R. I. P. Cody's Books

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

year's end--
the bell of my death place
tolls too

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

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

Some very sad news in the world of books; Cody's Books, a staple of the Berkeley, CA, scene for over 50 years closed its doors last week.

Cody's announcement from their webpage ...

Followed by some very ominous news in the world of books: amazon.uk starts to strong arm publishers for larger profit margins (the Times headline, by the way, is all wrong: Hachette is the largest publisher in the UK). Neil Gaiman, ever the voice of moderation in the real world, theorized that its time to start pointing our links elsewhere for book information and I believe he is right, at least until this thing gets straight. Actually, he was just speaking for himself (and one can only imagine the sales he generates from his online journal with all the fine recommendations he makes), but his is an excellent example to follow.

This will remind folks who have been warning about the ever beneficent google what might happen if they decided to start wielding their power in a whole scale negative way. I've always been a proponent of amazon (and not particularly prone to online paranoia) and a supporter of independent shops in my buying habits but this gives one pause, indeed.

Not only is the wolf at the door: we appear to have invited him in for dinner.


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

spotting wolf shit--
the grass
is so cold

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

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



best,
Don

Isabella Rossellini, Dante's Inferno, and Antonio Machado

Cover by Wayne Hogan

Well, this week started with some Green Porno, so who am I not to share? Is it poetry? Maybe not, but it is lyrical in its own way and we need truth like this in a post George Carlin world. Thank you, Isabella Rossellini.

And, oh, yeah, humor. (Don't miss the other mini-films on the side bar).

I've had an idea percolating for a blog post at Eleventh Stack (the blog at my "other job") and it seemed worthy of sharing here (the idea, not the post). I stumbled across the fact, thanks once again to the folks over at the Bookslut blog, that there is a paper puppet version of Dante's Inferno, due for DVD release next month. Here is the trailer, posted at YouTube:





For those with hearty hard drives, you might want to try one of the higher-tech versions at the film's website. If the trailer tantalizes, Ovation TV has posted a 4 minute excerpt that portrays the Flatterers as congressional lobbyists (if this isn't in the spirit of the original epic poem, I'll take my 8th circle punishment right now. Oh, what the hell, here's the 4 minute excerpt (there is no doubt that this is poetry):





Perhaps I've strayed a bit and need a stopover in the 6th circle on my way down. Obviously, that one ain't my call.

In the more traditional area of poetics, I've been digging into a parcel of poetry books this past week, including Han Shan (more about that in a future post, I hope) and C . D. Wright's new take on the state of things, given Iraq and all that, in Rising, Falling, Hovering. If you are detecting some cynicism in the way the later part of the previous sentence trailed off, it seems I've got still another stop to consider. But I'll withhold judgment on that for a moment. Today what I'd like to recommend is a good, strong dose of Antonio Machado.





Dennis Maloney and Mary G. Berg have translated a volume of Machado's enigmatic short poems entitled There Is No Road, published by White Pine Press and pictured above. The works are all short, blending aphorism, philosophy, and a lyrical mysteriousness that is pure poetry. Here are a handful to give you a taste:

It is good to know that glasses
are to drink from;
the bad thing is that we don't know
what thirst is for.

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

Man is only rich in hypocrisy;
he relies on his ten thousand disguises
----------to deceive
and uses the double key that protects his house
to pick the lock of his neighbor.

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

Look in your mirror for the other one,
the one who accompanies you.

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

These chance furrows
why call them roads?
Everyone on a journey walks
like Jesus on the sea.

At 110 plus pages, one poem per page, there is much to ponder here. I'm partial to Dennis' work as I've published a volume of his Issa translations, Dusk Lingers, and one of love poems from the classic 100 Poems by 100 Poets entitled Unending Night. There will be a companion volume to the later focusing on nature poems from 100 Poems to be published in the Modest Proposal Chapbook series sometime next year. The clear, concise language of the translation of Machado comes through in There Is a Road. It's definitely worth a look.

