Review Of Draime's "Spiders And Madmen"

This I will begin this with the last line of poetry in the book almost, which it is not the last line and that is OK because Doug
Draime would approve of breaking rules. And this then is not the last line but a bunch of near last lines:

Poet is America suck on the tit of academic,
       curdled lies, defending the “artistic freedom”
                                       of submerging an image
               of Christ in a bottle of urine.

Draime is certainly one to call the stupid thing a stupid thing! And that is one theme of his raging and ragging poems. He has an
opinion and spouts it like a coke bottle shaken artery popping on the July 4rth evening. Of course, one of the things he is majorly
pissed off about is the narrowness of the land of the poem forgetting that there is more than one type of poetry. So, essentially
throughout he is calling, yellking (yes, yellking!) for poetry wider than what is given as a class in poetry at the local community
college. And he is right, correct. The way the poem is handled in the mind factories is way to narrow. Yes, teaching is getting in
line, like ducks or working on the line (it is – no shit – no fantasy – softer – but a line) and the line needs to be longer and wider
but who has energy and guts to shout it cause of the need for food and paying the rising gas prices! Some can.  Doug Draime will.
Ya gotta give him that. He is willing to piss it out blue! So we have a force of freight-train tanks in lines of poetry, tight, pounding,
fearless in the ice storm, dying undefeated and he write in his poem Missing the Point:


You already know with certainly this poem
Will never appear in the American Poetry Review

I guess he might be right. I guess none of his poems will ever appear in American Poetry Review. But he could be wrong and his
poems with their sarcasm, humor, rhythmic structure, point-of-view, rebel personae, social insight, class bias and literary class
smarts, chip the cheap veneer and melt it away like paint thinner on plastic so, like the great ones: Pound, Hem, Kenneth Patchen,
Gertrude, Buk, Ron Androla, our buddy the outlaw Todd Moore, like Kenny G. at UBUWEB, like John Cage sitting in silence…
chip    chip   chip  Remember Clint Eastwood digging his way out of Alcatraz…. And in the year 2017 in the January issue of APR
or Paris Review:
Draime Anointed Pope of the Poem

-Michael Basinski

Review of Doug Draime's "SPIDERS AND MADMEN"

It was a treat to get Doug Draime's latest chapbook, Spiders and Madmen, to go with 2004's Unoccupied Zone. Bob Lenney leapt at Draime's work when I featured Doug as guest poet. He leapt on those lines as shafts down the same honeycomb mine that was exploited before by Kerouac, Wantling, Winans, etc. Draime met Bukowski a couple of times and lived near him for a while. He has an amusing poem in here ('More Details'), a sort of refusal to write ye olde Buk tribute so much in demand which, in itself, though skirting round the subject of Buk, is about as much Hank, or rather the source that he came from, as Buk himself. Chapbook published by Scintillating Publications.

It's always great to get out the set of Draime's books.

Reviewed by Keith Dersley/Editor of Ragged Edge

REVIEW OF DOUG DRAIME'S "SPIDERS AND MADMEN"

