet intimate situations.
Although the title does not fully explore the representations of Erzulie, it speaks to her presence in the author's life. Winfield's poems mirror the sound of his voice - soft yet direct. Some of these poems affirm this delicate strength clearly. "Anyday in June" springs to life with lovemaking in summertime Chicago at the opening of Erzulie. "Cleanup" takes on a bluesy repetition as a man scrubs away his wife's suicide and "10 Seconds Over Goose Island" takes us through a chain of thoughts about a prostitute a man sees on the street. His ideas possess the possibility of becoming even more taut, less like prose and more like capturing a fragment of time. |
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Starwallpaper The Tenth Anniversary Neutral Turf Anthology of Young Chicago Poets Edited by Kim Berez Puddin'head Press, 2001 |
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Chicago poet Kim Berez is a lifelong resident of Humboldt Park who works with area youth as an arts therapist and Hip Hop Club sponsor. Over the last decade, she has worked with young writers from the varied corners of Chicago's often divided neighborhoods. This volume of poems is published with the assistance of The Poetry Center of Chicago, ChicagoPoetry.com and Young Chicago Authors, and includes students from such schools as The University of Chicago Lab School, Oak Park & River forest High School, Hubbard High School, Paul Robeson High School, Lane Tech, Wendell Phillips Academy, St. Ignatius College Prep, and Roberto Clemente Community Academy, among others. The poems surpass the expected topics this kind of anthology would suggest - there's more here than teen angst at the state of the world or cliched hip hop lyrics. Sheilah Carroll's mediatation on the writing process begins the book; Taylor Bibat's entry is a thoughtful ode to a wall, modeled after similar poems of Pablo Neruda; Melissa Grajewski's "Decisions" considers the tortured experience of a woman having to choose an abortion; Anna Vinn's untitled poem is a well written piece on spiritual turmoil: Yes, there are subjects common to teens covered here, but they're well written - the struggle to live up to personal pressures to be perfect; a young writer becoming aware of the world outside of a strictly internal focus; the universal woman extolling her body, her power; a young woman's sensual experience of playing a bowed instrument; a young man's passion for a car. And yes, there are a few poems whose images are hampered by the forced use of rhyme, but these are young writers, after all. On the whole, this is an excellent entry to the world of young authors and poets in Chicago, especially for readers who haven't been following Starwallpaper over the previous nine years. I'll close with a haiku by Esteban Rendón: |
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The Journal of Ordinary Thought Vol X, Issue 6 Neighborhood Writing Alliance, 2000. Free |
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[From the inside cover] This particular volume includes works from photographers participating in the yearlong CITY 2000 documentary project, as well as from Neighborhood Writing Alliance groups meeting in the Chicago Bee, Hall, Mabel Manning, and Uptown branches of the Chicago Public Library; at StreetWise; Chicago Commons ETC; Jane Addams Resource Corp., and Brennerman, Haines and Sudler Elementary Schools. The photos - from Carlos J. Ortiz, Kevin Horan, Zbigniew Bzdak, Jon Lowenstein, Robert A. Davis and Yvette Marie Dostatni, among others - show the official, the everyday, the small corners of the city turned into lasting record, with no photos from the "tourist Chicago" catalog. They blend well with poems that share a bus stop with a threatening burn-out, or offer a lesson in humanity from a homeless, intact family. Other poems say goodbye to a cousin shot down, give a dispassionate rendering of the official steps to tagging a street shooting. Some even commute to the west side: "The African In Me" from Bettina A. Van Pelt is a funny and soulful episode of blood and hip bones defeating the veneer of faulty dogma: |
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Storms Beneath the Skin Regie Gibson EM Press, 2001 |
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When the poet's short-form bio says "Poet, percussionist, actor and activist Regie Gibson has lectured and performed at schools, universities and venues around the world, and he was the winner of the Individual competition in the '98 National Poetry Slam"; when Ch. 32 has "Love Jones" in regular rerun rotation, briefly featuring his poetry and performance (it played again a few Sundays ago as I read through the book); when the book's back cover blurb is from Kurt Vonnegut (a literary hero of mine from high school and college) and the book itself is such a beautifully designed thing, and when I realized that my effort here won't be the review of record for Regie's first book (though it will be the first), the full implication of "reviewer" draped itself on my shoulders. Yeah, so what.
