Wayne Hogan: Master Artist, Lilliput Review Division

I can't speak for the world of big publishers, but as a small (well, ok, micro) press publisher in the business for over 20 years, I get amazing things in the mail with a fair amount of regularity.  The book pictured above may, however, take the cake for all-time surprises.

The incomparable Wayne Hogan, artist and poet extraordinaire, put together a book of his own artwork that has graced the covers and interiors of Lilliput Review for a good part of those 20 years.

And it is amazing.  I am not going to waste your time trying to describe what he has done - I'm going to show you (for maximum enjoyability, click each image to enlarge):

What we have here is 32 pages jam-packed with the kind of joy only Wayne Hogan can communicate with the tip of pen and a whole bundle of talent.  His work, while often levitating, nonetheless has kept this mag grounded for all these years and I am eternally grateful for that. I asked Wayne if this was a limited run and he said no, but at the moment there are a handful of copies available. Here's the details:

The chap sells for $11.56, which includes postage, and I'm nothing if not prompt in sending things out when I get a request---within no more than 2 days, barring drastically unforeseen circumstances.

So there you have it - fantastic art at a very reasonable rate.  Mail payment to "Wayne Hogan", little books press, PO Box 842, Cookeville, TN  38503.

One final note on the chap; it comes complete with a bevy of blurbs, which were quite a delightful surprise to me.  Here's the back cover:

click to enlarge

The quotes are all genuine, coming from various issues his work has appeared in.  Perhaps, I need to reel in my effusiveness.

It could become ubiquitous.

Then again, perhaps not.


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


This week's feature poem comes from Lilliput Review, #145.  This morning, I'm particularly struck by this poem as I've been preparing for a poetry discussion session next month on Walt Whitman: Father Walt.  One of the poems I'm considering covering is "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life," a poem that captures him during one of his infrequent downside moments.    The tone of this week's poem, "Ebb and Flow" by Robbie Gamble, is distantly related to Whitman's and called it to mind immediately.

There is something about the pensiveness, the taking stock, we humans seem to do on returning to the ocean, that is captured in these works, as well as E. E. Cummings "maggie and millie and mollie and may."  I will follow Robbie's poem with one of my favorite modern haiku that I use when doing introductory classes, a poem by Peggy Heinrich.

Ebb and Flow

my beloved strides the water's edge
trailing her pain in a wake


I sit on the lip of the boardwalk
walking up with the turning tide,
trying to imagine what she passes through


each of us
is pulling toward something new
as water pushes on the skin of the earth


how miraculous, to both be warmed
by the same sun-soft air

Robbie Gamble

Peggy's poem is so brief and so simple that it contains the world entire:







ebb tide
turning to look back
at my footprints

Peggy Heinrich

And, finally, we continue to think very often of our friends in that land of the sea, Japan.  Here is Issa, touching a deep, deep chord:

mother I never knew,
every time I see the ocean,
every time.

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues     Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 95 songs
Hear all 95 at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review