BACKWATER GRAYBEARD TWILIGHT by t. kilgore splake
Thunder Sandwich Publishing
165 Paris Pike, McKenzie, TN. 38201
192 pages, $17.50

Backwater Graybeard Twilight is a big book of poetry and photographs from small press mainstay, t. kilgore splake. In this volume, the poet writes about gains and losses. It would seem that his poetry is an attempt to prove that one gains more than one loses by relinquishing his established "place" in the world. The introduction and the poems themselves reveal how splake did such a thing in the late 80's, when he elected to take an early retirement from an academic institution and to leave his family for the modern equivalent of a Walden-type existence, a solitary room over a gallery in a small town in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

One should not, however, come to this work with fixed preconceptions about how a man ought to live his life or about how poetry must be written. Either prejudice could limit a reader in terms of what he might take away from this bank of winding narratives. Like Kerouac's Sal Paradise, Bukowski's Henry Chinaski, and Connellan's Boppledock, splake creates his own auto-biographical alter ego. It is the understood I that always hovers behind the clipped sentences, that indeed provides the underpinning that avoids the verbal collapses that often occur in experimental poetry. The complexity of this "graybeard" persona can not be underestimated. In "cross country escape," he is beaten and driven away: "rogue coyote limping off to sanctuary." In "expatriate homeboy returns" he is "one of those who bailed/ out early, didn't look back," a world weary Eugene Gant. "the trophy room" invokes the spirit of the sophisticated drunk who needs the "quiet sanctuary for few dedicated to serious drinking, occasional/ existential discussions, rare merriment, down and around town/ mayhem." Many of these poems share the joy that the poet finds in the stark nature that surrounds him in the UP. Poetic lines wind along trails, climb cliffs, and ford icy rivers.

The nature motif is appropriate for this work because these are truly image-driven poems. splake's ability to "see" is demonstrated as well in the exceptional black and white photos that accompany the poems. But it is his ability to drive the reader onward with visual poetic imagery that overcomes the occasional technical awkwardness that must occur when one attempts so boldly to recreate internal dialogue. There is in fact much about this work that could be described as bold, even fearless. splake is not afraid to cut himself open in public. He is arrogant enough to embrace the title of "poet." He is arrogant enough to say that a man can take poetry to the high wire without a net, can take the reader sometimes to places he may not want to go. In BACKWATER GRAYBEARD TWILIGHT, t. kilgore splake shows that he has the courage to inhabit his own poems, a rare feat these days.
Tim Peeler

Journey by Carter Monroe
194 pages $16
1st Books www.firstbooks.com
Available at Amazon.com

One might be tempted to compare young Eddie Watson, protagonist of this first novel, with Holden Caufield, however a close read of Monroe's Journey will show you that 19-year-old Watson is nowhere near as disillusioned as was Salinger's young character. Watson is basically a decent college kid on a four-day toot of self-discovery, a short escape from the rigors of school and a father that demands too much of him, as well as the boredom of everyday life in eastern North Carolina. His bubble of naivety is dented in the process, but not in a way that damages his newly discovered sense of self. In fact, one comes away with the notion that young Eddie learns more about life in a couple of days than he would later in all the classes he attends.

The action takes place over a four-day summer weekend in 1971, when Watson rides his thumb in search of some basic truths and discovers that LSD is the catalyst for revelation. There are strangers encountered and old buddies chanced across, beers guzzled and weed smoked. There is sex in the backseat with a girl of no particular beauty, and there is unrequited lust for one that shines. And finally there is a hit of Sunshine that opens his mind's eye in a revelatory way. The eye stays open for quite some time and through it Eddie begins to realize a bit more of what life is about, and what his eventual place in the scheme of things might be.

A denizen of the era in question, Monroe has down pat the easy patter between the characters and the loose nature of the times. It's obvious that he's rolled, passed and burned a few in his day. He's also got a great handle on the small town feel of things in Southern latitudes and the poolroom culture of the time -- that was before the dens of iniquity became "recreation centers." It was a era when hitchhiking was an acceptable (and relatively safe) mode of transportation and, as he notes, was sometimes faster than commercial transportation. It was also a time in which the younger generation began to challenge many of the social mores their parents had embraced, which resulted in the establishment of a counterculture and great deal of polarity between the generations--much of which remains alive and well today, albeit the focus has changed from social activism to the dynamic arrogance of the "Me First Generation."

