Guy R. Beining was born in 1938 in London and arrived in New York City in the spring of 1940. He currently resides in Great Barrington, Massachusetts and has published thousands of poems along with hundreds of collages and drawings. His most recent exhibition was at the Hudson Opera House in Hudson, New York in 2010 and his collection of art paired with beautifully worded lines to accompany them has been published by Kamini Press in this collection titled Out of the Woods into the Sun.

The collection of paintings are carefully and vividly reflected throughout the pages of this small book in my hands: Inside, the people are abstract and interacting with one another while the words beneath link humanity to nature with lines such as “the lake on the sun was unwrinkled” and “between you & me the sea is us.” I’ll admit that I do not always understand how the words beneath each painting relate to the painting but it is inspiring and beautiful nonetheless. Through the entire collection I gather a sense of excitement and mystery and I am happy to share with you a couple of pictures of the contents:The pictures do not do this collection justice but I hope that you enjoy the art and the words together. Mr. Beining has dedicated this book “To all poets & artists that have stayed on track,” which I find a wonderful dedication and hope that all of you out there continue to pursue what inspires you.

If you enjoyed this review and would like a copy for yourself, there are signed copies available from editor Henry Denander at Kamini Press for $10.00 and those that include limited edition artwork are available for $25.00.– Paula Cary

New eyes are needed

My initial impression: the Kamini Press has done it again. There productions in color and the laid paper are fine selections again.This small chap book is a gem, again.

Beinings art work combines figurative, narrative and metaphor, “memory is a branch” and the immediacy in the painting strokes depicts an abstract sensibility, as well as, the gestural drawing offers an expressive attitude. Viewers will find a painting on every page, with a poetic sentence below. “the shoreline pretends to be an ointment.” The juxtapositions are immaculate; poetry and painting works in this book because the words redirect the reader back into the paintings and the tension between the images and the words draw us into the presence on the page.

I highly recommend this book for those who love art and writing.

Irene Koronas, Poetry Editor:Wilderness House Literary Review. Reviewer:Ibbetson Street Press

Readers of Beatnik

will know already how much I like the high production values of the Kamini Press mini-chapbooks. Out of the Woods marks a break from the poetry series publisher/ editor Henry Denander has been running for a while now on the Kamini imprint, in that it showcases 16 fine paintings instead of works by poets of the underground/ alternative press. Each painting is tagged, as it were, with a line of poetry by Beining, who also writes, and the lines provide clues, albeit in an abstruse, apparently illogical, koan-like fashion at times, to the paintings. I found this helpful, not being particularly confident about my understanding of Beining’s approach, which seems to present people as shapes and areas of dynamic colour rather than in conventional form. You, of course, might understand what he is doing immediately. In any event I am sure that you will appreciate the impact of the paintings, as I did; and I argue all the time that a creative work doesn’t have to be one hundred percent accessible to the individual reader/ listener/ viewer to be a success.

Out of the Woods into the Sun

Guy R. Beining

We are proud to publish the artwork of Guy Beining as the first book in our Kamini Press Art Series. Beining, who lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, is very active as an artist and also a much published poet. We have been following Beining’s art for many years, admiring his strong and personal style in drawings, paintings and collages. Here we are presenting 16 new acrylic paintings.

The limited edition of the book includes an original signed acrylic drawing by Beining, a fine opportunity to get a highly frameable piece of Beining art.

Here at Kamini Press we are very proud to present the first chapbook in our Art series Out of the Woods into the Sun by Guy R. Beining 16 new paintings reproduced in full color.

All 125 books signed by the artist. Twenty-five special numbered copies come with a signed acrylic drawing by Guy R. Beining. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Portrait by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:Guy R. Beining – Out of the Woods into the Sun – Signed edition:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Signed edition $10 (including shipping all over the world)

[quickshop:Guy R. Beining – Out of the Woods into the Sun – Limited edition with artwork:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Limited edition with artwork $25 (including shipping all over the world)

Please Note: After hitting the Add to the Kamini Cart button you will find your shopping-cart at the very end of this page.

In Sweden, please pay SEK 60 per book to Bankgiro 5889-0781, price including postage. 150 SEK for the limited version. Email to reserve. Please ask for a PayPal invoice if you need that.

Kamini Press | Ringvägen 8, 4th floor | SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden | editor@kaminipress.com

…one of the paintings from this book by Guy R. Beining.

