Other Lummox Press Titles: The Little Red Book Series The Best of the Lummox Journal: Essays, interviews, reviews, links, bios... GERALD LOCKLIN INTERVIEW: From Lummox Journal - Nov. 2000 The CrossRoads: Where the Lummox meets its maker (Raindog) EYES LIKE MINGUS : A Jazz Poetry Anthology (includes Locklin poem) |
YOU CAN LEARN SO MUCH FROM HISTORICAL FICTION my fall booklist for english 390: fiction now came out with the typo, "gerald haslam--the wages of sine." haslam's wages of sin is a very fine collection of short stories but one might be tempted to compose a trilogy of novels detailing, from a marxist perspective, the inadequate remuneration of mathematicians from pythagoras to the present with its volumes entitled. the wages of sine, the wages of cosine, and the wages of hypotenuse. JAZZ AS ATHLETICISM two of the great loves of my life are sports and jazz. my car radio is almost always turned to one or the other. i do not consider this a paradox. have you ever watched a krupa, buddy rich, or louis bellson working out on drums? poncho sanchez on the congas? the feints and stutter-steps of max roach or elvin jones? the everlasting lungs of the trumpeters: arturo sandoval, maynard ferguson? of bird, coleman hawkins, and the subsequent supersaxes? the forearms and fingers of mc coy tyner, les mc cann? chucho valdez? ruben gonzalez? the teamwork of the big bands-- ellington, basie, oliver nelson, gerald wilson--that does not exclude the virtuosity of the soloists: paul qonzalves, harold land, oscar brashear? these cats don't need to jog or lift weights to retain the physicality required for their instruments. they play themselves into shape, musical shape at least, whatever the condition of their general health, personal lifestyle. or age. norman mailer said that ali was "a genius of the body." so were diz, bird, clifford, ella. sarah. bud. and joe.
NO MIDDLE GROUND In the Martin Heade exhibit at LACMA up-close Brazilian hummingbirds in long depths of forest there is no middle ground only in your face eyestrain or squint no comfortable mediations Redbluegreen so true your eyes burn you look no further until distance the dark and clotted wild beguiles There is no in-between no rest on the journey to the back of the canvas EPISTLES FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF TEMPTING FATE I am leaving the house where I have raised my children, harpies out of my womb to borrow the image from Dylan Thomas Many and busy comings and goings went on here all the teemings of suburban growing up The cupboards are full with the mementos of small happinesses and the documentations of well-lived afternoons I can throw out now all these needings to record just how real and normal it was how Donna Reed: just what I wanted the detritus of desire for what couldn't be named predicating itself over and over in these drawers If the kids don't want this stuff and they don't I can bag it and call the Good Will It was I who needed the fetishes of a life dense with familial purpose. I can chuck now the gymnastics ribbons and soccer trophies and Bar awards Such proof of meaning-making is no longer necessary In the second drawer in the hall closet in a stretched then broken rubber band is a bundle of decades of hit-up letters from the Leukemia Society I could never throw these away such potent bad luck charms tempting the powers of destiny and ruin to feel rebuffed unacknowledged not owed obeisance I couldn't dare fate just then in the middle of it so I bargained for postponement The growing up is done now and no one has been lost not even existentially
FAMILIARITIES is part of the Little Red Book series (LRB 33). It's already in its second printing, even though it was published in April of 2001. There are some 20 poems a piece in this "split" book of 48 pages. Its handy pocket size (4.25 by 5.5 inches) makes it easy to take it anywhere.
Patricia Cherin was an undeclared major at Cal State University Long Beach in 1966 when she stumbled into a class taught by Gerald Locklin and, immediately afterward, walked over to Administration to declare herself an English major. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, in the anthology L.A. Woman, and in journals including American Poets and Poetry, Cider Press Review, Psychopoetica, Old Crow Review, Pearl, Spring: The Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society, Home Planet News, The Charles Bukowski Journal, The Ragged Edge, Tundra, Medicinal Purposes Literary Review, Brobdingnagian Times, The Reater, Baker Street Irregular, Simple Vows, and Wormwood Review. This is her first published collection.
Gerald Locklin is the king of the small press. His most recent books include Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet; Go West Young Toad; and Candy Bars (all from Water Row Press) and Down and Out: A Novel; The First Time He Saw Paris (in Two Novelas); The Firebird Poems; and Hemingway Colloquium: The Poet Goes to Cuba (all from Event Horizon Press). His previous Little Red Book from Lummox Press was The Iceberg Theory (as heard on MPR's The Writer's Almanac). His Four Jazz Women was the fifth in a series of jazz chapbooks published dos รก dos with works by Mark Weber from Zerx Press.
FAMILIARITIES may be purchased directly from the LUMMOX PRESS by sending a check or cash for SIX dollars to PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733-5301. It's also available at Dutton's of Brentwood, CA; Book Soup of West Hollywood, CA; Powell's Books of Portland, OR; and Water Row Books in Sudbury, MA.
POB 5301
San Pedro, CA 90733-5301
USA