Another admirable thing about this book is that, considering the time frame, Monroe steers clear of the anti-Vietnam War polemic that is so prevalent in books of the era. That's a temptation to which so many writing of the sixties and seventies succumb and it's refreshing to see that, while the disastrous incursion into Southeast Asia made its indelible impression on those times, there was life beyond it--even in a setting where many were using the education process to escape the war's wrath.

This is an engrossing first novel. Monroe plans to follow this up with another volume concerning the ongoing growth of Eddie, and indeed that project is currently underway. He's got a character here that can develop into middle age, as must we all, but with some measure of self awareness perhaps beyond the ordinary.
Jim Chandler

Unborn Again
S.A. Griffin
Phony Lid Productions
PO Box 29066, Los Angles, CA. 90029
121 pages perfect bound
$10

S. A. Griffin is one of those West Coast poets with a circle of wild friends, the urge to let it all hang out sometimes and the talent to do just about any damned thing he wants. In this slick little volume, he takes us through the dubious glories of downtown LA bars, readings and even manages to make phone sex poetic, which ain't no easy feat. We won't even mention foot races with perverts in the park after three-hour baths.

If Griffin's powers of observation were honed much sharper he'd be classified a lethal weapon. He may ply the streets of Lala Land, but he's traded in the rose colored glasses for a set of poetic bifocals that miss little of the action. And, unlike many who dwell at some level of recognition in the City of Angles, Griffin holds fast to his sense of sweet humanity at all times--even if he's calling you a mother fucker he's doing it in a righteous way.

I'm not going to weave my way through this wonderful collection of poetry one by one or anything, I'm just going to say this: If your small press budget for the year is ten bucks, blow the whole wad on this little masterpiece. You can't go wrong.
-Jim Chandler



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Smell Me
Cait Collins
Fingerprint Press
P/O. Box 5473 Depford, NJ. 08096
36 pages ISBN 1-929603-02-9
$5

Cait Collins is a wild woman with a sock full of smoking cannabis, a van full of toys and a head full of some of the wildest poetry you're ever going to run across. Cait, sometimes known as "Ms All-That", is a Bukowski fanatic—legend has it she sunk her vibrator into the ground at Buk's final resting place and she no doubt performed other perverse rituals as well. Buk is still smiling.

No matter, she is forgiven whatever indiscretions might have occurred because she buys the right with "the pinwheel", her poem about that gravesite visit. Not to say that it's the only good poem in this collection—far from it—but it's the one that grabbed this old boy by the ass and stood him on his head.

Collins is a tough gal with a big heart. And it wouldn't surprise me if her cojones aren't as big as those owned by the dude she idolizes. Along with all her writing and rambling, she also somehow finds time to edit The Hold on a monthly basis.

Check out this book and her others, and her 'zine as well. You won't be disappointed.
-Jim Chandler


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High Production Drama/Ron Androla
20 pages $5
Smiling Dog Press
9875 South Fritz/Maple City, MI. 49664

One of the biggest mysteries to many involved in the world of underground poetry is: why would a guy with the obvious intellect of Ron Androla spend his entire adult life working the blue-collar labor of a factory when he could obviously do something less menial?

Perhaps it all boils down to the "us and them" factor, with us being the poets and literary machinators of the world and them being the materialistic establishment types who sit on fat asses in offices and dictate the meaningless and mundane. Androla doesn't choose the easy trip because to do so would require that he give up the lifeblood of his poetry, the vein to the heart of words connecting his struggles with the corporate Amerikan (his spelling) beast. The factory is an inherent part of Androla's soul and the wellspring for much of his verbal magic.

Androla sings the song of the common man loud and often, if perhaps at times in a key that frightens the uninitiated. His words at times spin out tales of struggles to stay pure at heart and Zen-like cool amidst the noise of the world. Having regained a long lost love in recent times, his poetry sometimes celebrates life and love and and the good fortune of that out-of-the-blue reunion. And sometimes, his revelations of life in the factory and the character of his workplace mates--such as are found in this volume--come very near to conventional writing.

In "High Production Drama" he takes us into the noise and stink of the factory where he introduces us to some of the characters that inhabit a third of his life. There's the squirrelly "Can Man," a two-tooth dude who salvages aluminum. And Judy, working painful overtime as she battles her way toward retirement and the dream of rest that may never come. And Boner and Sammy and Kevin and the dirty jokes, obscene humor, farts, homophobia, all the ploys men use to ease their struggle through the slow turn of the clock hands in places where hard labor is the rule.

But the system does not always extract from the man what it wishes. Disgruntled after a meeting with management during which the fate of the factory is placed in the hands of the production workers, who are urged to be ever more productive, the old rebel gets his chance to gums the works, as in the passage below:

I slowed down last night.