Selected titles by Guy R. Beining:

Razor with No Obligation (1976)
City Shingles (1977)
The Ogden Diary (1979)
Backroads & Artism (1979)
Ice Rescue Station (1980)
A New Boundary & Other Pieces (1980)
Waiting for the Soothsayer (1982)
The Raw-Robed Few (1982)
Stoma: All Points & Notions (1984)
Stoma (1989)
Upper & Lower Translation of Beige Copy Text (1991)
100 Haiku Selected from a Decade (1993)
Damn the Evening Garden (1994)
Too Far to Hear (1994)
Stoma (1994)
Curved Erosion (1995)
Axiom of a Torn Pulley (1995)
Too Far to Hear II (1997)
Beige Copy II & III (1997)
Inrue (2008)
World Pig 1-34 (2010)
Nozzle 1-36 (2011)

The second poem

in John Bennett’s 40th book, Battle Scars, is three simple lines under the title Trust “Don’t trust/cause-oriented/people.”

In another poem, Mirrors Bennett writes:

After a
certain age
all mirrors are
good for is
checking for
skin cancer &
the nicotine
stain in
your mustache

And in another titled Lacking he notes:

We will
not do
what we
need to
do to
save ourselves.

We do not
have it
in us.

Bennett is obviously a man of few words, but words that pack a wallop, fraught with meaning, an arrow to whatever gets you thinking, whatever causes an emotion in you. He can take a thought, or a cliche and make into an aphorism. The titles let you know he is not messing around, that he is an in-your-face kinda guy: Ego Like Indelible Ink, Reading Tea Leaves, Diminishing Returns, Battle Scars, Less Is More, and plenty of others.

I admire Bennett’s ability to boil down what could be a seemingly endless poem into six or eight lines and instead of leaving the reader confused or wondering what he said, he makes direct contact and you say, “Oh, yah!”

If you want a book that you can easily relate to and have it small enough to carry in a pocket or pocketbook, then this is definitely for you. By the way, keep close at hand to keep you out of trouble.– by Zvi A. Sesling

[quickshop:John Bennett – Battle Scar – Signed Edition – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Signed edition $10 (including shipping all over the world)

[quickshop:John Bennett – Battle Scar – Limited Edition with Artwork – Kamini Press:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Limited edition with artwork $25 (including shipping)

In Sweden, please pay SEK 60 per book to Bankgiro 5889-0781, price including postage.

150 SEK for the limited version.

Email to reserve or please use the comment form at the end of this page…PLEASE NOTE: by clicking the ”add to the kamini cart” you will find your shopping cart always at the very end of this page to proceed the final payment.

splake’s poems are like missives, journal entries from a fading, too-soon-to-be-gone world. What he loves, what he wrestles with, who he is, is all there, right in the poems. As someone who came late to the ”profession” (the first two definitions of that word say it all: ”1 : the act of taking the vows of a religious community 2 : an act of openly declaring or publicly claiming a belief, faith, or opinion” i.), one of his major themes is his ongoing battle with ”dame muse” or ”damn dame muse.” The declarative nature and gender of this theme are telling. His heroes are championed throughout his work: Richard Brautigan, Hemingway, Harrison, the Beats, Vonnegut, Bukowski … the list is long and his admiration unflagging. Even his name – kilgore from Vonnegut, splake, as in a type ”trout,” a simultaneous tribute to Mr. V’s great character and the trout swimming upriver from the Brautigan mythos, and the t., well, I’m not telling about that – is collage as homage. He is a great lover of the outdoors, a fisherman, an inveterate hiker of the nearby Cliffs, an excellent photographer, and a man of decided opinions.

Oh, and did I mention: he is a wonderful poet.

There have been many fine collections of his work throughout the years, including poetry, prose, and photography. He has been championed by many such as Jim Chandler of Thunder Sandwich, whose interview with the poet is a great place to start for the uninitiated. Though his work may not appeal to all and, if we are honest, whose would, those who are attracted to it grab tight and hold on.

It is with great pleasure that I received in the mail recently a beautiful little chapbook, published by Henry Denander’s Kamini Press of Stockholm, entitled The Poet Tree and Other Poems. Though splake writes well in longer forms of 1, 2, and more pages, this tiny little volume concentrates on one of his greatest assets: the short poem, 15 or so lines or less. Here is the opening salvo:

divinity

red thimbleberries
like Jesus’ blood
chartres stained glass

In 3 short lines is captured quite a bit of what splake is about: the beauty, and his fascination with, nature, a drop or two of sacrilege, and an all pervasive appreciation of art.