Speaking of journeys, the tour of Lilliput Review's back pages continues this week with issue #83, published in November 1996. If anyone is actually keeping tabs, I've skipped #84, which was a broadside issue by Christien Gholson, Winter Prayers. As with many of the broadsides, excerpting work just doesn't do it justice. If you are interested, it is still available for $1 or can be bundled with 2 other broadsides, for a total of 3 for $2.00. On to the poetry in #83 ....

it is still

worth the risk
to sit, old and troubled
inside the heart
and scrape the walls
worth everything
to dip fingers
in the gravy
to paint the tablecloth
with words
necessary and fat.

jen besemer

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

The Ego and the Raven

Wings, talons, hair, horns:
Why heed a raven's lecture
when you've got it all?

Marjorie Power

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

places I've never been
people I've never met
the things that connect us

David Stensland

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



And one that probably hasn't aged so well ...



I Can't Believe Its Not Buttofucco Madonna

has an oily
texture of
rancid
margarine

Lyn Lifshin

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

Yikes, I can't end with that - here's a Donny Smith translation of an Anonymous Greek epigram:

epigram

The puckered rosebud opens, darkens, withers.
Where it was sweet, now it prickles.

Anonymous (translated by Donny Smith)

Till next time,
Don

Buddha Beat: Snyder, Kerouac, and the End of the Beginning of the End

Two Beat items of interest: 1) the reemergence of the Beatnik Questionnaire and 2) a short but very deep interview with Gary Snyder, entitled The Koan Ranger. I first saw item 1 in a posting by the glorious Bookslut and then had it forwarded by a friend giving me a gentle nudge, the second comes courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.

The Snyder interview is more Buddha than Beat: no, wait, that's the same thing or maybe not.

No, wait, that's Zen: is that Buddha and Beat or Buddha or Beat or Buddha or Beat or what?

Yeah, or what.

Ok, so there is a third Beat related item: one of my favorite sites since forever is Lit Kicks, which has morphed over the years and is now the Literary Kicks blog. It is always at least interesting and frequently much more. Check it out.

Yes, as you probably already suspected, there is a fourth thing Beat: since it ain't a poetry blog if there ain't no poems, here are a couple of haikus from one of the Near Perfect Books of Poetry. I decided to open Kerouac's Book of Haikus at random and here are three of the eight haikus on facing pages (now I lost the page and can't find it again to let you know - can you beat that?):


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

Just woke up
-----afternoon pines
Playing the wind

Ah the birds
--at dawn,
my mother and father

You paid yr homage
--to the moon,
And she sank

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

Right, four Buddha related items, three Buddha related poems. Not too shabby, and that's Beat thing number five.


best,
Don

Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput 
Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues),
just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books
page, either in a comment to this post, in email to lilliput review at
gmail dot com, or in snail mail to the address on the homepage.

PS pp. 146-147 ... I found it.

Antonio Machado, Issa, and the Return of the King

Cover by Oberc

As time and tide permit, I've been trying to get a hold of and read some of the volumes suggested for the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list. This week, via the wonder that is interlibrary loan, I received The Sea and the Honeycomb: a Book of Tiny Poems, edited by Robert Bly. I've enjoyed much of what I've read; a great many of the poems are translations by Bly himself, occasionally with a collaborator.

The poems that struck me immediately were translations of the work of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado. I've run into his work before and enjoyed it, particularly the shorter poems. Here are a couple of Bly's translations:


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

It is good to know that glasses
are to drink from;
the bad thing is not to know
what thirst is for.

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

If it is good to live,
then it is better to be asleep dreaming,
and best of all,
mother, is to awake.

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


Another excellent poem from this collection is by, of all people, Vladimir Nabokov:


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

Only the birds are able to throw off their shadow.
The shadow always stays behind on earth.

Our imagination flies:
we are its shadow, on the earth.

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


Finally there are a few poems by the delightful Issa, our patron; though I've seen this one translated differently, I like the starkness of this rendering:


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

Why mention people?
Even the scarecrows
are crooked.

