Dave Church: In Memory

On his blog, Ron Silliman is reporting the death of long-time small press poet Dave Church. The article Ron has linked to is an overview of Dave's career; I have no further details on Dave's passing.

Dave published a couple of works in Lillie over the years. Recently, we had corresponded back and forth over some poems he had sent, sparred a bit, actually, and we had come to a friendly understanding. Once you got past the gruff, he was a generous guy. He knew what he was about and made sure you did, too. I'll miss his straight shooting approach.


--------------------------------------------------------


I think I'm mad
like I thought
my father was mad.

He used to float around the house at night
calling out for those long dead

I do the same thing now

only in reverse.

Dave Church
from Lilliput Review, #91 Sept. 1997

Mirrorspeak

I'm off Buddha's eight-fold path.
No God's speak to me. Past a blur.
Future
bone
black -
ashes in mountain air.

Dave Church
from Lilliput Review, #129, March 2003

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UPDATE: Ed Baker has sent along some along some additional information on Dave, which may be found on Bukowski.net. He evidently died behind the wheel of his taxicab on Thanksgiving.



best,
Don

Dave Church Remembered by George Held

George Held recently posted a fine tribute to small press giant Dave Church at the NYQ Poets site. It begins:

Opening the envelope containing the October 2008 Barbaric Yawp, I first took a look at its newsletter, "From the Marrow," and my eyes lit upon the phrase "the late Dave Church" as a contributor to Free Verse. I was shocked and needed confirmation. Before looking for the editor's phone number, I first checked out the bio notes in the Yawp and saw an editorial insertion in Dave's bio note, saying he'd died of a heart attack on Thanksgiving Day. Then I checked the last letter he'd written me, and saw that it's dated November 17, 2008--ten days before Thanksgiving. ... (for the rest of the post, follow here - & scroll down a bit, it's there)

In closing his tribute, George quotes one of Dave's poems to be published in a forthcoming Barbaric Yawp. He says of the poem:

This brief lyric speaks for no school, except maybe the ancient one of Basho, whose classical simplicity it recalls.

As many of you know, I've spent a lot of time reflecting on the work of Basho at this blog over the last year and, I have to say, I couldn't agree with George's assessment more. Here's the poem:

Dark sunrise.
Last night's fog and rain,
Lingering.

Dave Church

Thanks, Dave.


best,
Don

Su Tung-po / Su Shi

Su Tung-po (Su Shi)

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Su Tung-po. So what better way to celebrate than with his own poem, "Remembrance?"

Remembrance

To what can our life on earth be likened?
To a flock of geese,
Alighting on the snow.
Sometimes leaving a trace of their passage.

Su Tung-po 1037-1101

Things haven't changed much in the last, oh, 900 or so years. And we know what kind of tracings most of us leave behind. For more on Su Tung-po, whose real name was Su Shi, check here.



*******************************************************************************


Two weeks back, I posted about the untimely passing of small press poet Dave Church. Here's another article on Dave by someone else familiar to those working in small press poetry, Tom Chandler. He reprints a beauty of a poem called "Muses" by Dave, the last two lines of which perfectly captures, with typically incisive honesty, what all we poets do.



best,
Don

Alan Catlin: Only the Dead Know Albany - Small Press Friday

Alan Catlin is one the finest practitioners of the the lyrical arts on the small press scene over the last 20 years. His work seems ubiquitous, though his style varies according to its subject. Some of his finest work may be seen in his ekphrastic poems, such as the volume entitled Effects of Sunlight in the Fog, which I reviewed here back in 2009.  I've also had the pleasure of publishing a handful of Block Island poem from the pen of Catlin, perfect little 'line drawings' of life at world's end.

Another phase of his poetry, for which he is more well-known, might be thought of as his anti-lyrical lyrical work, of which the volume Only the Dead Know Albany (Sunnyoutside Press, Buffalo, NY), is a premiere example. Like Dave Church's poems, which came from his everyday experiences as a cabbie, Alan's long-time stint as a bartender in the hardscrabble town of Albany, New York, frame the everyday working class lives of desperation so many people lead.

