Tag Archives: Poetry

“Dinosaur Ditch” by Tim Murray

 
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‘Dinosaur Ditch’ is a new chapbook of poetry from CFDL Press, available now, by Tim Murray. Discussed on the Literary Underground by Elynn Alexander. 

“Dinosaur Ditch” was the neighborhood lot of the speaker’s childhood, a place where kids played and climbed trees and got away from their houses in a neutral, outdoor space.

“where boys spend summers pissing from trees

In Dinosaur Ditch.”

Many kids can think back to a similar place in childhood and like Tim, have discovered that they now sit beneath suburban homes. (He describes it in the Project U show, give it a listen) Our Dinosaur Ditches were never as big as they seemed in our memories and like those perceptions, much is necessarily left there. We grow up, we move on.

In this way, Dinosaur Ditch is established as the childhood lost when confronting the “real world” tragedies that erode innocence.  Part of us ends up buried under a suburban home as well.

The “real world” is a town in Indiana: “Where the mercury-laced waters of Lake Michigan lap in the north”, a place of industrial accidents, pollution, generations of plant workers, “where Red Cunningham lost his arm to the alligator machinery of industry.” These were not terrible childhoods, this is acknowledged. There were jobs and families had some security, their needs were met. (pork chop dinners, etc.) Continue reading →

Elevators: Rena Rosenwasser

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Crow Reviews welcomes HK Rainey, and her review of “Elevators”, by Rena Rosenwasser. Kelsey Street Press. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up Rising: Rena Rosenwasser’s Elevators

 

I wanted to hold onto up, space of the

 

future, new building

 

You

 

               –  Rena Rosenwasser, Elevators

All manner of bodies can be seen as physical structures: our bodies are houses, our art is a cathedral, relationships are pieces of architecture buried under layers of miscommunication, missed opportunity and regret. Nowhere is this more clear than in Rena Rosenwasser’s newest collection of poetry, Elevators. In these poems, the narrator is a traveler, a lover, an artist, an archaeologist, expounding on and exploring the physical structures that we have built with our own hands.  Continue reading →

SF Poet Steps Up: Jazzbo Wind

 
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“Jazzbo Wind”, by Michael Layne Heath, published by Kendra Steiner Editions, reviewed by Paul Corman-Roberts for Full Of Crow.

Michael Layne Heath’s poetry is about nothing if not music.  An original Washington DC punk rocker expatriated to San Francisco, Heath has found himself a nice little home with Kendra Steiner Editions, a poetry press that has now also become, surprise, surprise, a music label as well.  KSE publisher Bill Shute has had a long standing commitment to independent rock and roll and literature, and he’s got the writers to back up the commitment from the literary side of the enterprise with other rock  writers like A.J. Kaufman and Doug Draime. Continue reading →

This Reality Of Man, by Michael Aaron Casares

 
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“This Reality Of Man”, poetry by Michael Aaron Casares, published by Lizard’s Tale press, 2010. Reviewed by Elynn Alexander for Full of Crow.

Michael Aaron Casares takes a candid look at humanity, as an observer at times, at other times a participant. He asks us how we spend our time, what we are entitled to, what it means to live with authenticity, to be a “citizen” with responsibilities, to touch down inside our own lives in the context of the “mad swirl”. We live in a vast unknowable, without any sense of how these pieces fit together. Continue reading →

“Watching The Windows Sleep”, Tantra Bensko

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Lynn Alexander for Full Of Crow on “Watching The Windows Sleep”, a chapbook produced by Naissance, written by Tantra Bensko.  A review by Spencer Dew appeared in decomp in January as well and you can check that out here. Find out more on Tantra Bensko at her website and at Naissance Press: Official Tantra Bensko Web Site and the Official Naissance Chapbooks Web Site.

“Whimsical ridiculous meets explorations of consciousness.” Bensko is known for her experimental poetry and fiction, work that is strange and surrealist. It seems fitting that she begins this chapbook with the poem “Non Containers”, as this is not a collection that can be easily defined, a mix of poetry and fiction that tantalizes the imagination: Continue reading →

Rummaging In The Attic, by Constance Stadler

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Rummaging In The Attic is a collection of poetry by Constance Stadler, produced by Differentia Press in 2010. (Read It Online Here)

Constance Stadler takes us through a mindscape, the attic housing of the seemingly disparate in context and chronology, at times rendered mute and others- in the words of Rich Follett- buoyant, ebullient. The attic holds hope in the face of gracious resignation, the poet both grieves and reaches. Continue reading →

Noise Difficulty Flower, by J.D. Nelson

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Noise Difficulty Flower, produced for download by Argotist Ebooks, written by J.D. Nelson. Discussed For Full Of Crow by Elynn Alexander. 