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


The Sea and the Honeycomb is out of print and if you want a copy of your own, it will cost you via amazon's used market or my favorite virtual source for used books, abebooks. Some of the Bly translations are available in The Winged Energy of Delight, a volume of selected translations. The Issa and Machado are there but since the later's poems are part of a larger work, they are not indexed and one has to leaf through. But they are there, along with an incredible cross section of great poets. Here is the contents page plus a generous preview of the poems, courtesy of HarperCollins.

Since this blog takes its name and inspiration from the master poet Issa, I've tried to provide many different translators takes on his work (the Issa link above is new and different). Here is a translation from a master in his own right, Cid Corman, with a very different approach to another familiar Issa poem:


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

Only one guy and
only one fly trying to
make the guest room do

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


I've begun preparing the contributor copies of the new issues, #'s 163 & 164, for mailing and I'm hoping that they will begin to go out over the next two weeks. In the meantime at flashback central, here are a couple of little pieces from Lilliput #85, originally published in January 1997:



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

Cutting

My father leans close
to my ear, a root beer
barrel rattling over
back teeth, he fumbles
against the rust clasp
on a blue plastic case,
scissors and black combs
within clear pockets.

Mark Forrester

Oh, Cowboy,

you climb up my tree,
wake all the bats.

Lindsey Royce

Why We Never Got Rid of the Poodle
----We Found at Blue Stem Lake

We are all of us
sparrows
in winter branches
without names.

Greg Kosmicki

Dear Don:

More threats. More haiku.

John Cantey Knight

N. B.

Life is like
nothing else.
Exactly.

Cid Corman

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



Finally, to close out with a smile, below you will find the Monday edition from a relatively new comic strip, Lio. Lio is about a little boy with a mighty attraction to the macabre: zombies, monsters, aliens etc. are all regularly, and happily, featured in this generally amusing strip. This week takes it to another level with a homage to the greatest comic kid of all-time, Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes. Below, Lio is once more messing with the mystic, with results that will delight comic fans everywhere:




I'm a sucker for cartoon strip (as opposed to comic/graphic novel) crossovers.


Till next time:

Don

Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput 
Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues),
just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books
page, either in a comment to this post, in email to lilliput review at
gmail dot com, or in snail mail to the address on the homepage.

To America, James Weldon Johnson

Yesterday was the birthday of the great African American poet, James Weldon Johnson. Though sadly this poem still applies to the situation of many African Americans in the United States today, it also has a larger context in light of contemporary history.


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

To America

How would you have us, as we are?
Or sinking 'neath the load we bear?
Our eyes fixed forward on a star?
Or gazing empty at despair?

Rising or falling? Men or things?
With dragging pace or footsteps fleet?
Strong, willing sinews in our wings?
Or tightening chains about our feet?

James Weldon Johnson

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


Till tomorrow,
Don

Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput 
Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues),
just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books
page, either in a comment to this post, in email to lilliput review at
gmail dot com, or in snail mail to the address on the homepage.

Two by Issa

Here's a small beauty, translated by Robert Hass, from Issa, a great way to start a weekend:



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

A cuckoo sings
to me, to the mountain
__to the mountain.

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


And, while walking to work this week, I saw the first morning glory in bloom; I've been watching tendril progress for weeks. Here's another Issa take, this time translated by David Lanoue, assisted by Shingi Ogawa:


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

morning-glory--
one inch from its tip
darkness

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

best,
Don

William Butler Yeats

As mentioned this morning on The Writer's Almanac, today is the birthday of William Butler Yeats. They have three excellent short poems by Yeats at the site. In addition to those, I'd like to add this one:


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

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

William Butler Yeats

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

In addition, here is an audio of Yeats reading "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."

best,

Don



Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues), just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books page.

Gerald Stern, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Despair That Is Modern Poetry

Cover by Wayne Hogan

Well, just when I thought I had everything reasonably under control I realized I've fallen behind in replies to poetry submissions, the bread and butter of a little magazine, or at least this one. So, although I'd planned to concentrate on proofing and tweaking the layout for issues #163 & 164 this weekend, I believe I'll be concentrating more on the mentioned work at hand.