No mean feat, as it took Proust 7 lengthy volumes and over 1.5 million words to capture what Splake sketches in a telling 9 words.

He can capture himself, too, with a stark honesty, in this poem putting the photographer’s precise eye to fine effect:

coming into spring

young pretty girl
espresso and laptop
conglomerate café morning
window table voyeur
while bears still sleeping
somewhere under snow

Here the element of nature is transmuted into an almost haiku like epiphany. Like his old friend and fellow poet, Albert Huffstickler, splake has a thing about coffee shops, often chronicling them in his verse. Spring, by the way, is a big, if brief, thing in its coming to the UP.

There are ups and downs in his work, emotional swings of elation and depression, characteristic of many an artist. One of the ways the poet has chosen to deal is to go head on and wrestle the angel:

cojones time

”sunlight here i am”
bukowski

muse long gone
blank page contests
past distant memories
destiny in hand
hot chivas rush
bardic blood boiling
brain skull cavity
distant grey fog
dull hum-hum-humming
.357 ticket to ride
spared nursing home
score tied
overtime eternity

Like Ginsberg & other Beats before and after him, splake chooses to shed all articles in a rush to catch the rhythm of meaning, the click-clack sound of spirit riding, riding, straight into the midnight heart of It All. Yes, there is darkness and there is much light, there is the ultimate beauty of life and what is.

Norbert Blei, at poetry dispatch and other notes from the underground, did an excellent recent post on splake, replete with poem and an essay by the poet on what exactly ”the poet tree” is. To tempt you over to this essay, here is a picture I lifted from there:

You can get a nice signed edition of this beautiful little chapbook with over 30 of splake’s finest poems for a mere $9 from Henry Denander at Kamini Press. I highly recommend it.

Of course, I’m biased. The poet and I have corresponded for nearly 20 years, him sending me envelopes full of xeroxed articles of books of interests and poems, his and others, I sending back and commiserating over the collective doom of his much-loved Cubbies and my much maligned Buccos. Yes, baseball is another shared romance of a bygone era, two old fools on a virtual park bench lamenting the way it was.

And my bias goes beyond this epistolary friendship of the non-electronic variety. My friend has honored what I do, if only by association: imagine my true and happy surprise to read this, the title poem of his collection, for the first time in this chap:

poet tree

denander drawings
lilliput poems
tibetan prayer flag colors
suffering autumn storms
vanishing in winter blizzards
buried until spring
to be born again

Of course, it is possible that lilliput is just a modifier here, signaling the diminutive nature of the poems on the tree and in this collection and has nothing to do with Lilliput the magazine (4 splake poems from previous posts) at all. But I’d like to think differently, especially since it was italicized (of course, there is that other Lilliput) and knowing how splake love’s to refer to the things he enjoys.

Yes, I believe I’ll think otherwise, mistaken or not. Don Wentworth

—B.L. Kennedy, Reviewer-in-Residence

Here at Kamini Press we are proud to present another of our favorite poets and his new book:

Tom Kryss

Sketch Book

It was the fine poet and writer John Bennett who many years ago, on his Vagabond website, introduced us to Tom Kryss. Since then he’s been a favorite artist, illustrator and poet. Please study Kryss’s long list of books, chaps, broadsides and art, look at the bottom of this page. There is something about Tom Kryss’s tone and voice that makes him very special. Have you seen his art? Have you seen his The Book of Rabbits – one of the most beautiful children’s books you’ve ever seen?

Tom Kryss is a true outsider and he was part of the Cleveland poetry scene in the Sixties around d.a. levy; the Cleveland scene back then had more outsiders per square meter than any other poetry scene in America.

Let me quote John Bennett from Vagabond: “You want your young genius poet of the 20th Century? Scrap Rimbaud. I give you Tom Kryss. What Tom Kryss does, more than any poet I know, is strip away excess and cut to the bone. He staked out a modest turf and then hunkered down and stayed there. He has not squandered time and blurred his focus chasing down publishers and polishing his image. So that what he writes is unencumbered and fraught with the particular, which is the unique, which is the only way to get a handle on the universal. What he writes always gives you something and never takes anything away. “

Sketch Book is his new book from Kamini Press, number 5 in our Poetry Series. 40 pages of prose poems. Cover art by Tom Kryss. All 150 books signed by the author in Ravenna (this American town with the beautiful Italian name). Twenty-five of the books come with a hand-tinted and signed print by Tom Kryss. Author portrait painting by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:Tom Kryss – Sketch Book – Signed – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]10 USD Signed book including postage all over the world.

