Swashbucklers: current articles
Angela Boyce
from PE 4
from Exploded Views
Jervey
Tervalon
on New Orleans
Tamara Johnson
on
Cults
M.I.Blue
on
Patriotism
Ray
Cappo
on
Spirituality
Shawna Kenney
2
poems
Barry Graham
on 911
Douglas A. Martin
3
poems
Ellyn Maybe
1
poem
Jimmy Jazz
on 911
on
Lumumba
on
Lenny Bruce
Poetry the Klown
Free
Art
Poetry
of Diversion
Painting
by the Numbers
Open
Mic Night, What Good Is It?
Craig Foltz is in
this
Sentence.
by Jimmy Jazz
Review of The States:
poems by Craig Foltz and photo editor/designer Elie Ga
Ugly Duckling Presse 2006
51 perforated postcards
w/ photographs of the sky in each of the United States and DC by 51
photographers $20
American expatriate Craig Foltz currently resides in New Zealand. This
makes his appearance in San Diego exotic, rare, hence to be cherished.
He said that he wouldn’t have been able to do the series of readings to
support The States, if his wife hadn’t worked for an airline. He may or
may not have been joking.
He read at PS1 in New York and the R3
Gallery in San Diego. An art gallery is the perfect setting to present
this book, which Ugly
Duckling Presse has defined as an “art book” and was designed by
Elie Ga as a series of accordion-connected, perforated postcards. One
for each state. By state I don’t mean “confusion” or “restless
agitation” though the text carries us through many such states. One
side of the postcard features a photograph of the sky from each of the
50 American states and the District of Columbia, which Mr. Foltz
admitted at the reading “would be easy to fake.” I wanted to call them
black and white pictures, but my daughter duly noted the green tone, of
mostly cloud formations, some with objects in the foreground.
The back of the postcard presents writing by Foltz about Oklahoma,
Rhode Island, South Dakota... et. all. Foltz confessed in his
introduction that he’s only traveled 35 of the states physically. Of
course this didn’t stop Kafka from writing Amerika or Celine’s journey
to Detroit. I’d have to say that Foltz’s writing reminds me more of
Kafka’s parables than Celine’s narrative.
Oklahoma
Still –
when you say poetics i think aarp. freitag makes announcements.
langenscheidt’s pocket. i wonder where the word rosewood comes from.
rosewater. rosebud. night soil man. mud women. bundled and not bundled.
the same night, an user guide...”
I had heard Mr. Foltz’s work several times before as he
attended grad school here in San Diego. I’d always felt that Craig was
smarter than me, though he being humble and polite, would never rub it
in. I tend to like poetry that I can understand and his non-sequitur
dada sometimes throws me off. But now in the age of Google there is no
such thing as an obscure reference. I can look up “langenscheidt’s
pocket” and voila: it’s a German pocket dictionary. When he says
“rosewood” I might have thought he was talking about the 1923 massacre
in Florida, but the title of that card was Oklahoma. And to me “night
soil man” was one of the greatest rock n roll bands ever to hail from
San Diego. And I know they got the name from a movie, which, for all I
know may have been set in Oklahoma.
A literature professor at SDSU once professed that a poem
was not a puzzle, not something that needed to be figured out; another
professor at the same institution uncovered lines of a poem by Sylvia
Plath, urging the students to guess the title by the images that were
evoked. “Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes,
our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air.”
Mr. Foltz showed slides of the clouds at the reading and
after dividing the audience into teams had us try to guess which state
the poem alluded to. I have to congratulate Mr. Foltz here for his
gamble. What if they couldn’t guess? But they did. They guessed the
same way any mob can always guess the number of jelly beans in a jar.
As he read the work aloud something caught the minds of his listeners
and moved them to shout out “Arizona! “Vermont!” Sometimes the
name of a town or a river made it easier. I suspect others were able to
guess by the tone or mood of the piece. Something in it reminded them
of home.
Can you guess this one?**
an event recorded in archeology. the pentecostal jetset every friday
night. cribbage champions all. one cup of shortening and hoppy.
jefferson high.
hugh. fitz. four clover stained knees. knocking dust off the wipers.
cardoor and carhart...
Or this one?***
slow-growth trees pause for high speed film. double backed and
podocarp. GE free and dull anther-pink. cooking to impress. waving the
skillet. the pants come off for inedible grapefruit. good things to
oranges that roll over the fence...
Sometimes you can figure out how something was constructed
by taking it apart. This used to be true of American cars. Mr. Foltz
might have applied the cut-up method of Gysin and Burroughs. The cut-up
method is one of selection; it enables ideas you could not imagine.
Yet, I wonder if many of these elegantly constructed sentences come
from Foltz’s staccato memory. Perhaps cutting together local history,
indie rock zines, the sports page, trivial pursuit cards, AAA travel
pamphlets and bits from American Fisherman. They are certainly not as
random as they seem. Just as Plath’s poem was probably about something
more than Mushrooms, these poems are about more than the US of A. I’ve
known Mr. Foltz to be a sport’s fan and a meticulous constructor of the
sentence, so lines like “manet is to bear bryant what cézanne is
to chutes and ladders” from Alabama and “kobe bryant seems out of place
in yosemite valley” from California are to be anticipated. I found his
sentences a pleasure to read. I especially like “aurora borealis bingo
with familiar constellations” though it pains me to confess I’ve never
experienced the phenomenon. Mr. Foltz suggested that those who purchase
the book tear the perforations and mail the postcards, and if you can
spare $40 I say buy two, one to keep and one to post.
*The title comprises the entirety of Foltz biographical statement from
Incommunicado Press’ 1995 CD Exploded Views.
**Texas
***Alaska
note to editor: it would be cool to put the answers to the two
questions upside down as occurs in such games found in newspapers.
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Pirate eBook -
The
Cadiallac Tramps was originally published as a 175 page chapbook
in 1993. It appears here as a FREE eBook.
Click on the cover to read the story of 3
friends who crossed a desert to see their favorite band.

Buccaneers: friends of PE
Titanium Exposure
Kimberly
Dark
Barry
Graham
R3
Gallery
Patrick
Haley
Cecil
Hayduke
Michael Klam
Romy
Kaye
Lance
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Peter
Plate
The
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Bucky
Sinister
Derrick
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Daphne
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Ellyn
Maybe
The Glossines
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Radioactive Future
Carolyn
Fisher
Bookmobile
Feral
House
American
Book Review
Plexifilm
City
Lights Books
Janice
Jordan
Digital
film
Shawna
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AK
Press
Soft
Skull
Press
Morricone
Youth
Hirsch
the machine...
Ant Black
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Order a book? Send
an email.
Drapetomania:
selected poems
by Jimmy Jazz
2004 novel by
by Jimmy Jazz
City Works Press
w/ a poem by Angela Boyce

10 Year Anniversary
by Jimmy Jazz

City Works 2003
featuring
Jimmy Jazz

Jazz
Shack Ink
14 Authors / 14 Little Books
#1 Jimmy Jazz
#2 Tamara Johnson
#3 Cecil Hayduke
#4 Bucky Sinister
#5 Daphne Gottlieb
#6 Michael Klam
#7 Margarat Nee
#8 Angela Boyce
#9 Barry Graham
#10 Douglas Martin
#11 Jervey Tervalon
#12 Chris Mosher
#13 Lizz Huerta
#14 Shannon Gleeson
Collect
All 14
Trade w/ friends
• Droplift! •
A dollar for one, four for five dollars
Ed. by Michael Hemmingson

Jimmy Jazz on soulseek? search for jjazz
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