I've done time in many a town where there is a bar on every corner and two in between: Bayonne and Highlands, NJ, and Pittsburgh, PA to name just a few. Many an old school Irish or Slavic or Italian neighborhood, where constituents voted for a congressman currently doing time for corruption (because he took care of your kid when he got in hot water, or squared your parking ticket, or made your little neighborhood problem go away), could at one time be found in northern industrial cities (think Albany, Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh etc.), some of which, having long gone to seed, resprouted in the last gentrified years of 20th century America. 

It's one thing to reel off a couple of Jimmy Breslin-style wiseguy sentences about towns like these, another altogether to capture them in a poem. Alan Catlin nails it time and time again. 

If you are having trouble conjuring up Dante's 7th circle, no problem: Alan Catlin's Albany will do very nicely, indeed.  Here's the title poem:


Only the Dead Know Albany

and the side alleys, cock-fought
streets, high-stakes crap games
decided by a blade and a motorcycle
chain, brass knuckles and steel-toed
boots; row-housed tenements blocks
long, Clinton Avenue to Arbor Hill,
where no trees bloomed, buildings in
full flame, cops and robbers gaming
the Man, the Black Maria and a banshee
wail long summer nights before
Urban Renewal razed the earth
and only the dead knew Albany. 


All these seem visions of a past, conjuring a present not much improved:


Queen's Gambit

The opening line
always was, "Got
a light?" The ones
that did leaned in 
close as she cupped
her hands around
the flame, as she
said how much
the full ride would
cost for a bareback
trip with frills and she
had lots of takers
even if she looked
to be a half-dead
teen angel whose 
eyes were as hard
as her grave marker;
one date already
carved, the other
three-quarters
of the way done. 


Catlin's poems don't glorify the hard old times, they shine a light full in the face of existence - this isn't about revering outlaws, this is about surviving.



Bus Stop Corner of Lark and Central Avenue, Albany, NY

He was holding onto support
of the bus shelter bench as
if his life depended upon it
and maybe, in a way it did.
The cops in his face telling 
him to let go, get a move on,
give everyone a break, hesitant
to use force, to touch this more-
than-aromatic bum, more pissed on
than dangerous, hesitant to use force
with so many onlookers making
mental notes, their voices just so
much more mental static in a world
gone seriously crazy, his drink-
addled brain emitting a kind of
drunkard's lingua franca only
like-minded derelicts could 
understand finally managing
one last coherent phrase before
the cops give him over to mental
health gendarmes in lab coats and
latex gloves, "You must understand,
I don't know who I am!"

Only the Dead Know Albany is a 32 page chapbook with one heavy dose of reality after another, captured by a talented eye and a sensitive demeanor, a sketchbook of circle after circle, adding up to exactly we know what. The book is available directly from the publisher, sunnyoutside press; if not, there is always that giant evil online warehouse, but, since this is Small Press Friday, I'll let you find your way there on your own.

--------------

city life--
even melting snow
costs money

 Issa

 translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don 

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"Beneath Cherry Blossoms" disappears

Just back from vacation to discover that the entire Lilliput blog, "Beneath Cherry Blossoms," has disappeared. Thanks, Tripod; six months of postings, with lots of poetry samples, down the tubes. It is the little things in life. I don't really know where to start after this. 8 glorious days in London? An absolutely wonderful vacation of bookstores, museums, pubs and did I mention bookstores? Yes, glorious indeed, despite the horrid rate of exchange on the dollar.

Well, this new blog, "Issa's Untidy Hut," and it will be a bit of an experiment since I don't know where it'll be going from here. I'm going to go ahead and post some work from Lilliput Review #129, as part of the continuing tour through back issues of Lillie. Here's some samplings ....

Like a blind dog
I turn my nose
to the wind
and truth
enters me.

- Albert Huffstickler


Well, it seems formatting may be an issue with "Blogger" - let's try another (by the way, I think a dedication to of "Like a blind dog ..." to Tripod seems appropriate ...)

after
all
it's
only
one
wave
- Ed Baker

And, lastly, this little number, which goes out to the memory of all those lost postings from the defunct Beneath Cherry Blossoms:

Mirrorspeak
I'm off Buddha's eight-fold path
No Gods speak to me. Past a blur.
Future
bone
black -
ashes in mountain air.
- Dave Church

My apologies to all, including the above poets excerpted to a nefarious purpose.

Hopefully, more soon.

- Don