Two of my poems in the new issue of Common Threads

Common Threads is the annual member journal of the Ohio Poetry Association and I'm proud to have two short poems, "Sprouting Onion" and "Food for Thought" in their just-published 2021 edition, alongside work by a number of terrific poets. Edited by Steve Abbott. You may order a copy for $12 at https://www.ohiopoetryassn.org/product/common-threads/2.

While you're at it, please consider making a donation to the Ohio Poetry Association for #GivingTuesday2021. You may do so at https://www.ohiopoetryassn.org/donations.

Next reading: Goldberg, Kress, Audamatik & Burroughs live in Toledo on 12/11

I look forward to sharing the stage with three artists I love during Uncloistered Poets Live! on Saturday  11 December 2021, from 4 to 7 p.m. Eastern at The Switchboard, 912 Monroe Street in Toledo Ohio.

Our esteemed host Jonie McIntire says:

"Cleveland meets Toledo among the art of Just Jerry’s at The Switchboard when we feature Toledo’s own Audamatik, our favorite retiring professor Leonard Kress, Cleveland’s Steve Goldberg, and beat poet extraordinaire John Burroughs!

Features followed by open mic (no more than 5 minutes per reader). Snacks provided but you are invited to bring food as well. And the bar is outstanding - fantastic drinks you should definitely try!"

 

Palm Springs Point of View interviews author Alex Gildzen

Check out this interview! My Crisis Chronicles Press had the distinct privilege of publishing Alex Gildzen's Alex in Movieland (1943-1973) in February 2020, right before the pandemic ground live lit events to a halt, so this is the first time I've heard him read from it. Sharing the video on Facebook, Gildzen says:

 

I have never read more than a few lines from "Alex in Movieland" in public because it's not an easy work to present. however in this interview I read a section that I hope gives some sense of the work.

& once again my unending thx to John Burroughs for publishing the first installment of this important work of which I'm so proud.

 

 

Video permalink: https://youtu.be/O0AD7ALtrnI.

 

If you've been sufficiently tantalized, you may buy the book here.

US or Elsewhere?

U.S. Addresses $12.00 USD Outside the U.S. $16.00 USD

 

Yugen Archive (1958-1962)

Ever since I read How I Became Hettie Jones a while back, I've been wanting to read Yugen, the literary magazine she and Amiri Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) edited between 1958 and 1962. So I am thrilled to have discovered this online resource, where one can download scanned copies of all 8 issues of Yugen: 

https://realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/yugen/

 

In its pages you'll find work by Philip Whalen, LeRoi Jones, Diane Di Prima, Jack Micheline, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Tuli Kupferberg, LeRoi Jones, Gary Snyder, William S. Burroughs, Peter Orlovsky, Charles Olson, Frank O’Hara, Michael McClure, Jack Kerouac, John Wieners, Robert Creeley, William Carlos Williams, Barbara Guest, David Meltzer, Jerome Rothenberg, César Vallejo, Philip Lamantia, Tristan Tzara, Kenneth Koch, and so many more.

Two more in-person featured readings this year: 12/11 in Toledo, 12/17 in Erie

Yesterday, I mentioned my final Zoom featured reading of the year: NeuroNautic Institute Presents - 12/16/21. I also have two remaining in-person readings this year. I hope you'll mark your calendars and attend/participate in one (or all) of them if you can:

12/11 (4 pm) in Toledo, OH with Steve Goldberg at the The Switchboard, hosted by Jonie McIntire.

 

12/17 (7:30 pm) in Erie, PA for Express Yourself, hosted by Mabel Howard.

12/16: Neuronautic Institute presents John Burroughs, Martina Salisbury and William Taylor Jr, plus open mic, on Zoom and Facebook Live

My final Zoom / Facebook Live reading of the year! On December 16th at 7 p.m. Eastern, I'll have the honor of reading with William Taylor Jr. and Martina Salisbury for this excellent series hosted by Matthew Hupert and NeuroNautic Institute / Neuronautic Press out of New York City. I'd love to see your faces and hear your words at the accompanying open mic.