Who knows how long I have been interested in J.D. Nelson’s work, or how I first came across it. As a prolific poet, widely published, one is bound to run into him somewhere, in the usual places. But J.D. Nelson is not the “usual”. What he does is a different kind of poetry. You are amused, challenged, entertained, and you will be transported back to whatever it was that made you love the things you loved before life made the argument for “maturity”. Nelson is playful, but twisted. That said, Nelson doesn’t shy away from serious things, he just presents them right alongside. His poetry is a liberated strange. Continue reading →

"Voices", by Kyle Muntz

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“Voices” by Kyle Muntz, published by Enigmatic Ink, reviewed for Full Of Crow by Lynn Alexander.

“I held my breath, adrift beneath the surface of an immense ocean, mirroring the sky, as all creation mirrors the external, hiding, by means of reflection, its secret of the internal, the silent and true.”

“I spoke to myself with many voices, and dampened my voice on speaking. I had no concept of loneliness.

Galaxies of color accented a fluctuating, formless

kind of vision.”     (p. 96)

Continue reading →

"No Asylum" by Nicholas Karavatos

 
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“No Asylum”, by Nicholas Karavatos, published by Amendment Nine, Arcata, California.

No Asylum is Karavatos’  first full length collection, and he recently wrapped up a book tour in the U.S. on the west coast. He has now returned to Dubai, where he teaches literature and writing at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

I started the book after hearing him read from No Asylum in Sausalito at Studio 333, and at Priya in Berkeley where I felt truly honored to share the “stage”. Karavatos is a strong reader, respected as one of California’s own despite his time at Sharjah and Muscat, his events recommended by an appreciative local poetry community. I read most of it in one sitting, without interruption, despite the length- and I am glad that I read it that way. The poems stand on their own and many have been published previously (West Wind Review, Portland Review, Minotaur, Red Fez, Thieves Jargon, and more)  but there is a sense of cohesion in the way that he has organized them and thematic relationships emerge in the experience of them read together.

Karavatos begins with the ticking of descending elements: social to intimate, then up through ascending years. Before you can jump in, you have to consider why Karavatos chose to begin this way- my sense is that he is establishing the pattern, establishing the parameters of the lens, changing scale. Scale is an important element because it is often easier to understand power and the dynamics of coerced consciousness in terms of individuals as compared to the individual in societal context. Think about the difference between a year and a lifetime, or two people in a relationship as compared to two nations at war, both fraught with their complexities but with scale we can focus more on interplay, absent the distractions of perceived scope. He will return to years again at the end- this, the first of many places in “No Asylum” where we see layers shifting along co-occuring grades, coupled yet distinct, as David Meltzer states: “…sharp voiced political poetry in tandem with astute and tender love lyrics.”

Meltzer’s characterization proves helpful for the reader who second guesses this recognition as there is  subtlety to this achievement, seamless but later, unmistakable.

Your niche is a door to God

My qibla vulva (“The al-Masjid Code”)

In the first poem, “Rapunzel Akbar”, the speaker finds himself considering Kabul via media reporting. It is the land of social control, often described with that eye for contrast that seeks to divide people into “enemy others” compared to the free United States:  “jail for lewdly selling ice cream to girls”. (11) This is the new mandate of the media, supporting distinctions. And of course, supporting the State. Continue reading →

The Gathered Bones, by Michael McAloran

 
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The Gathered Bones, Poetry by Michael  Mc Aloran, Calliope Nerve Media. 

This review is special to us at Full Of Crow because of the loss of the publisher -our friend, Matthew Evelsizer AKA Nobius Black. 

“Michael McAloran sets inner demons to words. He is an artist of sense, a tamer of Muse.” — Nobius Black.

The Gathered Bones represents the latest collection of poetry by the prolific Michael Mc Aloran in ongoing partnership with Calliope Nerve Media- where Mc Aloran is hardly a stranger.

It opens with the following quote by Georges Bataille: “He who is damned bites at the sky…” Continue reading →