[quickshop:Tom Kryss – Sketch Book – Signed plus Artwork – Kamini Press:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]25 USD Signed book with artwork including postage all over the world.

Please

use the PayPal button above or send cash in a brown envelope to Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden. In Sweden pay SEK 60,-/150,- (including postage) to Bankgiro 5889-0781, or get the book from Bokmagasinet, in Stockholm.

Tom Kryss | Painting by Henry Denander

Tom Kryss Books and Broadsides

• Cleveland Poems, Chicago Poems & Other Shit – Free Love Press – Cleveland 1967
• Look at the Moon Then Wipe the Light from Your Eyes and Tell Me What you See – Runcible Spoon – Sacramento 1968
• Nuclear Roses and Quiet Rooms – Open Skull Press – San Francisco 1969
• Dialogue in Pale Blue (with r.j.s.) – Broken Mimeo Press – Cleveland 1969
• The Book of Rabbits (Krulik Ksiega) – Ayizan Press – Cleveland 1969
• Sherwood Anderson’s Blue’s – Gunrunner Press – Milwaukee 1970
• Sleep Like Yellow Thunder – Second Aeon Publications – Cardiff, Wales 1970
• Dog’s Body – No Deposit No Return – Victoria, B.C. 1970
• New Majiks (Selected Poems & Rabbits) – Radical America – Cambridge, MA 1970
• Sunflower River – Dead Angel Press – Portland, OR 1972
• I Am the One Who Walks the Road (with Douglas Blazek and Don Cauble) – Dead Angel Press – Portland, OR 1972
• Music in the Winepress, Parrots in the Flames – Vagabond Press – Ellensburg, WA 1976
• Falling through the Cracks – Fuck If I Know Press – San Francisco 1984
• Coltrane Spins a Note – Black Rabbit Press – Cleveland 1990
• Dusty Dog #6 – (John Pierce, Publisher) – Zuni, NM 1992
• Strange Attractors – Zerx Press – Albuquerque, NM 1993
• Current Outsider (Tribute Sampler) – Vagabond Press Home Page – Ellensburg, WA 2000
• Just Blue Skies: Poems for & after d.a. levy (An Electronic Chapbook) – d.a. levy Home Page; cooperative presentation of Ghost Pony, Kaldron On-line, Light and Dust Mobile Anthology of Poetry 2001
• Downwind from the Fires of Nothingness – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2001
• 7 Poems & a Eulogy (with Steve Ferguson) – Ferguson Press – Cleveland 2003
• Sunflower Wars – Bottle of Smoke Press – Leesburg, VA 2003
• Death March (Poems for All #296) – 24th Street Irregular Press – Sacramento 2003
• Sunflower River for Jim Lowell (Bottle #2) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Bear, DE 2004
• Wiring Tutorial for Unshielded Twisted Pair (with Matthew Wascovich) – Slow Toe Publications, Cleveland 2004
• Entrance Level Opportunities - (Six Pack #4) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Bear, DE 2004
• Horse – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2004
• Two for the Asphodel – Costmary Press – Kent, OH – November 2004
• Here’s Wishing You Good Work in 2005 (assorted rabbits) – Jeff Maser, Bookseller – Berkeley 2004
• The Music Box Store (printed by Jason Davis of Verdant Press for Jeff Maser, Bookseller – Berkely 2005
• Brotherhood – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2005
• Real Time – Costmary Press – Kent, OH – June 2005
• Sunlight – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE – October 2005
• Spring into Winter – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2005
• Encyclical (Bottle #4) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2006
• Real (Poems for All #617) – 24TH Street Irregular Press – Sacramento – May 2006
• The Search for the Reason Why – Bottom Dog Press – Huron, OH 2006
• In a Time without Sunflowers – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2006
• Unchained Melody – Letters Bookshop – Toronto 2006
• Rabbit (illustrated coaster) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2006
• Further Downwind from the Fires of Nothingness (Measured Steps #5 with John Bennet and d.a. levy) – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2006
• At the Beginning & the End (Measured Steps #7 with Alan Horvath and d.a. levy ) – Kirpan Press – Vancover, WA 2006
• Where the Rainbow Ends (Measured Steps #8 with Jake Marx and David Pishnery) – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA 2006
• The Certificate of Nemeth Racz (Bagozine #55) – Word e Print – Cleveland – January 20, 2007
• Dusk (Populist Poems #12) – Bottom Dog Press – Huron, OH 2007
• In Reserve – Costmary Press – Kent, OH – February 2007
• Be the Poem (Bagozine #56) – Word e Print – Cleveland – February 17, 2007
• The Last Leaf (Bottle #5) – Bottle of Smoke Press – Dover, DE 2007
• Morel, the Clown (Bagozine #60) – Word e Print – Cleveland – August 18, 2007
• Was Lauft Er? (GPP Anthology) – Green Panda Press – Cleveland – August 2007
• The Case for Hope – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – January 2008
• The Attempt Itself – Green Panda Press – Cleveland – May 2008
• Stop, Look, What’s That Sound – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA – June 2008
• Tree Challenged - Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA – August 2008
• Again – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – December 2008
• They Know Me at the Library – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – January 2009
• Tell What It Is To Be a Man – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – January 2009
• Light Dark Light - Iniquity Press / Vendetta Books – Manasquan, New Jersey – February 2009
• Two Poems and a Print – Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – February 2009
• Roses That Bloom - J.W. Curry – Ottawa, Canada – March 2009
• At the Edge of the Forest – Yellow Pepper Press – Douglasville, GA – March 2009
• Roses that Bloom – Kirpan Press – Vancouver, WA – April 2009
• A Selection of Poems – This Passing World website – Portland, OR – June 2009
• The Little White Elephants of Senegal – Grey Sparrow Press – Kent, Ohio – August 2009
• Birds Don’t Talk - Costmary Press – Kent, Ohio – August 2009