For those waiting an inordinately long amount of time (over 90 days), my apologies. I should have that corrected within two weeks.

I mentioned in one of two posts last Sunday that I have been reading Gerald Stern's new book, Save the Last Dance. I finished it up yesterday and won't comment in depth until I've gone through it again at least once more, but confess to being mildly disappointed. As is usual with most modern books of poetry, there were 3 or 4 poems that grabbed me. This is exactly opposite to my usual reaction to Stern: there are usually only 3 or 4 poems that don't grab me. But, before I get ahead of myself, I obviously have some rereading to do. I'm also reading Adam Zagajewski's new volume, Eternal Enemies. Zagajewski is another poet I usually enjoy very much and I'm having a similar reaction, though there are more than 3 good poems. Perhaps more on that front later. In the meantime, here is one of the poems by Gerald Stern that did grab me (plus an audio of Stern reading it last year):


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

Death By Wind

As for those who face their death by wind
and call it by the weird name of forgiveness
they alone have the right to marry birds,
and those who stopped themselves from falling down
by holding the wall up or the sink in place
they can go without much shame for they
have lived enough and they can go click, click
if they want to, they can go tok, tok
and they can marry anything, even hummingbirds.

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


I'm not sure if I'm getting a bit jaded, having a little "modern" poetry burnout, or if these are just two more examples of books that prompted my quest for books of poems that are nearly perfect. The reader contributed list is currently up to 36 books. If you'd like to make a suggestion for the list, just leave it in a comment to this post or send it in an email to lilliput review at google dot com. Meanwhile, I may find myself scurrying back to Han Shan's Cold Mountain, Basho's never ending road, or Issa's most accommodating, if decidedly disheveled, hut.

A tip of the hat goes out to Rus Bowden at The Poetic Ticker for pointing the way to last week's column by Ted Kooser at American Life in Poetry. Though I'm not much for parody, the item he posted last week by R. S. Gwynn is too good in and of itself not to share. First the much esteemed original by Gerard Manley Hopkins:


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

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
---FFor skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
-------For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnuts fall; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
__And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
_Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
__With swift, slow, sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
_________Praise him.

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


Here is R. S. Gwynn's Fried Beauty, from the original American Life in Poetry post:



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

Fried Beauty

Glory be to God for breaded things—
_Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
___ Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-flow onion rings,
_-Hushpuppies, okra golden to the eye,
____ That in all oils, corn or canola, swim

Toward mastication's maw (O molared mouth!);
__Whatever browns, is dumped to drain and dry
______On paper towels' sleek translucent scrim,
These greasy, battered bounties of the South:
------------------ Eat them.

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


Yes, refreshing as that is, I believe a return to Cold Mountain is in order very soon. For now, it's time to take a look at some poems from Lilliput Review #86, from January 1997. This one opened with a beauty by Mary S. Rooney (with one more to follow):


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

The wheel is geared

carved for movement, and we,
born in winter, move,
are moved forward
_____________into spring

knowing only:
this apparent fixity of seasons,
this sweet, uncertain wobble
____________________of earth.

M. S. Rooney

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

one after the other--
the last sound
the wave makes

Gary Hotham

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

"Lust For Life"

smoking a cigarette, bleached
by the tv light at 1 a.m.
watching Iggy Pop
Sufi dance across an all white
sound stage on MTV

God, i wish
my dead uncle
had lived to see
this

Mark Borczon

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

Answer from Tibet

When the wind
increases
to blizzard
and your feet
are not your
own, and your open arms
write without notion, that
is a prayer
flag, my friend

M. S. Rooney

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

Scattered diamonds
__far below the skyscrapers:
Life isn't so beautiful.

