Moss / Dalachinsky / Axel / Lourie
Dateline: 10/19/99Thylias Moss___________________
Tale of a Sky-Blue Dress (Avon reprint, 1999) is one of the most daring, astonishing books ever writ. Thylias Moss has always been a fave poet -- she has a blend of humor, outrage, sensuality that cannot be stopped, writes a world where maids wear sequined toilet rings, where Tarzan listens, where eggs hang from crucified feet. From where does this smashing imagery and music speech emerge? This tale tells all. Which is to say, sex. How it engages body and mind, where does the victim lie, what’s love got to do. Laid utterly bare, proud, Thylias Moss lets language be her only clothing. And race, how human are we, can we be -- the voice of poet she speaks is so unlike Virgil with Dante, it is as if the words guide, while unmasking our deepest fears and most hidden thoughts. An amazing book.
Steve Dalachinsky___________________
Steve Dalachinsky is the poet-in-residence at the Knitting Factory, a bloke who puts the art in heart and who for years has been quietly plugging away at the stripping of moment from momentous. His paydirt is the unassuming CD Incomplete Directions (Knitting Factory Records), in which he gathers round the musical spirits of NYC’s renowned nightboite to vary his unvarying flow of consciousness: Vernon Reid, Thurston Moore, Susie Ibarra, and Vito Ricci are among the talents who spin round Senor Steve. The casual vibe wins: “in the center of new jersey / something must exist -- I don’t know, a shadow, maybe!”
Brett Axel___________________
Brett Axel continues his all-inclusive solo revolution with Will Work For Peace, an anthology of new political poems out from Zeropanik Press in Trenton, New Jersey. Sherman Alexie, Taylor Mali, Leslea Newman, Elaine Equi, Marge Piercy, Judith Basya, Antler (“Armageddon vs. Blowjobgeddon”), Sara Seinberg’s classic “fuck you, i’m wonder woman,” Martin Espada, W.D. Snodgrass -- this book’s got range and humor and is a super read. Lift your spirits! Check the first poem, the title poem, by Arupa Chicrini:
Will work for peasAlso check out Axel’s own poem trove: First on the Fire, from Fly by Night Press, New York City.
will work for grease,
from old bones
in garbage soup.
Will work for a place to pee
where it ain’t against the law
to take a whizz.
Will work for peanuts in the zoo,
caged in, not out,
a sign around my neck
CRACK ADDICT WITH HIV.
This is what it looks like
when you ain’t got no hundred dollar blouse.
Dick Lourie___________________
Ghost Radio Blues, Poetry and the Blues, a new CD by Dick Lourie, is a primer in those two arts, in how music and poetry fit, on what a poet who is a super musician can do when he is wailing mutuality. Lourie, from Boston, is known as an editor for Hanging Loose Press, publisher of his book Ghost Radio in 1997. His talents as poet and musician kill on this homemade CD. Unmissable please.
--Bob Holman
- An excerpt from Tale of a Sky-Blue Dress was featured in Salon's “Mothers Who Think” series.
- See our spring review of her collection, Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler.
- For Countermeasures' “Print Colloquium on Contemporary Poetry,” Thylias Moss chose & offered commentary on Galway Kinnell's poem “Saint Francis and the Sow.”
- Raising a Humid Flag from her book At Redbones is posted at the publisher's site, Cleveland State University, Ohio.
- Her 1993 collection, Small Congregations: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins) & 1990's Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky (National Poetry Series, Persea Books) are also available at Borders.com.
- Seven of his poems, including “thing that wasn't made” & “if cars could fly,” are in the Steve Dalachinsky Archive of private language poems at Huba Production, Muenster.
- Brett Axel's Web site has the usual resume pages listing his readings, publications & booking info -- but he has also posted collections of his new poems available for periodical publication & already published poems for anthologies, advice & quotes for striving poets, a page introducing Lorine Niedecker.
- The January 1999 issue of Paradigm Shift featured a series of his poems, including “To Allen on Your Way” & “You'll Be Me Soon Enough.”
- Brett was featured in January on GO! Poetry, the New York Net-tv show hosted by Galinsky -- his appearance is archived here.
- You will need to contact Dick Lourie directly (c/o Hanging Loose Press, 231 Wyckoff Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217) to locate a copy of the Ghost Radio Blues CD reviewed above, but you can order Ghost Radio, the book of poems from which it evolved, directly from Borders.com.
- “Forgiving Our Fathers,” a Lourie poem from Ghost Dance, was used in the monologue at the end of Sherman Alexie's film Smoke Signals.