Watch here. And send a private message to Matthew to sign up for the accompanying open mic.

 

Richard Brautigan with a Switchblade: A Review of John Dorsey’s Poetry

— by Nelson Gary:

 

The hoo-ya! energy of the here and now streams as John Dorsey’s lines in Triple Threat and Afterlife Karaoke. The insights in these books are sharp and funny. Dorsey is Richard Brautigan with a switchblade. The moves of Outlaw Poetics are here in terms of subversion, but as is frequently the case in this movement, there are elements of academia, the establishment. In terms of line arrangement, indentation, Vladimir Mayakovsky haunts a significant number of the lines of Triple Threat and Afterlife Karaoke. The variable foot of William Carlos Williams is certainly in step in these volumes. The well-read Alec Silverman told me he thought Dorsey’s poetry was reminiscent of Robert Frost’s. While he might be right in his analysis, I myself entirely disagree. Dorsey may be Richard Brautigan with a switchblade, but unlike Frost, he never chased his family around with an ax for making too much noise when he was writing. 

 

I know John a little, not well, but well enough to know he never did or would do anything like what Frost did. One thing that Dorsey and Frost share in common is they are all-in all the time (or as much possible) to write poetry. For all these luminous names mentioned, Dorsey’s poetry is most informed by Todd Moore and Charles Bukowski, the godfathers of present-day Outlaw Poetry. Moore, whose father ran with Dillinger, never earned an MFA in Creative Writing, but he spent his working life as a librarian and teacher; he had a life of books: God rest his soul with his guts to be read in his books. I was fortunate enough to write the essay about Moore for The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.

 

I got to know Moore after he gave a glowing review of my award-winning Cinema. It was the first I had ever heard of Moore, The Chiron Review, and Mayakovsky (Todd mentioned him in writing about my work). Over the years, I developed a friendship with the Outlaw Poetry godfather, and we remained tight until he died. There is a considerable amount of material in Pharmacy Psalms and Half-Life Hymns—for Nothing (Mystic Boxing Commission), my upcoming book, about him. After ordering the Dorsey books from poet-publisher John Burroughs’ Crisis Chronicles Press, I communicated with Dorsey on a great many subjects. One of them was Todd Moore. He said that Moore was a “father figure” to him. Because I knew Moore well, what I can say, with neither doubt nor reservation, was that Todd would have loved these books by Dorsey, been proud of them as the godfather of present-day Outlaw Poetics.

 

There are more than a few standout poems in both of Dorsey’s volumes. “I Want to Murder the Moon” from Triple Threat is a howl against nature for allowing divinity to touch the skin in transcendental experiences. At the end of this poem, Dorsey remarks, “The night is slow / like bloody murder.” These lines inform much of the terrain both books cover. Dorsey writes about the slowness of life that can be violently stultifying internally relatively often in the pages of these volumes. There are lines that jump out at you with the humor of Brautigan, such as the following: “Alice was a finger fucking champion” in the poem “The Rabbit Hole Conspiracy.” “Jimi Hendrix of New Paltz, New York” conjures images of a hustler in a simultaneously cruel and empathic way: “Stars burn / for your albino eyed street hustle / like a Hudson Valley rent boy.” In these poems from Triple Threat, there are mentions of sex, violence, and drugs, even if the violence is only toward that “punk,” the moon, “for bringing divinity / on our skin.”

 

What I loved most about Afterlife Karaoke, which is dedicated to poet Jack Hirschman, is the “Trailer Park Songs” that unify the poem cycle and the elegy for Scott Wannberg, an Outlaw Poet I may have known even better than Todd Moore. I strongly recommend both these books of John Dorsey’s, mostly, of course, for the poetry, but also for the beautifully assembled layout and design by John Burroughs’ Crisis Chronicles Press. The front cover art of Afterlife Karaoke by Steven B. Smith is positively magnetic. What I love most about Dorsey’s work (and these are not the first books of his I’ve read), is its Nirvana-like energy, a band he refers to more than once in these volumes, and his ingenious black humor and and meaningful empathy about the “quiet desperation” (Thoreau) of the multitudes.

