The People Look Like Flowers at Last
Poems
Charles Bukowski
Ecco: New York, 299 Pages

Reviewed by R.K. Wallace

Charles Bukowski, for those who have been living the life of Zarathustra and have only now decided to emerge from their caves, is probably one of America’s most famous contemporary writers of poetry and prose. He was also among the world’s more prolific writers, so much so that original works are still being published today, thirteen years after his death. The People Look Like Flowers At Last, the most recent of these publications and the last in a series of five poetry collections being released by Ecco, will be the subject of discussion here, or rather, debate.

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Modern Times
An Album
Bob Dylan
Columbia Records

Reviewed by Rob Woodard

I am sitting in my apartment listening to MODERN TIMES, the latest Bob Dylan album, for the fifth time in the last two days. I think I like it. Actually, I know I like it, but the question is how much do I like it, which is actually turning out to be a more difficult to answer than I would have thought it to be a couple of listens back. Before I go any further I should probably state that I am a huge Bob Dylan fan. Actually I’m more than a fan: I’m a true believer: I expect more than entertainment or even “good” art from the man: I demand nothing less than revelation every time I put on one of his albums, no matter how many times I have heard it before. What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that approaching a new Bob Dylan album is for me a serious business not to be rushed even a little bit.

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The Last Person to Hear Your Voice
Poems
Richard Shelton
University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 109 Pages

Reviewed by Rob Woodard

For over forty years Richard Shelton has been establishing himself as the unofficial poet laureate of the Arizona desert and in the process has become an extremely important voice of the American west in general. Thru the haunted verse of such classic books as The Tattooed Desert, All The Dirty Words, and The Bus To Veracruz, Shelton has painstaking built up a larger narrative that taps into the deep time of his surrounding desert landscape and the wants and needs of the wounded persons who inhabit it, while also at times finding a hard-won beauty and transcendence that can be absolutely breathtaking.

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New Orleans, Chicago, and Points Elsewhere
Poems
Gerald Locklin
R)v Press: Long Beach, California, 94 Pages

Reviewed by R.K. Wallace

Gerald Locklin, for those younger readers who are not familiar with him, is probably one of America’s most important living poets. Locklin has published over 125 books of poetry and prose, of which, just to get a flavour of his writing, Go West Young Toad and Candy Bars are recommended. This year Locklin retires from his job as a professor at California State University, Long Beach, where he has resided and worked for almost four decades. But as far as writing goes, it is a slightly different story. With over 3000 poems in publication, and a mountain of prose, there is no sign of this prolific writer stopping just yet.

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Thick Lazy Tongue
A Novel
Misti Rainwater-Lites
Ebullience Press: Albuquerque, New Mexico, 112 pages

Reviewed by R.K. Wallace

Misti Rainwater-Lites loves her porn and she loves her poetry, hence why she is the editor of the print poetry zine, Instant Pussy, a outlet for the less conventional and often thwarted creative voices of today’s underground literature world, and also a showcase for some rather tasteful nude pictures of females (and males) that compliment the main course of a fine collection of contemporary verse. But that is not all. Misti Rainwater-Lites has self-published a number of books of her own poetry and prose as well, including Arsenal of Spitwads and Mordiscado. Furthermore, she has been hailed as “the Confessional Poet Laureate of the United States,” and has appeared in so many underground poetry zines that it would easier to name the very few that are missing out on such a new and genuinely raw talent. Read the rest of this entry »

Sonic Transmission – Television, Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell
“An Illustrated History”
Tim Mitchell
Glitter Books: London, United Kingdom, 150 pages

Review by Tony O’Neill

Good music writing can be a transformative experience, even if you don’t particularly care for the subject. I found THE DIRT–a book on the career and exploits of Motley Crue–a fascinating read, despite the fact that I am not a fan of the band. It was a book were you felt the passion of the band–a passion for getting laid, taking drugs, and–oh yeah–making music. Another favorite book of mine is DEEP IN A DREAM: THE LONG NIGHT OF CHET BAKER. Even if you are not a die-hard fan of the man’s music, the book will still be an unforgettable experience, getting into the dark side of the mans psyche as thoroughly as it does. DEEP IN A DREAM like all good biographical writing, was as entertaining as a good work of fiction, maybe even more so because it is tangibly real. Read the rest of this entry »

Book of Sketches
Word Sketches
Jack Kerouac
Penguin: New York, NY, 414 pages

Reviewed by Rob Woodard

Jack Kerouac, as anyone even slightly interested in American literature knows, is the most visible, and arguably most important, writer to emerge from the literary/cultural movement known as Beat, which exploded into mainstream American consciousness in the late 1950s with the publication of his novel ON THE ROAD and his compatriot Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl.” Read the rest of this entry »

Digging the Vein
A Novel
Tony O’Neill
Contemporary Press: New York, NY, 219 pages

Reviewed by Mike Ferraro

As a young man, a kid really, Tony O’Neill got strung out on heroin in Los Angeles in the wake of a promising music career and a quickie marriage gone south. For three years he battled his addiction and demons, a virtual smorgasbord of woe begotten experience filled with junky days and nights, Methadone clinics, and twelve step mishaps, eventually kicking on his own through the perseverance of will and the power and promise of redemption through love, faith and inner fulfillment. Read the rest of this entry »

Godlike
A Novel
Richard Hell
Akashic Books: New York, NY, 150 pages

Reviewed by Rob Woodard

Richard Hell is of course the former singer-songwriter-bassist for the early New York “punk” bands Television, The Heartbreakers, and the Voidoids, and later musical assemblages such as the Dim Stars. Always a fascinating lyricist, he has in the last decade or so forsaken music — and an on-and-off-again acting career — and turned his attentions to the written word almost entirely, building himself a very interesting, if under appreciated, career as an essayist, critic, poet, and novelist. Read the rest of this entry »