"75 percent is not ACCEPTABLE!" Barry shouted.

I ran about 65 percent. There are many steps involved in the 100-ton No. 1 & carelessness can easily snowball into disaster. I cannot work at break-neck speed any longer, it feels foolish. All the machinery is old & poorly maintained, & so many people get hurt. It's the Company's process, it's the Company's equipment, it's the Company's hateful game.

 

Yet one begins to understand just how Buddha cool Androla is when one realizes that his work life among the course and savage corrupts his deep sense of humanity not one iota. Indeed, it seems enhanced by all this madness if anything, as seen in the passage below:

Today the whirl of Earth is not spinning, it descends, & the descent is a slowness near the bottom of human cosmology. Judy, my knee pain-medicated bad thyroid cigarette-cancered rotting kidney sweetheart, is working overtime, listening to Sinatra on an old cheap radio by her machine, she's probably humming & all her pain is soothed by the memory of sunlight thru her mother's kitchen window.

It takes a man with a big heart to write a passage like that, because the concern shines brightly through the fiberglass dust. Androla loves this old broken down woman, purely and simply. He sees and accepts her for what she is--a human being who earns her piece of the pie without bitching and whining about it.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fine production job here as well. This chap wasn't fired off a Xerox or even run offset, because publisher Dean Creighton takes his printing seriously. The book was run on a Heidelberg Windmill letterpress (having operated one of those cranky sons of bitches my hat is off to Creighton for getting through a 400 press run!), and some of the graphics are carved linoleum block. Printed in an unusual 9 1/2" x 5" size and perfectbound, this is a neat little offering both for content and construction.
Jim Chandler

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Wind Rocked Our Babies to Sleep/Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel
42 pages $5
Mt. Aukum Press
PO Box 483/Mt. Aukum, CA. 95656

The first thing one observes upon reading this fine book of poetry is that Wilma McDaniel could have been a character straight from the pages of The Grapes of Wrath. Born in rural Oklahoma and gone west with that flood of Okies who sought to escape the Dust Bowl of the Depression Era, the young girl obviously picked up a whole lot of learning along the way. And most of it shines through in the 46 poems collected here.

Now an octogenarian, Ms. McDaniel has lost none of her astute ability to see and record the human foibles that consume most of us, nor has her keen sense of humor waned. She writes with the eye and ear of one tuned to the level underlying the obvious and finds that core realm where real things are happening, there beneath the facade people present to the world.

An "Old Cowboy Holding on" gets a jab from her humorous tongue in one poem by that name. After briefly detailing the woes of an old cowboy who got his foot caught in a rope and was lucky to have survived a dragging, McDaniel concludes:

I know you don't like to

hear it

but you better figure more

on checkers and dominoes

and give your spurs

to the Historical Society.

Not all of McDaniel's poetry is so whimsical, however. In 'Wife of a Sodbuster,' she details the bloody spot on the earth left by a farmer's self-inflicted shotgun death and how his wife planted a rosebush in the spot. The poem ends:

Her many sons

in future years

would plow around

the bush with care

sniff its fragrance

and always wonder

if the stain on the ground

colored the roses red.

Ms. McDaniel wastes few words, as the above examples illustrate. For all the folksy charm that bleeds from these pages, Ms. McDaniel possesses a level of literary sophistication that belies her rural roots and the poverty she escaped.

Mt. Aukum publisher Ben Hiatt has done this little volume proud with his nice design and quality presentation. This is a book you can read over and over again without ever tiring of it, and you'll spot something new with each new reading.
Jim Chandler

Winters in New Jersey/Jim Valvis
40 pages $5
Mt. Aukum Press
PO Box 483/Mt. Aukum, California 95656

This sterling five-story volume by Jim Valvis is an auspicious first book by one of the up and coming young writers working today. When you read a story like "Every Woman in the World" you know beyond doubt that Valvis is a threat to make it in the real sense. The late Ray Carver, one of Valvis' idols and one of the finest crafter of short fiction of this century, couldn't have handled the story much better.

The first thing you notice when reading Valvis' stories is the open honesty; the man is painfully honest, almost embarrassingly so at times. His stories span a range of characters and situations, but they all have a common thread: characters in conflict with a world that is very frequently out of synch and order. From the harried gas station attendant in "Every Woman . . ." to the violent young protagonists in "Devil's Den," Valvis has a way of getting inside his characters' heads and exploring the dark nooks and crannies. His stories are infrequently happy ones, but then such is life, where true happiness seems more the exception than the rule. And so Valvis very often views the world through a glass darkly, but with profound insight and an uncanny ability to draw us into the lives of the characters he has wrought. And he has learned well the lesson that it is character and conflict--and not plot--that drive a short story to a powerful conclusion.