 

Buy John Dorsey's Afterlife Karaoke.

Buy John Dorsey's Triple Threat.

Buy both together and save:

Buy Both and Save

In the USA $16.00 USD Elsewhere $28.00 USD

 

 * * * * *

Nelson Gary's works include XXX (Dance of the Iguana Press), Cinema (Sacred Beverage Press), A Wonderful Life in Our Lives: Sketches of a Honeymoon in Mexico (Low Profile Press), and Twin Volumes (Ethelrod Press). His Pharmacy Psalms and Half-Life Hymns—for Nothing will be published by Rose of Sharon Press in 2021. Gary's poems and prose have been published in numerous journals, magazines, anthologies, and newspapers, including The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder's Mouth Press), Los Angeles Times, and Desert Sun. Gary, a former professional tennis player and instructor, was the Sports Editor at the Santa Monica Mirror. He read at Lollapalooza in 1994, had a residency with Ivan Neville's All-Star Band at The Mint, recorded his poetry with Elliott Smith ("Coast to Coast") on the latter's album From a Basement on the Hill. At Heroin Times, his journalism helped thousands, if not millions, of people addicted to opioids and their loved ones find recovery. Gary is a Beyond Baroque Fellow and has facilitated two writing workshops there. He has a bachelor's degree in English from California State University of Northridge and a master's degree in Forensic Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

11/11: Athens County (and Friends) Poets & Storytellers feat. John Burroughs

Heads up! I am very much looking forward to being the featured poet for one of the best series in Ohio, Athens County (and Friends) Poets & Storytellers, on November 11th via Zoom. Host: Stephanie Kendrick. Click here to register for the Zoom link. Then click here to sign up for the open mic.

 

Appearing at the Avon Lake Public Library's Read Write Local on 11/6

I only have three more events scheduled for this year, and here's the next one:

I will have the honor of participating in Read Write Local, an annual event at the Avon Lake Public Library, on November 6th 2021, where over 30 Northeast Ohio authors will be up and down the library's indoor "Avenue" to meet you, sell books, and sign them. There will be two sessions, each featuring different authors. The morning session will run from 9:30 a.m. to noon and the afternoon session (where I'm scheduled) will take place from 1 to 3:30 p.m.

Avon Lake Public Library
32649 Electric Boulevard
Avon Lake, Ohio 44012

Questions? Contact Gerry Vogel at
gvogel@avonlake.lib.oh.us.

Tongue-in-Groove Poetry Jam featuring John Burroughs, Sunday 10/24

Next up! It's always fun to see Ray McNiece and the band perform (both by themselves and with other writers). And this month I get the honor of being their featured poet. Hope to see you there this Sunday! Please bring something (maybe spooky) to share during the open mic. Sunday 10/24/2021 at 6 p.m. Eastern.

From the press release:

Tongue-in-Groove Poetry Jam is back live at the Fillmore. Heights Poet Laureate Ray McNiece will host, with Al Moses on guitar, Nick Marino on bass, Michelle Clark on percussion and Tim Lachina on harmonica. Ohio Beat Poet Laureate John Burroughs will be our featured poet. Bring a poem to share (backed by the band if you wish) during the open mic.

Burroughs serves as the State of Ohio Beat Poet Laureate (2019-21). A nationally touring writer, his most recent books include Rattle & Numb: Selected and New Poems, 1992-2019 [2019, Venetian Spider Press] and Loss and Foundering [2018, NightBallet Press]. John recently curated the Poetry+ reading series in Lakewood, Ohio, and since 2008 has served as the founding editor of Crisis Chronicles Press.

 

[Photo of John at the Fillmore taken in 2019 by Sandra Feen.]

 

For more info on the Tongue-in-Groove Poetry Jam, contact Ray at mcnieceray@gmail.com.

 

Millard Fillmore Presidential Library
15619 Waterloo Road
Cleveland, Ohio 44110