“if art does not tear the sham from all political thinking and lead to a truth to free the mortal-material soul if art does not lead to revelation or revolution or beauty or insight or hilarity over the pitiful human race if it does none of these art is only the ego jacking off the dead - “The Ego Jacking-Off The Dead” Of the unfortunate legacies of Bukowski and Thompson on so-called underground or gonzo literature, the accumulation of more young male angst and alienation than a Trench Coat Mafia convention or a Pakistani “training” school (present author not excluded) is perhaps the most aggravating. This makes it a unique pleasure to discover poets who embrace the “outlaw” aesthetic but who are also unafraid to embrace their maturity. Doug Draime may be the best of these kinds of poets. Draime has been a working poet since the late 60’s but Spiders and Madmen represents his fourth release in the last five years, meaning the ravages of time are not slowing his muse up that much. For poets who make it this far into the game, history and romance become intertwined archetypes that must be rendered real: “I heard that the former owners of the restaurant were followers of Mussolini and started the restaurant after he was executed in 1943, and that the waiters carried machine guns under their aprons. Some people believed the stories, others didn’t. To me the stories were as real as anything, real as the drunks, the cops, junkies, speed freaks, alley sleeping homeless, and the sex freaks and whores walking in front of, and walking in and out of, my place of employment.” from “4th and Main” Draime’s poetry is haunted by place, and his manuscript is shot full through with places whose unifying populace is, in fact, spiders and madmen. The finest pieces in this collection (“Missing the Point”/”Who Built This Place”/”I Can Hear The Wind, It Is a Frozen Waste”/”The True Story of Noah”) mix bruising insights with a sardonic tone. This is the maturity that is so rare in what passes for the literary underground, but don’t be mistaking Draime for a sellout: “if I stumble over the space trash and lies between you and me, don’t be too harsh with your judgement, and if you are among the literary intelligentsia, you already know with certainty this poem will never appear in the American Poetry Review.” from “Missing The Point” I’ll admit to being a bit biased because I feel Draime has a clear, “California” voice for poetry (witness the standard Buk tribute “More Details”) but what that means is an accessible voice that can be trusted by the reader who knows that veil of civilization is primarily a sham propagated to distort the fact of our species twin pre-occupations with death and sex.     -Paul Corman-Roberts

Review of Doug Draime's  " SPIDERS AND MADMEN"

Doug Draime's topics throughout this title are straight-forward, on-the-edge-of-sanity poetry that need be experienced in this day and age of poetic fluff.

The experiences are articulate in that they truly are the genuine experience of the author, not a made up story or a fabrication of an event that was never to be, this is meat and bone imagery. Such tales of common job complications to love's own deceit manifest their way throughout. There is no room for hapless images of prairie walking, just the nitty grit and a nod to this tell- it- like- it- was/is manifesto.

Mr. Draime is good at keeping his poems as interesting to that of everyday conversation, in that the subject is introdcued, dissected, and tossed to the proverbial wolves to do what is needed to make each and every poem stand on its own legs. The overall theme of the chap is to show academics that there is still relevency in telling the undenatured truth about past experiences without a lot of glam added into the mix.

This chap is recommened to those that would like to read about what realities and hardships may demand of an individual, and how there can be beauty erupted from these tales.

-Reviewd by Oscar Sebastien Poet/Critic

Review Of "Till Death Do Us Art" By Joe Verrilli:

This Poetry collection by Robert Pomerhn is chock full of writing fury, in which the author not only defines (or redefines) himself and every component of his identity and emotional/spiritual makeup, but also everything around him, including various pop culture icons/sensibilities. This book is wildly impassioned, and as good as it can get for a chapbook of poetry.  After reading the closing poem, there can be no doubt in anyone's mind who Robert Pomerhn IS.

With an eloquence not usually found in the underground/small press anymore, Pomerhn writes: I'M NOT YOUR TYPICAL UNDERGROUND POET/ "THE PRAYERFUL POSTURE OF MY COVER PIX HAS TURNED INTO A TRADEMARK."

In "COMPOSITE SKETCH OF CHRIST," the opening poem, he exclaims: THOUGH YOUR HEAVENLY CLIMB/SEEMS TO HAVE COME/AT THE MOST INOPPORTUNE TIME/THE LORD SPEAKS THROUGH ME/TO WRITE DOWN THIS RHYME/ SO I GIVE THANKS TO DEAR JESUS/BECAUSE GOD/ONLY ANOINTS THOSE WHOM HE PLEASES/ & SINCE YOU SHOWED YOUR UNDIVIDED LOYALTY/ HE WILL CLOAK THEE IN ROYALTY/& THE TRIBULATION & THE TRIAL/WILL BURDEN US ONLY FOR A SHORT WHILE."

