{"id":172,"date":"2009-11-14T07:18:19","date_gmt":"2009-11-14T12:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fullofcrow.com\/crowreviews\/?p=172"},"modified":"2009-11-14T07:18:19","modified_gmt":"2009-11-14T12:18:19","slug":"cellos-et-ghosts-little-white-book-aj-kaufmann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/crowreviews\/2009\/11\/cellos-et-ghosts-little-white-book-aj-kaufmann\/","title":{"rendered":"Cellos et ghosts, AJ Kaufmann"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>&#8220;Cellos et Ghosts&#8221;\u00a0 by AJ Kaufmann, reviewed by Paul Corman-Roberts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><\/em>A.J. Kaufmann has demonstrated more than a passing familiarity with Surrealistic and experimental techniques as a sharpshooting member of Bill Shute\u2019s KSE posse.\u00a0 Small, mimeo-style publications such as <em>Siva in Rags; AntiqueWhite Rain;<\/em> and <em>Symbolisme Psychedelique<\/em> are wonderful, loopy head trips of sound and thought-play; a savvy addition to Shute\u2019s varied and informed gallery of word-wrights.<!--more--><br \/>\nSo it may come as a bit of a surprise to realize that Kaufman, while accomplished in these \u201cmodern classic\u201d 20th Century forms, is as much an aspiring rock lyricist as he is a poet. His recent releases (<em>Cellos et ghosts; Little White Book<\/em>) through his own press, New Polish Beat (<a href=\"http:\/\/newpolishbeat.wordpress.com\">http:\/\/newpolishbeat.wordpress.com\/<\/a>) show a knack for seventies style, roots rock sentiment using a clever mix of hard and soft rhyme within ever so slightly varied choruses.<br \/>\nParticularly in the ten pages of Cellos et Ghosts, the poems are really more like songs that sound as if they could have been penned by a more world weary and heartbroken Robert Hunter:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cForget to forget all the strives of the past<br \/>\nCool it down, easy come to be with you again<br \/>\nRamble on easy rose, you sweet rose of dawn<br \/>\nAnd let all the love you\u2019ve got fall on me as morning rain<br \/>\nAs morning rain\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>From \u201cLay Down\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nKaufman has shown flashes of this style in some of his Kendra Steiner work as well (<em>Satori In Berlin<\/em>) which fits nicely with that publishers rock &amp; roll aesthetic, but very little of Kaufmann\u2019s KSE catalogue has pointed to such sheer songwriting as Cellos et Ghosts.\u00a0 With the exception of \u201cEvery Thursday\u201d and \u201cStunt Man\u2019s Arms,\u201d most of these works, despite containing lyrics, come up short of poetic lyricism as they are more given to rhythm and rhyme.\u00a0 These are lines meant to be crooned in front of a wailing guitar and a country rock back beat.<br \/>\n<em>\u201cFrom the towers of the bridge<br \/>\nI\u2019ve seen the city grow<br \/>\nIt\u2019s stretching almost everywhere I look<br \/>\nSick smoke and all that neon glow<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And in front of a gas light illusion<br \/>\nI\u2019ve seen your face through the smoke<br \/>\nI see your lips talkin\u2019 so sweet<br \/>\nBut what they day I do not know\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>From \u201cBeyond The Pale\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\nNo pieces are more blatantly songs than \u201cFelina,\u201d whose title alone hearkens to the Marty Robbins tune \u201cEl Paso\u201d (a tune that just happened to be extensively covered by Hunter\u2019s running buddies, The Grateful Dead) and \u201cJulie,\u201d which perhaps represents the best synthesis in the collection between poetry and songwriting:<br \/>\n<em>\u201cAfter many years of searchin\u2019<br \/>\nFor her traces in the snow<br \/>\nIn the midst of silver forests<br \/>\nI have found my only love<br \/>\nYes, I\u2019ve found a wondrous lady<br \/>\nWith the world at her command<br \/>\nWhen she laughed, the flowers blossomed<br \/>\nWhen she cried, the sun went red<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>May the sun shine so warmly<br \/>\nMay your eyes cry no more<br \/>\nMay the shelter of your mountains<br \/>\nBe forever your sweet home.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Kaufmann is clearly an all around writer, someone who can troubleshoot the song or the poem with the confidence of a craftsman, and the practices of issuing short but numerous chaps promoted by both Kendra Steiner Editions and New Polish Beat will probably continue to give him a forum in which to keep from becoming specialized or pigeonholed for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Cellos et Ghosts&#8221;\u00a0 by AJ Kaufmann, reviewed by Paul Corman-Roberts. A.J. Kaufmann has demonstrated more than a passing familiarity with Surrealistic and experimental techniques as a sharpshooting member of Bill Shute\u2019s KSE posse.\u00a0 Small, mimeo-style publications such as Siva in Rags; AntiqueWhite Rain; and Symbolisme Psychedelique are wonderful, loopy head \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/crowreviews\/2009\/11\/cellos-et-ghosts-little-white-book-aj-kaufmann\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[21,46,68,77,85,107],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-a-j-kaufman","tag-cellos-et-ghosts","tag-grateful-dead","tag-kendra-steiner-editions","tag-new-polish-beat","tag-robert-hunter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cellos et ghosts, AJ Kaufmann - Crow Reviews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/crowreviews\/2009\/11\/cellos-et-ghosts-little-white-book-aj-kaufmann\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cellos et ghosts, AJ Kaufmann - Crow Reviews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Cellos et Ghosts&#8221;\u00a0 by AJ Kaufmann, reviewed by Paul Corman-Roberts. 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