Just got news of the only photograph of Phineas Gage known to exist. There he sits, holding his bar–much as I’d imagined him. He’s a handsome and resolute man going through hell and little by little realizing that the nightmare will only deepen. Here’s the link: http://brightbytes.com/phineasgage/

Two highly adventurous British magazines, highly recommended.

For more information visit www.angelexhaust.com and www.nonism.org, respectively.

Christ, you can dance to this! Bennet intones his “shards” in a surprising tenor–nothing like the Tom Waits I expected–to a B-Boy beat that would do M & M proud. Though Bennet points to Kenneth Patchen as an inspiration, most of what Patchen does in his recorded work has to do with story. Bennet’s “shards” are fragments that sometimes cohere, usually don’t. Perfect for a coffee house where everybody knows all the answers and wants to talk at the top of their lungs. I’d give it a 99–good beat and the words don’t get in the way. The best of Bennet’s work so far.

Take a look. Jesse

I have to admit that Pudding House creeps me out. Not only do I dislike the look and feel of Pudding House publications, but most of what they print–even if it’s from a writer of interest–suffers somehow. I have nothing personal against the editor of Pudding House. I saw her once from a distance at a reading at the University of Ohio and yes–I could imagine that she took great pleasure in all things involving pudding. However, she looked pretty glum that day so I didn’t take the long walk across the room to say hello. Instead, I tried to imagine various incarnations of pudding–Christmas pudding, chocolate pudding from Belgium, pudding and pie, etc.–to evoke a cheerful chain of associations connected with the name, but I could not escape the darkness swimming before my eyes. I think it’s just the name that doesn’t sit right with me (what does gloppy pudding have to do with literature, let alone a house with stone foundations and the like?)–and the studied irony–of calling someone’s scrappily done collection a “Greatest Hits”–like a compilation CD of Tom Jones and the Beegees one picks up from the bargain bin at K-Mart. So when John Bennet’s Firestorm arrived in the post, I immediately recoiled. That is–until my nostrils caught the heavy scent of cigarette smoke like the perfume of a Parisian’s billet doux. Somehow Mr. Bennet’s contaminated, nicotine laden, nostril burning, cancer-defying breath neutralized the saccharine of Pudding House and allowed me to browse what I would normally throw in the corner as so much wasted tree.

There are some good ones in this collection, but page 24 makes the experience worthwhile:

Two Takes On The
Native American Dream

1.
Here’s what the Sioux Nation gave to me: a half-breed grandmother
who taught me to read and write by the age of five, byproducts,
really, of a magic world of dream, song and multi-colored chalk
with which we shaped Saturday mornings while the rest of the
house slept. A Catholic nun temporarily banged the writing and
reading back out of me, but she couldn’t touch the song and color.
So you see where my allegiance lies–I had my war paint on before
I did my Vision Quest.

I’m constantly reminded of where I come from. Of all the tribes
Lewis and Clark encountered on their reconnaissance for conquest,
only the Sioux refused to drop down on their knees. To the
whiskey, a chief called Black Cloud said, “If the white father in
Washington loves us so much, why does he give us things that
make us foolish?” Lewis and Clark said: “You haven’t seen the last
of us.”

The second take is not quite as interesting as the first, though it too has its moments.

Go to www.puddinghouse.com for more information.

Two hundred and eleven pages of appreciations of Jack Micheline, a “street” poet with “street” cred who wrote pedestrian poems and thought about paintings while walking the street and died on a train from San Francisco to somewhere else. Lovers, buddies, fellow street folks and poets and wannabe poets and artists from both coasts tell us we missed something special and that Jack’s poems lived on the breath and in his harmonica and tambourine and dance, all of which ended with a Bart official trying to wake an old sinner up at the end of the line. This volume makes me want to believe them.

The sad thing is that it’s hard to wax romantic about a toothless old man with a pot gut wearing pee-stained underwear who lives on Dinty Moore soup and warm beer in a flop house. The pictures from Jack’s younger days make you nod your head yes, but Jack with his arm around a pretty young thing in an after-hours bar just makes you feel sorry for someone who’s lived well past his legend even though this chorus of printed voices keeps wailing noooooo! nooooo! noooooooo! he lllllliiiiiivvvvvvveeeesssss forevvvveeerrrrr onnnnnnn! like the winter wind off San Francisco bay.

$14.95 from Vagabond & the Smith. Same contact information as the previous book.

Truly one of the least inviting titles for a good to fine collection of poems. This is a 62 page book of meditations written by this poet/musician (a new name to me) while listening to some great blues, jazz, and experimental pieces. One of the best is his

listening to gavin bryar’s cello concerto “farewell
to philosophy” contemplating whether i should
wrap it up or strike a match

i pile the pages high until i can’t see over them
i take notes obsessively everywhere i go
& miss what’s right in front of me
i’m pegged a suspicious character
lugging answers from one bunker to the next
i stufff self-fulfillment in thin green garbage bags
that could burst at any time
i peel enlightenment off the walls
to see what might be underneath
i wrap & unwrap anything that can be broken
in old newspaper
my eyes burn
my throat is dry
my head’s full of too much useless information
what have these inky endless streams accomplished
am i any closer
to somewhere i probably wouldn’t recognize
once i got there
i’m sick of one stupid question leading to another
i’m tired of these allegedly surefire solutions
i root through drawers of junk
i settle on a red crepe paper poppy
because the words have fallen off
it seems to have survived despite its uselessness
or perhaps because of it
yet a single match could change that
in a second.

an $8.00 grab from Hcolom Press
for more information: www.hcolompress.com