Another common thread in Valvis' prose is poverty--of the financial sort certainly, and sometimes, of the spirit. The writer, by his own accounts, has struggled to survive in a world that gives short shrift to people who call themselves writers. Valvis knows that for the most part, writers are broke beings who are rich only in the language inside their heads and the dreams in their hearts. He has worked at menial tasks, the "poor man's jobs" as the lead character says in "The Moon Motel," one of the pieces here, and thus knows the lot of the downtrodden scraping by on a mere pittance. This solid opening paragraph sets the tenor for the story well:

I was living in a blue room inside the Moon Hotel. I had come upon hard times. I worked a poor man's job and I lived a poor man's life. I ate whatever I could get my hands on. I rolled my own cigarettes using the cheapest and harshest tobacco I could find. I wore shoddy clothes and my shoes had holes. There was shit in my toilet that wouldn't flush. The landlady would run when she saw me coming, unless the rent was due, and then she would hunt me down. I hadn't had sex in two years. I went to work and I came home. I was twenty years old and time was running out on me.

But, dispirited or not, his characters are seldom broken beyond redemption, no matter how much they have suffered. This character has the heart to spend his hard-earned money on repairing a fake gold necklace he found on a beach so that he can give it to a deranged girl at work with whom he's found some common ground--or so he thinks, until she rejects his kindness violently. And even then he is resigned to acceptance, acknowledging finally that the bracelet (ergo, the things we sometimes place too much value on) is obviously fake.

Do yourself a favor and buy this book. You can look back on it someday and say, "I remember when" when the name James Valvis is staring out at you from a shelf in some big bookstore.
Jim Chandler

The Murderous Clown/t. k. splake
32 pages/$7
Athena Angel Productions
PO Box 508, Calumet, MI. 49913



t. k. splake, the graybeard bardic ren dancer of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is a virtual writing machine. splake has written more poems than all of us have fingers and toes combined, and his published chapbooks amount to near that volume, including several volumes of his outstanding photographs. As I once essayed, splake lives the poem as well as anyone I have ever known and that's not about to change.

The Murderous Clown encompasses a smattering of splake's many constant focal points: the beauty of nature, the futility of small lives in backwater places, the inevitability of death, the need for love, and the compulsion to leave some permanent mark on the times through which we all blaze so rapidly. The identity of the "Clown" in the whole Circus of Life is pretty obvious, although the title is derived from a somewhat muddled Hank Marksbury poem included in the inside back cover.

splake is frequently at odds with the "suits" in life, those who take the safe route and play the game for the scraps they're tossed. Among those are the academic snobs from whom he escaped when he abandoned a tenured college professorship for early retirement and the opportunity to throw himself into the sea of words full time.

He reveals his disgust with such types in the opening stanza of "Negative Bardic Madness": Born toilet-trained, instant suit, tie, pocket/pencil holder adult, rote sweet lullabies of wall/street journal stats, figures. His contempt grows as he later proclaims that such souls are living without panache, destined to die forgotten,/dull shithead loser, failure in god's eyes, hoping/suicide by fire or acid poisons cleansing his rejected soul.

On a lighter note, splake hearkens back to his Brautigan roots in "graybard fishing": bookies, rainbows growing plump, swimming/under tree shadows, backwoods beaver ponds/-/gray-grizzled swamper poet no longer tying/delicate royal coachmen, wispy nylon ends,/-/angling now with poems lovingly attached,/barbless lure floating on gentle stream tides.

One of the finer poems in the volume is "Dancers," in which splake counter-points his persona with that of the legendary Albert Huffstickler. To wit, the first two stanzas:

albert, nervous, noisy metro austin, walking

blocks, passing intersection stoplights, daily

writing poetry, ruta maya coffee house,

 

splake, bardic backwater upper peninsula

exile, grabbing newspapers, incoming postings,

mugga-mugga espresso,"friendly place" table,

"This is a fine book by one of the better writers working today, and I have just scraped the surface here. You can check out a partial list of splake titles here and contact him at his snail or at tsplake@hotmail.com for more information.
Jim Chandler

Jim Chandler
American OutLaw Poet/Editor
Thunder Sandwich
JimChandler.Net