Kiyoe Kitamura

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

One final note about something I am reading and enjoying very much: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. For many years I had been scared off this title as too complex, too hard, overwhelming etc.; I've found, in fact, that for me it is just the opposite. Though character names can be a bit difficult to follow, there is a family tree at the beginning of the book that untangles any twisted skeins. This is the art of storytelling at its finest, the oral tradition in written form. Though Louise Erdrich has long been one of my favorite contemporary writers, it's taken me until now to make the connection between these two writers. Fine stuff, indeed. And, if you are still scared off, check out Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold. It is one of my favorite novels and clocks in at an unthreatening 120 pages. I don't think you'll be sorry.


Until the next go round,
Don

Frost Vandals Sentenced to, Shudder, Poetry

After they had been sentenced by the presiding judge to take a class
on Robert Frost for the crime of vandalizing Frost's summer home, 
Poet and Frost biographer Jay Parini selected, among others, the
following poem to use in a class for the two dozen convicted teens.



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

Out, Out by Robert Frost
The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behing the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap -
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart -
He saw all was spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. The hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then - the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.


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



Here's an NPR interview with Parini discussing the whole situation.

I'm not sure Frost would have been as kind as Parini or the judge.
Perhaps they should have been simply sentenced to understand The 
Road Not Taken.

From Issa:


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

"Get ready, get ready
 for death!"
-cherry blossoms

----------translated by David Lanoue

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

Thanks to David at f/k/a for pointing to a series of links about the Frost
vandalization.  His is still the best website to get all your legal and
haiku news


Till next time,
Don



Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput 
Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues),
just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books
page.

Bo Diddley, Rest in Peace, and the New Gerald Stern

Just back after a week away from the computer. Life, however, went on and, so, sadly, came the news of the passing of Bo Diddley. There have been and will continue to be many arguments about the roots and origins of rock and roll. One thing is certain: without Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard, there would be no rock and roll. Of course, there are many others who can be cited but, together, these 3 broke down the barriers by storming the charts, bringing the sounds of African American rhythm and blues into the mainstream and changing the world. This early clip from 1955 captures a special moment in this transition.

Well, I've come back to a mountain of mail/email/orders, so I need to attend to that. The list of Near Perfect Books continues to expand, with three more titles added this morning. I've begun laying out the next two issues of Lillie, which are due out in July. Wish me luck with that, since I'm about 3 weeks behind!

During my time away, I plunged into the new Gerald Stern book, Save the Last Dance. It is the usual blend of stream-of-consciousness, Gerald Stern mythologizing (as opposed to mythologizing about Gerald Stern) and, as a bonus, contains the entire The Preacher, last year issued as a Quarternote Chapbook from Sarabande Books. Here's my take on The Preacher, posted back in February.

I'm not quite through the section of shorter poems, so I won't comment until I go back and read the whole thing through again except to say one poem leapt out at me: "Asphodel." Here is the opening, prototypical Stern, a couple of excerpts, and the close:


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

He was dead so he was only a puff
of smoke at the most and I had to labor to see him
or just to hear and when we spoke it was as
if we were waiting in the rain together ...
----------and I forgot to say that
he was a veteran and he wore a green cap
that had Korea Veteran printed on the face ...
and I forgot to say his ears were large,
the way it sometimes happens in older men,
though he was dead ... and war
was what we talked about and what the flowers
were the way a poppy was the emblem
of World War One and we both laughed at how
there were no flowers for Korea nor any
poems for that matter though he was sad and although
he wore that hat he said it was a stupid
useless war, unlike Achilles Odysseus
talked to in Hell, who loved his war and treasured
the noses he severed and the livers he ruptured,
and picture them selling their aspholdel in front of
a supermarket or a neighborhood bank
and picture us waiting until our ears were long
just to hate just one of their dumb butcheries.

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


More soon,
Don


Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues), just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books page.

