Down This Crooked Road (Anthology)

Edited by: RD Armstrong & William Taylor, Jr.

Poets: Miles J. Bell, Christopher Robin, MK Chavez, William Taylor Jr., Father Luke, Christopher Cunningham and Hosho McCreesh

Lummox Press (PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733-5301) www.lummoxpress.com

Pages: 156
ISBN: 978-1-929878-03-1

USA Price: $15 + $3 Shipping (USA)
WORLD Price: $15 + $10 Shipping (World)
Publishing Date: September 2009

Poets are, as close to definition as possible, obsessed with themselves and death. All of the sex and drugs that get involved are merely byproducts of the twin disciplines of narcissism and morbidity. Of course not every poet gets tied up with sex and drugs, but whatever it is that comes out, the self and the grim reaper remain the core sources (and of course we don’t really write about those types of poets in these pages.)

While this doesn’t play out so well as a lifestyle choice in the mainstream of life, or literature and the arts for that matter, the straight world has a curious way of being slightly more tolerant of excessive or eccentric behavior in poets; a pass for being so obsessed if you will, in exchange for mining these depths for nuggets of brilliant enlightenment that will produce resonant truths that ultimately, allow the average reader or audience member quick access to the self-obsession “drug” without having to pay the consequences of addiction.

San Francisco poet LaDonna Witmer is very smart about this dynamic in her poem collection “The Secrets of Falling” (This Blank Page productions, 2007).

“I am both who you I want you to see
and who I really am
and sometimes those two
trip over each other so often
they are impossible to disentangle.”

* from “The Everyday Show”

While Witmer references Death intermittently in the collection, she uses it mostly as a storefront prop to dress up the much more real issue of identity and identity deconstruction and reconstruction. And this is not to say that significant “others” don’t wind up getting entangled in this mesh:

“at first glance
it would seem
we are becoming
mirror images
latin on one arm
blood on the other.
(you wear your scar
to the right.)

we are not identical
yet. “

* From “SWF”

Witmer’s prose can get a bit clunky at times (see 4th verse above) but unlike most poets who dress their work up in lacey black, she has a wonderful knack for cutting through the bullshit of the bleak vagaries of shoe gazing and pulling out the glorious little shining insights:

“Sometimes I think about
hurting myself
just so you’ll pay me attention.
Today it was the stairs and a
tumbledown vision. You
wouldn’t question the sincerity
of my fall.

You already know I am the clumsiest
lover. Heat seeking lips
fumbling for purchase
on a place that exists somewhere
that is else. Somewhere that is
no longer here.
Sometimes I think although
you love me better
I love you harder. “

* From “Lovesong”

It’s no accident that Witmer hearkens back to the spare brilliance of Sylvia Plath (and there is a tribute poem to “Sylvia” in the book) but very successfully builds upon the Plath legacy (since Sylvia is the seminal godmother of this genre of poetry) by updating the inherent relationship politics (“Newlyweds”) and identity issues (“Alter Ego.”) At the same time, Witmer adds a lyricism that is not typical in Plath, giving the poems the feeling of a conversation instead of a meditation.

Of course, Plath did not have a book that carried the multi-media production values the co-operatively published “Secrets…” has. The design of Kathy Azada using stark and alluring photographs with a mixture of black and white font (sometimes in the same poem further adding to the sense of dialogue with the self or “another” as in “Pretty. Good. Girl.”) This adds depth to the gothic feel of the collection, though in my opinion the font is too small; this may have been necessary to keep some of Witmer’s longer pieces within the necessary parameters of the design.

“The Secrets of Falling” ultimately succeeds in transcending the cliche’ ghetto of “confessional” poetry because LaDonna Witmer does not flinch from revealing the core tenets which make poetry so vital to its advocates.

http://www.cherrybleeds.com/

EYE ON MARS:
http://www.eyeonmars.com/

CP JOURNAL #4:
http://www.covertpoetics.com/roberts.html

SHOOTS AND VINES:
http://shootsandvineszine.blogspot.com/search/label/Contributor%3A%20Paul%20Corman-Roberts

OUTSIDER WRITERS:
http://www.outsiderwriters.org/content/view/809/44/

Hope to see you in 2009!
Heinous Pablo

On March 22nd, 2008 I attended the fabled San Francisco Anarchists Book Fair for the first time in my 15 years of living in the Bay Area. I’m not exactly an “on the scene” kind of guy in either the activist or small press world of the Bay Area (though that last part is changing some now) and it seems like I should have at least gone to the last few if only to get an idea of what real underground literature is doing.

It was a mixed bag to say the least. For me personally it was fantastic. In the way that a family reunion can be fantastic. I was reacquainting with activists I hadn’t seen in over a decade, and many of the writers I’ve been working with so recently. Old friends and new friends all together in one place is nothing to sneeze at. For the press I was there to represent, it was a tougher day. We had no poster and were squeezed in between Food Not Bombs and Z Magazine.

It became clear pretty quickly, not just to me but also to my Howling Dog Press partners in rabble rousing; Mike Palacek and Dan Benbow, that this event was a lot more about “networking” than it was about sales, or, god forbid, active or unified social change (I guess it wouldn’t be “anarchist” then.)