Kamini Press
poet Tom Kryss wrote this letter in 1967, in support of da levy and Jim Lowell; who were under indictment by local authorities in Cleveland for the selling and dissemination of alleged obscene poetry. A collection of testimonials in behalf of Lowell, gathering anti-censorship discourse from American authors such as Charles Olson, Hubert Selby Jr., Charles Bukowski, Denise Levertov, James Laughlin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others, was published, with proceeds ploughed into Lowell’s defense fund.

A part of small press history, indeed.

Check out the Mimeo Mimeo blog.

BIRD EFFORT by Ronald Baatz. Kamini Press. Ringvagen 8, 4th Floor. SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden. Limited to 225, 125 signed and numbered.

The poetry of Ronald Baatz sings with unparalleled beauty, and Bird Effort is one of the best examples of that song. I like Baatz’s work. He tends to draw the reader into his voice, and, once inside, you cannot help but become part of the song that he sings. Kamini Press’s edition of Bird Effort is smooth and stylistic, too. I highly recommend that the reader of this review go out of his or her way and secure a copy of it. Trust me, you won’t regret the purchase. —B.L. Kennedy, Reviewer-in-Residence

Sunday, March 22, 2009, REVIEW: ”Bird Effort”

BIRD EFFORT by Ronald Baatz. Kamini Press Ringvagen 8 4th floor SE-117 26, Stockholm, Sweden

This is another of those gorgeous little editions Henry Denander, who’s a poet of considerable talents himself, is producing on his Kamini Press, and number 4 in the series is another selection of poems by Ronald Baatz. 46 (I make it!) American tanka, one might as well call them, and two haiku about nature, animals and ageing–which may not sound promising to anyone who prefers urban poetry or who isn’t versed in the traditional forms Ronald adapts so marvellously to the modern idiom. But trust me if you can! The poetry is melancholy, funny, lyrical and even the simplest observation echoes in the mind with revealed truths for a long time afterwards.You’ll read it, then you’ll step outside and notice something you’ve never seen before. He’s the successor to Kerouac as a poet in adapted Chinese and Japanese verse forms, to my mind, is Ronald, and very few people could have taken Jack’s mantle off his shoulders. Posted by Fred Abbey at 4:51 AM

Bird Effort by Ronald Baatz, Kamini Press (Sweden and Greece)

