Bennett ( John )

JOHN BENNETT writes with a tiny, fist-sized stuffed bear in sorcerer’s garb on top of his computer. Not too many years back he wrote on a wide-carriage manual typewriter. On the road he writes on legal pads and napkins. The bear is a gift from his granddaughter, a perceptive, jewel of a girl with laughing eyes. Veteran small-press poet and writer, editor and publisher of the legendary Vagabond Press. A brace of fine books to his credit, including the novel Bodo that came out in New York, London and Prague editions and got nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award.

John Bennett began writing Shards in the mid-nineties and has never looked back.

John Bennett | Tire Grabbers | Hcolom Press

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Tire Grabbers is the story of the coming of Moloch, a horrific force that mutates out of the Era of the Great Schism and – feeding on spiritual marrow – threatens Mankind’s extinction. And it is the story of the children who challenge Moloch, with their innocence and with an army of mind creatures that they eject into the outer world and call… John Bennett Continue reading →

John Bennett | Tire Grabbers | an audio book

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Tire Grabbers is the story of the coming of Moloch, a horrific force that mutates out of the Era of the Great Schism and – feeding on spiritual marrow – threatens Mankind’s extinction. And it is the story of the children who challenge Moloch, with their innocence and with an army of mind creatures that they eject into the outer world and call…– John Bennett Continue reading →

Peter Halfar | Life’s Crowning Moment | Hcolom Press

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I FIRST MET PETER HALFAR IN THE FALL of 1965 in Munich, Germany, where I began publishing Vagabond, a literary magazine. Maria Spaans, from the Netherlands, was art editor for the first two issues, and Peter followed in her footsteps. Five issues of Vagabond were published in Munich before I shifted the enterprise to New Orleans, and in that time Peter, Maria and I became close friends. Peter’s favorite word is unheimlich. It colors his art and his outlook, and in the sense he means it, unheimlich translates as a quirky, sometimes playful, sometimes foreboding surrealism. The unheimlich permeated the pages of the early issues of Vagabond. Peter, Maria and I went our separate ways after I left Munich, but we never fully lost contact, and when I returned to Europe for a visit in 1986, I saw them both. Maria was married and living in Paris, and Peter was still living in Munich. But he had become something of a world traveler since I last saw him, and it showed in his art, which was flourishing. And something new had been added. Shyly, on the last day of my visit, Peter pressed a thick folder into my hands. “Stories,” he said. “I have been writing stories. Unheimliche stories!” — John Bennett Continue reading →

John Bennett | Black Messiah | A Tribute to Henry Miller | Hcolom Press

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BLACK MESSIAH Fear, hydra-headed fear, which is rampant in all of us, is a hang-over from lower forms of life. We are straddling two worlds, the one from which we have emerged and the one towards which we are heading. That is the deepest meaning of the word human, that we are a link, a bridge, a promise. It is in us that the life process is being carried to fulfillment. We have a tremendous responsibility, and it is the gravity of that which awakens our fears. We know that if we do not move forward, if we do not realize our potential being, we shall relapse, sputter out and drag the world down with us. We carry Heaven and Hell within us; we are the cosmogonic builders. We have choice — and all creation is our range. — Henry Miller – Sexus (1945) Continue reading →

John Bennett | Ragged Lion | A Tribute To Jack Micheline | Hcolom Press

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ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST (a few words on how Ragged Lion came about) On February 27, 1998, Jack Micheline, America’s quintessential street poet, died on a BART train in the San Francisco Bay Area. I got the word from Al Masarik before the obits hit the papers. “Another one bites the dust,” said Al. The Beats and kindred spirits are dying off like flies—Kerouac, Cassady, Henry Miller, Bob Kaufman, William Wantling, George Montgomery, Bukowski, Burroughs, Jesse Bernstein, Ginsberg, Micheline and—on November 3, 1998, a little more than eight months after Micheline’s death — Ray Bremser. Continue reading →