At least for the smaller, poorly organized presses like those of us in the HD crew. AK Press, Bound Together Books, and Left Bank Book Collective from Seattle all seemed to be doing a nice brisk trade in T-shirts, posters, chaps, DVD’s and stickers. Food Not Bombs, Coyote and the SF Bike Messengers union were all fundraising (Food Not Bombs under Keith McHenry could truly be classified as its own press/media outlet) and getting petitions signed for various good sounding causes, including the forming of a Tent City outside the White House in D.C. (inspired by Camp Casey) and the legalization of Prostitution (Coyote.)

But really and truly we were hoping to talk with other activists and other small press publishers about the war, about the peace effort and what is widely considered a genuine conspiracy when it comes to the events of 9/11 which has propelled the greatest superpower the planet has known to the brink of credibility, and yes, possibly even collapse.

A funny thing happened to the outrage over the war and the possibility that it was encouraged by profiteers in the U.S. government…

…no one really gave a shit. Part of the reason is that most of these folks has been down this road in one form or another…it’s even a big reason why all of us were even at this convention in the first place. It’s not as if disbelief in the corruption of the U.S. war machine were the issue. Why it is, so many hard edged activists refuse to identify with the 9/11 Truth Movement? Mostly it’s an insidious mix of hopelessness, helplessness and fear. Hopelessness in that the movement has nowhere to move to (what if Cheney admitted he knew the Twin Towers were coming down months ahead of time? What is there to allow us to believe anything would actually happen to him?) Helplessness in that the truth movement is overrun with agent provocateurs and manicacs. Fear in that already marginalized citizens are only going to be further marginalized by identifying with “conspiracy extremists.” These three things have manifested as a collective pathology in much of the working activist and progressive communities, not just the middle classes.

Dan Benbow said he resented the term “conspiracy theorist.” He much preferred the label “conspiracy realist.” Dan and Mike and I spent some time debating the semantics of the LIHOP (“Let It Happen On Purpose”) school of thinking versus the MIHOP (“Made It Happen on Purpose”) school when it comes to theories involving just how involved were aspects of America’s war machine in the events of 9/11. The obvious demolition of Building 7; the unexplained car bomb outside the Old Executive Offices in Washington DC; the status and mission of numerous military exercises taking place in Manhattan that particular day…not to mention the plain and obvious profit motive the petroleum industry would benefit from in the wake of a middle eastern war, which is why many in the peace movement have this extra paranoia working into the overarching everyday question “how the fuck did it get this bad?” It leads naturally too, “who let it get this bad?” which quite naturally ends up at “why would someone let it get this bad?”

Just take a look at the profits of Exxon/Mobile, Haliburton and Blackwater over the past few years.

Mike Palacek said he has heard from many quarters that Osama bin Laden is not even alive anymore; that he is kept alive like a construct, like Emmanuel Goldstein in Orwell’s 1984.

We discussed these issues passionately, openly, and without any harassment, and conversely, without any interest from hardly anyone else.

Perhaps that is what drove what seemed to be the real topic of interest: Will Obama truly make a difference? Even here amongst this disparate group of radicals, there dialogued a sizable and hardened minority that feels Obama does have what it takes to take our nation out of its self-imposed dark age. But a minority nonetheless. The real overriding sentiment at the Fair could be summed up in a what a bike messenger’s union organizer from L.A. said to me: “Obama basically sucks at the same teat as McCain and Hillary.”

Certainly the people who question Obama see him pulling the most regular military from the middle east, but letting the mercenary groups and contractors who make up the larger part of the occupying Western forces stay on and play at whatever games is deemed necessary for them to play for the greater good of the economic interest.

We didn’t sell a single copy of the “Cost of Freedom” anthology, which is likely the finest anti-war anthology put together in recent history. I couldn’t help but notice that Keith McHenry was only having limited success in garnering enthusiasm from the browsers for an ultra-confrontational tent city in Washington D.C., but make no mistake: Food Not Bombs will be there to do their damndest to feed activists.

Still, I got to meet two fellow Howling Dog writers, folks who share a passion for representing the truly just, the truly more American concept of fairness and justice and not just business death scams perpetuated on other civilizations in our name. Writers aren’t necessarily the best people to unite the activists of the world…after all, theirs is a solitary trade to begin with. But we’re going to have to figure out a way to do it if we feel the human species is worth saving. If not, what’s the point in even trying? The reason I don’t give up is because I know there are some out there who want us to come to just this conclusion of despair…and those who want that most are people who invest in and control the arms and energy industry.

Covered:

Howling Dog Press: http://www.howlingdogpress.com/

AK Press: http://www.akpress.org/

Bound Together Books: http://www.boundtogetherbooks.com/

COYOTE: http://www.bayswan.org/COYOTE.html

Food Not Bombs: http://www.foodnotbombs.net/

9/11 Truth Movement: http://www.911truth.org/ or http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/

Not In Our Name: http://www.notinourname.net/index.php