By Barbara Bialick

When turning to read Ronald Baatz’ new chapbook, BIRD EFFORT, first you note it’s undersized with a handsome bird watercolor cover and some 24 pages of minimalist poems without much punctuation by an experienced poet. Will it be easy to read, you wonder, but no, the book is very deeply written about death as visualized through nature imagery, particularly of birds…

But who is the poem’s persona speaking to? That remains a mystery, though now and again he’ll mention either the presence of or a memory of his mother, his dead father, old girlfriends, his three-legged dog, a dead pet canary, and yes, the lord. There in the foothills of the Catskills in New York, nature and the seasons are always present, ultimately leading him to conclude “how soft my ashes will be…” He maintains sadness throughout, wishing he could be as happy as his dog “just being let in”…

You wonder who else is there because the goal or theme of the book is expressed early: “You sing to the bird in me/I sing to the bird in you/an effort/we love to face/each dawn.” With that line’s staccato rhythm, he also suggests a pace like bird songs.

“If time had a shadow…,” he says, “It’d be a swiftness having/no nest to return to”. “enough/sleep is so difficult/now dreams of my dead father/have come to/spend the winter/Oh lord, let me stay drunk somehow/without all this drinking…”

The life in the poems is often cold to him. There are “crows in fog-/their backs turned to me/ignoring me”; and “winter’s white shoulders–just how beautiful and cold/they really are.” Or his old three-legged dog ”chasing after/a winter sun/that’s cold and/hobbling on one leg”.

To go on pulling beautiful quotes would be unfair to the author and reader. Readers there certainly should be. It’s a nice pocket-size book to carry with you on a nature walk when you might wish to ponder poems about the cruelty of death in the elegance of nature. By all means read them out loud…By Barbara Bialick, author of Time Leaves (Ibbetson Street Press) Read the review at the blog

There are so many wonderful small presses out there, doing all manner of work, in all manner of styles. One of the finest operations around is Kamini Press out of Sweden. The quality and care put into their books is obvious even before you hold one of their books in your hands: they are, as the cliché goes, a sight to behold.

Once in hand, first impressions are confirmed: the cover, the art, the paper, and the overall production is outstanding. Their statement of intent from their website says it all. Respect the poetry with the highest quality production possible, the rest will follow. It makes those of us on the lower end of things hang our heads in shame.

All this before even arriving at the first words. The poetry itself. Bird Effort by Ronald Baatz is No. 4 in the ”Kamini Press Poetry Series” and it is a perfect little gem. It begins:

When the stream overflowed
the long grass
is combed close to the earth

You sing to the bird in me
I sing to the bird in you–
an effort
we love to face
each dawn

There is a depth of feeling in these poems delicately hinted at, subtly revealed:

Leave me bread
at least a few slices
leave me your voice
at least a few words
to go with the bread

Snow this morning
when I part the curtains
after getting out of bed
one rib
at a time

A sudden shift in perspective, and the introspective mode becomes all-embracing:

Finally
winter is losing its grip-
in my sleep
I hear the pond’s spine
cracking

Receiver
hanging off the hook
in a phone booth
hanging off
the earth

And again:

Digging
her canary’s grave
she catches the reflection
of lovely orange feathers
in the spoon

The old die old
sometimes the young
die young
and the little we know
the harsh winds blow

This beautiful little book contains 50 small poems, many 5 lines each, all tankas in their mood and construction, beautiful in their revelation. There is a simultaneous sadness and acceptance, a joy tempered by the real, a resonating wisdom. I can’t resist – here is one more:

So many crows-
as though the earth
is turning black
from so many bones
buried in it

Can’t blame the crickets
for crying out hour after hour-
summer having lied about
how long
it’d stay

This is the small press at its finest, the quality of work matched by the quality of the production, a beautiful reflection of life, work, dedication, and truth.

small press review – March-April 2010 – 42 Nos. 3-4 Issues 446-447 Vol by Hugh Fox.