Joseph Semenovich, Kerouac, and a Handful from the Archive

Cover by Oberc

In last week's post, I featured a couple of poems by the late poet Joseph Semenovich. In the discussion that followed, there was interest in his work and I discovered that there was very little on the net. Joseph died 10 years ago, a small press poet, well regarded by those who knew his work. I found out about his passing when mail I sent to him came back from the post office simply stamped "Deceased." It was at once a shock and a great sadness. In order to take a bit of the edge off of that feeling that still resonates today, here are the balance of poems by Joseph I published way back then:


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

poet's lament

there's hardly a piece of silence
i can listen to
without myself
trying to accompany it

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

the sunlight
through the window
over my shoulder
over the surface
of the table
into
the cup
of tea

on the ceiling
le mot juste
flickering

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

Curio

Figure out the sky.
Tally up the bricks.
Count the windows.
Die.

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


That's it, 5 poems in total including the two from last week, but it's more than I've found anywhere else. #97 of Lilliput was dedicated to Joseph and here is what I wrote then, the only prose piece ever published in Lillie in its nearly 20 years history.


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

Sometimes it's necessary to pause for a moment and think what we are about. The life of a small press poet is fleeting in so many ways: the impression that is left, the recognition (if any) that comes, even the time allotted to practice one's craft. The constant battle for validation while all too frequently fighting meaningless jobs to just get by. And, so, Joseph Semenvoich, a poet, has died. I knew little of him besides a fleeting (that word again) correspondence. But what I did know of him was something of his essence: his words. His work was at once beautiful and cutting, to the quick. As with many another poet, his poems were an exploration of self, the eternal quest for meaning and worth. The following three poems (which were included in this post and last week's), from previous issues of Lillie, say it all, and then some.

This one's for you, Joseph.

July 1998

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


Before heading to the archive, one further note of interest from the website Beat Scene. They've posted a clip from a forthcoming Kerouac film entitled One Fast Move and I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur. Here's a synopsis from the Internet Movie Database:

"He was called the vibrant new voice of his generation -- the avatar of the Beat movement. In 1957, on the heels of the triumphant debut of his groundbreaking novel, On The Road, Jack Kerouac was a literary rock star, lionized by his fans and devotees. But along with sudden fame and media hype came his unraveling, and, by 1960, Kerouac was a jaded cynic, disaffected from the Beat culture he helped create and tortured by self-doubt, addiction and depression.

Desperate for spiritual salvation and solitude, as well as a place to dry out, he secretly retreats to Lawrence Ferlinghettis rustic cabin in the Big Sur woods. But his plan is foiled by his own inner demons, and what ensues that summer becomes the basis for Kerouacs gritty, yet lyrically told, semi-autobiographical novel, Big Sur.

One Fast Move or Im Gone: Kerouacs Big Sur, takes the viewer back to Ferlinghettis cabin and to the Beat haunts of San Francisco and New York City for an unflinching, cinematic look at the compelling events the book is based on. The story unfolds in several synchronous ways: through the narrative arc of Kerouacs prose, told in voice-over by actor and Kerouac interpreter, John Ventimiglia (of HBOs The Sopranos); through first-hand accounts and recollections of Kerouacs contemporaries, whom many of the characters in the book are based on such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Carolyn Cassady, Joyce Johnson and Michael McClure; by the interpretations and reflections of writers, poets, actors and musicians who have been deeply influenced by Kerouacs unique gifts like Tom Waits, Sam Shepard, Robert Hunter, Patti Smith, Aram Saroyan, Donal Logue and S.E. Hinton; and by stunning, High Definition visual imagery set to original music composed and performed by recording artist, Jay Farrar of Son Volt, with additional performance by Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie." IMDB

This week's issue from the archive is #87, published in April 1997 and dedicated to the memory of small press pioneer and publisher of the legendary Wormwood Review, Marvin Malone. The further back in time we go in the archive, the more the tone alters and so it is a bit like reading a personal journal for me. Here's a few numbers from this issue:


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

stink bug
on the blackberry,
look carefully

Ralph S. Coleman

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

Translations

A scar of clouds
creeping down the belly
of the sky

means no one.

Tidepools: a season
of futures
hung on the short tail
of now.

Jane Vanderbosch

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

Mountain
go tell
it to
the sky.

Cid Corman

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


Until next time,
Don


Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues), just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books page.