poetry

Norbert Blei | Jim Spector | The Quiet Time: Door County in Winter

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Jim Spector is best known for his passionate solo flamenco recordings and his inspired concert performances. He has arranged, composed and recorded the soundtracks to award-winning documentary films and music from his compact disc recording “Flamenco Passions” (DCV002, Door Couniy Voices) has been featured on American Airlines. In this collaboration with Norbert Blei, the text provided the images to inspire a musical setting for sensitive, evocative readings. Continue reading →

Misha Feigin | Abraham’s Bagel

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Abraham’s Bagel is Misha Feigin’s second collection of poetry. He has received the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry and was awarded the Al Smith Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction. His other books include Searching for Irina and The Last Word in Astronomy, both by Fleur Publishing. Continue reading →

Linda King | Sweet & Dirty | Hcolom Press/Metropolis

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Linda King showed up in the Vagabond Press mailbox, unsolicited, back in 1972, in Redwood City, California. I’d never heard of her before, but the poems she sent had fire and were free of pretension. I wrote asking if she might have enough material for a chapbook, and she sent the manuscript for Sweet & Dirty. It was only then that I realized she was connected to Bukowski. Vagabond published the book, to the delight of some and the disgust of others. Most of what we published tended to draw these extreme reactions. It was a short press run and was gone in a flash. True to its name, Vagabond was always on the move — Munich, D.C., New Orleans, San Francisco, etc., and in 1974, in Ellensburg, Washington, we brought out a second edition of Sweet & Dirty. It too was gone in a flash. It’s now 2013 with lots of water under the bridge. I hadn’t thought about Sweet & Dirty in a long time, and then Herr Klaus of Outlaw Poetry, a powerhouse literary web site operating out of France, contacted me with the request to bring out a third edition. I agreed, Linda agreed, and here it is. The poems in Sweet & Dirty still have their fire, and also, I realize now, their innocence. What goes around comes around. — John Bennett – Ellensburg, WA, August 10, 2013 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 →

Piri Thomas | Every Child Is Born A Poet | American Clavé

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Every Child is Born a Poet: the Life and Work of Piri Thomas is a film that is at the very heart of Piri’s life, soul and vision. He yearns for all unheard broods in every dark part of this disconcerted world to experience refuge, love, joy, creativity, self-esteem and self-fulfillment… to be forever boundless and free. Spiritual emancipation is Piri Thomas’s rite of passage… to repent and rebel through the healing powers of poetry spoken in tongues. Punto! — Juan Sanchez, Visual artist, teacher and activist, June 2005, Brooklyn, New York Continue reading →

Lo Galluccio

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Lo Galluccio is a vocal artist and poet who’s first CD, “Being Visited” was released on the Knitting Factory label in 1997. NY Dj Vin Scelsa called it “By turns, mysterious, seductive, surreal and spacy.” She first started working with the Jazz Passengers, co-writing a song with Roy Nathanson for the “In Love” CD on the Windham Hill/High Street label, co-produced by Hal Willner. In the mid 90’s she had an avant-rock band called, “Fish Pistol” with slide guitarist wizard Dave Tronzo, bassist Brad Jones, and various drummers including Ben Perowsky. The band played many downtown NYC clubs like Fez and the Mercury Lounge. She’s also sat in with the bands “Sex Mob” and collaborated with Jim Pugliese of “Soultronix”. Continue reading →