Matt Borkowski | UPTOWN-DOWN! | Iniquity Press

Matt is neither a leftist nor a reactionary neither a street poet nor an academic. He is a great American crank, in the best tradition of W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, Charles Ives, Hugh Selby, Algren…someone truly outside the establishment, including the anti-establishment. Matt Borkowski can not be read in comfort by either the right of the left. He is an ontologist of the dispossessed, the fucked up and broken beyond all class distinctions and political lines. — Joe Weil Continue reading

Tom Kryss | Light Dark Light | Iniquity Press

Thanks to the editors of the following magazines and anthologies where several of these items first appeared: Bagozine — Split Whiskey Press | Bathtub Gin — Pathwise Press | Big Hammer — Iniquity Press / Vendetta Books | Come Together: Imagining Peace — Bottom Dog Press | Green Birds Skating — Green Panda Press | Guerilla Poetics Project | Poetry Bay | The Clevelanders — Kirpan Press. Continue reading

Harvey Pekar | on Frank Norris, Daniel Fuchs & George Ade | Iniquity Press

Harvey Lawrence Pekar (October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a well-received film adaptation of the same name. Frequently described as the “poet laureate of Cleveland,” Pekar “helped change the appreciation for, and perceptions of, the graphic novel, the drawn memoir, the autobiographical comic narrative.” Pekar described his work as “autobiography written as it’s happening. The theme is about staying alive, getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It’s one thing after another. I’ve tried to control a chaotic universe. And it’s a losing battle. But I can’t let go. I’ve tried, but I can’t.” Continue reading

David Roskos | Lyrical Grain, Doggerel Chaff & Pedestrian Preoccupations | Iniquity Press

Some of these poems first appeared in the following publications: Anti-Lawn, Ash, Long Shot, DIONYSOS, The Journal of Literature & Addiction, Bouillabaisse, Down Town, Half Dozen of the Other, Windo Panes, Flipside, The National Alliance, Lame Duck, Lost & Found Times, HEATHENzine, Quimby, Drive-by Books, Nerve Bundle Review, Jack & Jill (Off), The Energy of the Flesh. — Thanks Editors. Continue reading

John Richey | For The Past Lifetime | Iniquity Press

This collection includes recent writings as well as poems previously published in Rolling Stone, Big Hammer, Half Dozen of the Other, and AlieNation (Unreadable Books, 1986). Art: Khue-Tu Nguyen, 1992. Photo: Lynn Forrest, 1992. For The Past Lifetime, 1992 by John Richey. ISBN-1-877968-06-4. John Richey lives in New Jersey. He is lyricist of Lunar Bear Ensemble and word-collage, tape manipulator for Machine Gun. Continue reading

Joe Weil | The Pursuit of Happiness | Iniquity Press

I like Joe’s precision of language, his insights: “I need a place (Elizabeth, New Jersey) where poets aren’t expected / I would go nuts in a town where everyone read Pound…I don’t think Manhattan needs another poet / I don’t think Maine could use me,” and, lower on the page, “Where nothing is sacred, everything is sacred / Where no one writes, the air seems strangely / charged with metaphor.” On the strength of that I recommend his work to you. — Harvey Pekar Continue reading