Your Summertime Poetry Reading List, Part I
Dateline: 6/8/99Caramba rhumba! Vacation vibration! Poetry sensation!
Ja ja, that’s the ticket to ReLaXaTiOn!!
First off--- You lookin’ at me? You lookin’ at this damn screen? Then you best hie thee to Galinsky’s GO!Poetry site, to the May 24 show and see The Man Himself,
i.e., Linton Kwesi Johnson, Dub Godfather, Poet Extraordinaire, whose 80's zine Race Today created the only meld of poetry, politics and cricket, straight out of Brixton. While at it, check LKJ’s new albums, Independant Intavenshan: The Island Anthology (Polygram) and LKJ A Cappella Live (LKJ Records), both exemplary in poetry’s crossover. Hail the true Poet Laureate!
If you’re taking your laptop to the beach, the one with the CD-ROM drive, then you can “read” the brilliant new Pere Ubu “See Dee” (CD+) called Beach Boys (Tim/Kerr 95CD121). This multi-tiered poem on disk (from Cleveland!) is guaranteed on Mac, but I had less than a problem on my Pentium 90/24 MG/8xCD. A killer po app -- particularly imperative are the poems “Fish Shack” and “Turquoise Fins.” As perf, nothing betters “Where to stand” (esp. if you're lefthanded) and “Rounder.” If you’re limited to audio only, please lick Mirror Man, which will, in the Next Millennium, have to be reckoned as First Ever Spoken Word Opera. It’ll be filed under “Thomas, David” or “Pale Orchestra, The” or maybe even “Pere Ubu.”
Again, if you’ve got the audio CD plugged, I beseech you, THIS SUMMER’S TREAT TO YRSLF! should oughta be: Good Headphones! You can then avail yourself of the new Firesign Theatre CD, Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death (Rhino). If you don’t know from Firesign, then listen: this is the best radio theater / head-banger’s ball / live poetry zap that your contempUSA has produced. If you know them, then hear this: this record is a return to the ecstasy of their earliest work. If not, Kill to buy this CD! This is the ONLY preparation for the so-called Next Millennium.
d.a levy is the 60s. That’s why the hot-off-the-press The Buddhist Third Class
Junk Mail Oracle: the art and poetry of d.a. levy (ed. Mike Golden, Seven Stories Press) is the only book that rockets mimeo into the bird trill present. levy knew that Cleveland, 1960’s, was the exact center of the universe. These writings / deconstructo-arto will prove him right. This is a BOOK. This is roots Beat! READ IT!! Try this, from “Kibbutz in the Sky”:
--d.a. levy Next week: more poetry hits, as we await Frank Lima’s idobelieveidobelieveidobelieve, what can we do? Alice Notley? Robert Creeley? Koon Woon? Ashbery? Hahn? and our summer special -- A (New) Curriculum for the Soul!
--Bob Holman. . . the war
is here on the streets where individual
rights is translated as enemy of the state
by a few maniacs in control of the country
the war is here where my friends are going
to jail & no one gives a damn, where tv is
god, and money is god and to talk about
love is to guarantee you will be mis-understood
and to try to love is a sign of insanity
the battlefield
. . .listen
the battlefield is in the
mind, listen the battlefield
is in the mind, is
in THE INTERNAL SCREAMING
dont be afraid of death
they intend to murder you anyway
The albums & books mentioned above can all be found on the Net:
- Linton Kwesi Johnson, Independant Intavenshan: The Island Anthology, at Borders.com
- Linton Kwesi Johnson, LKJ A Cappella Live, from the LKJ Records label (phone order)
- Pere Ubu, Beach Boys CD+, at Borders.com
- Pere Ubu, Mirror Man, direct mail order from the Cooking Vinyl record label
- Firesign Theatre, Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death, at Borders.com
- d.a. levy, The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle: the Art and Poetry of d.a. levy, at Borders.com