This is a book, not a CD; this should have been a CD, or a DVD, or a 90-minute one man show with full orchestral and multimedia support, along with an accompanying book. That's the review Regie deserves, not one where I struggle to convey his work to the reader who's never experienced him on stage, who doesn't know his voice. That's the hitch - Regie's verses are intricately tied in with his vocalizations and his performance style, his facility with the cadence of the street hustler/seducer/preacher, where speech is both art form and weapon. But this is paper, and some of the poems lose a significant measure of their power when trapped on the page. This is immediately apparent in the poem for Jimi Hendrix, for example - once you take his voice away, what is inspired adrenalin and out-of-body experience becomes 'clever' on the page. This is a terrible thing to say about a great poem.
And this book is full of great poems: a prayer for artists prevented from creating; a love poem lost in the metaphysic; a parent trying to explain the love/pain that surrounded the creators of a life; a tribute poem to Miles Davis; a funky mythology rendition, and "mira", one of the best poems in the book, the adoration of a goddess from afar:
In a way, Storms Beneath the Skin illustrates the continuing dichotomy between the broad category of "academic" poetry grammatically structured for the page, and the equally wide-ranging world of "street" or "performance" poetry created for the ear, given a wider latitude for nonlinear coherence and pyrotechnics as it fills the space between the poet and an audience.
Storms Beneath the Skin should be available through your local chain bookseller and Amazon.com, but you can contact EM Press at 709 Marion St, Joliet, Il., 60436, and online at www.em-press.com. |
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Big Pen Edited by Lee Kitzis Big Pen Press, 2001 |
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This is an interesting new anthology zine of poems and occasional short fiction featuring writers 23 years of age or younger, edited by Lee Kitzis. This first issue is dedicated to the memory of Lisa Juntunen, the young poet who many on the scene strongly suspect was murdered earlier this year. The contributors are Lee Kitzis, Seth Koenig, Ethan F Hamburg and Ariel Sznajder Aquirre. *Twenty-year-old Lee Kitzis' poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Flipside, U-Direct, The Anti-Mensch, and the Columbia Chronicle. His double book Plainfield Follies / Israel to Prague Poems was previously reviewed in CTR. Kitzis' entries are: "All's Quiet", a Miles Davis tribute - an appreciation for the space around his notes, the quiet that accompanies his music; and "The Young Man Caged", a profile of woman as planet, as city, as object pursued by an ambitious man, I think *Twenty-year-old Seth Koenig is a 'part-time poet / part-time porn star' who is currently engaged in the rigorous study of eroticism in the ancient world. He attends the University of Iowa. Koenig's "Spreading the Holy Word" is a clever iconoclastic limerick, and "Like Flowers With the Change of Seasons" is about a May-December romance and the gossip that surrounds it. *Nineteen-year-old Ethan F Hamburg currently lives and writes on the Greek Island of Paros. He has published a book of poems and short stories entitled When the Empress Laughs (Writers Club Press). A lifelong student of Jewish history and the Bible, Ethan has also written a large repertoire of songs which he has performed in bars and clubs all over the U.S. and Canada. "To Coronah On the Church" is a wish "to be Catholic in a world where the church never existed", for religion to be better than the thing it became; "Census" is a hallucinatory dream of abuse of power by Christians. *Twenty-year-old Ariel Sznajder Aquirre was born in the hostile north of Israel. He is an internationally inclined exile, a Basque Separatist with a love for Medterranean cuisine, women, and Middle-eastern music. His short fiction pieces - which didn't at all read like fiction - are an exile's travelogue through Gibraltar; street fights between American and Spanish kids; the awareness of the Muslims and Arabs in Granada. An interesting and definite point of view informs Mr. Aquirre's work. You can find Big Pen at your local bookstore, or get it for $2 from Puddin'head Press, PO Box 477889, Chicago, IL., 60647. To submit poems and/or short fiction (the fiction should be obscure and offbeat - e.g. William S. Burroughs), send them via e-mail to Lee Kitzis at: NickArson@aol.com. Make sure to paste submissions into the body of the e-mail; no attachments.
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