Bird Effort is a beautifully artis-tic little book of poetry by Catskills poet Ronald Baatz, all the poems brief imagistic meditations that have the feeling of carefully measured Haiku about them: “To hold/ win-ter’s white shoulders/ is to realize/ just how beautiful and cold/ they really are.” (p. 13). It’s strange how, even when Baatz writes about the horrors of life on planet Rest in Peace, the work still comes out with a sense of wing- flapping civility about it. Nothing is really horrible for Baatz, but just part of to-be-mini-recorded reality: “The old die old/ sometimes the young/ die young/ and the little we know/ the harsh winds blow.” (p. 18). In a sense the whole book is a se-ries of mini-sermons on accepting life the way it is, not fighting its multiple-realities, but merely facingwhat is: “The stars over the lake/ so old and brittle looking – / I stop rowing, rest my back/ and think of how soft/ my ashes will be.” (p. 31) It’s a real lesson in condensation and whittling down to essentials, not the too common prose poeti-cized, but the heights and depths of existence turned into the briefest of all possible reality-lozenges. Hugh Fox

Ron Silliman mentionend on his blog Ronald Baatz Bird Effort. Please click his portrait on the left to visit his page.

From The Beatnik:

Sunday, March 22, 2009
REVIEW: ”Bird Effort”
BIRD EFFORT
by Ronald Baatz

Kamini Press Ringvagen 8 4th floor SE-117 26, Stockholm, Sweden

This is another of those gorgeous little editions Henry Denander, who’s a poet of considerable talents himself, is producing on his Kamini Press, and number 4 in the series is another selection of poems by Ronald Baatz. 46 (I make it!) American tanka, one might as well call them, and two haiku about nature, animals and ageing–which may not sound promising to anyone who prefers urban poetry or who isn’t versed in the traditional forms Ronald adapts so marvellously to the modern idiom. But trust me if you can! The poetry is melancholy, funny, lyrical and even the simplest observation echoes in the mind with revealed truths for a long time afterwards.You’ll read it, then you’ll step outside and notice something you’ve never seen before. He’s the successor to Kerouac as a poet in adapted Chinese and Japanese verse forms, to my mind, is Ronald, and very few people could have taken Jack’s mantle off his shoulders.

Posted by Fred Abbey at 4:51 AM

POCKET OF POEMS: For some reason, we’ve taken quite a liking to ”The Plot of Il Trovatore,” the probably 80-somethingth book of poems we’ve received from and by Long Beach’s finest poet, Gerald Locklin.

We tote it around with us, reading a piece from time to time while waiting for a vet or a dentist, or a bus to show up or for our daughter to emerge from the schoolyard.

Perhaps because it’s pocket-sized, or maybe we just thoroughly enjoy Henry Denander’s watercolor of, we’re guessing, Verdi’s Manrico on the cover – it’s likely those two things and the obvious fact that the poems in the slim but beautifully constructed collection are among Locklin’s best – and coming here so long after the poet’s slightly imaginary friend’s rompings through the bar-life and debauchery of Long Beach in the 1970s have long since crashed into near-death and the life ever-after.

The range is huge. At one end, there’s the wry Locklin humor in the self-deprecation – or the spousal deprecation – of ”Toad’s Medic-Alert Bracelet,” in which the aging alter ego’s wife offers to order it for her Toad, an act for which he is grateful, until it arrives bearing the inscription:

low i.q.

advanced hypochondria

and chronic intolerance of household chores.

And then there are the works inspired by Locklin’s lifelong love of the fine arts and the jazz form of music – a brace of indulgences he uses in much of his work now, in some ways to offset some of Advertisement the things in which he or his muse no longer indulge, though those things inevitably sneak in.

We are still happiest when he is a bit melancholy, as he is in ”Good People,” which resonates a bit uncomfortably with our own experiences, and which we don’t even feel good about excerpting here – you’ll just have to somehow acquire your own copy, which you can through Kamini Press for $6.

The magnificent UK magazine Beat Scene just published a very nice review of Locklin’s The Plot of Il Trovatore. Check out Beat Scene, lots of interesting stuff; other reviews and 62 pages of Beat-related articles and photos.

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THE PLOT OF IL TROVATORE

and other poems

by Gerald Locklin

32 pages of poems. First edition of 300 copies out of which 125 are signed by the poet. Twenty-five special copies contain an original signed water color & ink painting by Henry Denander. (First come first served…) Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork and author portrait by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:The Plot of Il Trovatore – Gerald Locklin – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]10 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide

[quickshop:The Plot of Il Trovatore – Limited Edition – Gerald Locklin – Kamini Press:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]25 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide for the limited edition with signed artwork.

Gerald Locklin is the author of over 125 books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction and criticism with over 3000 poems, stories, articles, reviews and interviews published in periodicals.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI wrote about Locklin: ”I have never been let down. I have been picked up, lifted up, tossed into that rare area: excellent writing with verve, writing that laughs, writing that reads easy yet says something. That’s a good package.”

MARVIN MALONE wrote: ”His poems are about real people and places that illustrate with common language the classic themes of love, envy, honesty, integrity etc. He is pro-people.”

EDVARD FIELD: ”The male spirit in him remains honest, bighearted, sentimental, generous, gentle, vulnerable, but sassy in the face of adversity – qualities that could be applied to as few American poets as to presidents. I think of him as a wonderful, protective big brother every sensitive little boy needs.”

]]> https://www.kaminipress.com/book-reviews/gerald-locklin-the-plot-of-il-trovatore/feed/ 0 https://www.kaminipress.com/book-reviews/samuel-charters-the-poet-sees-his-family-sleeping/ https://www.kaminipress.com/book-reviews/samuel-charters-the-poet-sees-his-family-sleeping/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:46:22 +0000 http://kaminipress.wordpress.com/?p=42 Samuel Charters,

like Whitman, asserts the mundane, every day occurrences, the back and forth realities. You are me. I am you. In his first poem in this small volume of poetry, he brushes our ears, takes us on an intimate journey through his writing rooms. The reader becomes the child, parent, sky, night, ”I move slowly for a last time from one to the other.”

Charters is open; he presents lust in a casual, dignified manner. ”what she presents of her elegant thigh, slides beneath her swirling skirt.” His poems open all the windows and doors on a spring day, even the heat of autumn bearing down over our laden walk, we sit on his bench and breath.

Readers will enjoy the intimacy, the fit in your hand size, the smooth way in which the poems appear and gather into a complete song. Review by Irene Koronas. Read the full review here

”Your edition of Sam’s book may be the most beautiful (perfect) limited edition chap I’ve ever seen. No wonder you wanted to start your own press, with the total aesthetic control it gives you. And every chap of mine you’ve ever worked with has been infinitely enhanced by your artistic contribution.

And Sam’s poems are just right: genuine, clearly heartfelt personal lyricism, tastefully and economically expressed. You two really did each other right with this creation—there is a perfect symmetry of tone, music, and line in the art, design, and sentences. I can’t seem to get away from the words “perfect” and “perfectly.” Your efforts simply coincided in a flawlessly visual-musical voice. Chamber music!

I can only congratulate you without reservation. But I think the two of you are such superior craftsmen that you must sense what you have accomplished here”. Gerald Locklin

” the samuel charters chapbook, writings and literature is a-one, like it is so very honest and loving, the poem about the girl on the bus which beside the title poem was my literary favvvvvvvvorite, oh yeah” t.k.splake

”the splendid book ”The Poet Sees His Family Sleeping.” Please convey my thanks to Samuel Charters, for these exciting and beautiful poems. Ahh… Warm wishes, Henry, and may the time shortly to commence on the island give you the pleasure this book has given me. t.l.kryss

THE POET SEES HIS FAMILY SLEEPING

poems by Samuel Charters

34 pages of unpublished poems. First edition, 200 copies, all signed by the poet. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork and author portrait by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:The Poet Sees His Family Sleeping – Samuel Charters – Kamini Press:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]10 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide

Samuel Charters began his life with small presses in the 1950s in New Orleans when he shared a rundown French Quarter building with Gypsy Lou and Jon Webb and made his first magazine appearance in an issue of their ground-breaking magazine The Outsider. Beginning in the mid-1960s his poetry chapbooks, broadsides, and literary essays were published by Berkeley’s Oyez Press, many designed and printed by the legendary Graham MacIntosh. With their own Portents press, he and his wife Ann published small pieces by, among many others, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley. With Ginsberg they created the book Scenes Along The Road, the first look at the story of the Beat Generation.

In the other world of publishing he has written innumerable books on jazz and the blues, as well as novels, biographies, translations, and travel memoirs, and worked with Ann on the first biography of Jack Kerouac. He is also responsible for the poetry section of their college introduction-to-literature textbook Literature And Its Writers, now in its 4th edition. Their current project is the authorized biography of Beat novelist John Clellon Holmes. His own most recent book is the first history of New Orleans jazz, A Trumpet Around The Corner.

A sample poem from The Poet Sees His Family Sleeping:

Conundrum

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There is no hell,
but I stumble there – often.
No heaven,
but I journey there – sometimes.

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