This collection of poems is a hopeful sign for the future of poetry, filled with brutally honest revelatuions and conclusions emerging from the pages when least expected. And in the title poem, Robert Pomerhn says it best:

"SOME CATS ARE SO USED/ TO PLAYING THEIR PART/ THAT THEY LACK BOTH/ THE SINCERITY AND THE HEART/TO FINISH WHAT THEY START/SO TECHNICALLY SPEAKING/THEIR WORDS CARRY THE WEIGHT/OF A NINETY-EIGHT POUND WEAKLING/& ONCE THE STRENGTH OF THEIR /MESSAGE BEGAN TO DIMINISH/THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE POPEYE/& EATEN ALL OF THEIR SPINACH."

Very highly recommended.

Reviewed by Joseph Verrilli, Editor of Shoes/ Drama Garden   7-16-06

-Review of  Robert Pomerhn's "TILL DEATH DO US ART" 

Robert Pomerhn brings the same blend of energy, surrealism and social criticism to the new genre of hiphop rhyme that he has displayed as a contributor to vispo (visual poetry) in my anthology, BLACKBIRD. What is the connection between such seemingly disparate art forms? How about anger?

In ROYAL RUMBLE: "I SIMPLY DELETE YOU, (NICE TO MEET YOU)" 

at?

A streak of Artaud figures prominently in Pomerhn's work, which opens with his vispo, ARTAUD'S AGONY" as a thematic intro to the hiphop collection. Isn't Artaud unusual for rap? But then: "I'M NOT YOUR TYPICAL UNDERGROUND POET".

Why "Hip-Hopcrisy"?

"...AN EVIL DICTATOR

......I AM OF THE OPINION

THAT I'VE BEEN PUT HERE

TO TEAR DOWN HIS DOMINION...."

The signature poem TILL DEATH DO US ART is a passionate statement of commitment by the poet to his art: "& IF I DIDN'T HAVE

THE POET CREST ON MY CHEST

I'D BE UNDERDRESSED..."

The collection concludes with "Rank Recipe", a poem about the devastation in New Orleans, a poem which reflects in vispo the passion the collection reflects in rhyme. Is poetry irrelevant? Not if Pomerhn has any say in the matter.

-Reviewed by David Stone, Editor Of BLACKBIRD

TILL DEATH DO US ART is the follow-up to Robert Pomerhn's first poetry book, Blest For This Poet Crest To Rest On My Chest,  and it contains two dozen new poems written from 2003 up to the time of Hurricane Katrina last Fall. ("Rank Recipe," written for the sufferers of this hurricane, is unforgiving of the Bush administration, who probably were still reading "My Pet Goat" when this tragedy went down.)

Readers who were blown away by the rewrite of Andre Breton's "Free Union" in Pomerhn's first book ("Surrealist Expulsion from the Garden of Poetics") will not be disappointed this time around; Till Death Do Us Art contains the surrealist acrostic "Surrealist Smorgasboard" that covers 3 centuries of surrealist history from A-Z in 26 lines!!

Pomerhn never forgets these cultural workers who no longer walk among us: "Composite Sketch of Christ" is dedicated to the memory of Raseem Young, and he closes out the book with a touching tribute to his uncle, "Richard the lion-Hearted,"who passed away unexpectedly last summer on the west coast.

Reading the book a second time is just as enjoyable, if not more so, than the first-- the mad rhymes are so rapid-fire, the wordplay so quick, the typographical changes so pertinent, that you can't assimilate it all on just one reading. The diesel fuel guzzling travesty known as the NFTA, the hypocrisy of the Buffalo poetry slam scene, the commercialization of the spiritual, the ubiquitous haters and poseurs who are everywhere, police harassment, drugs as a tool of mass zombiefication, and a hundred more topics break the speed limit across these pages, awaiting your appreciation.

I once told Pomerhn that he has a style so distinctive that when I would encounter one of his works in Artvoice or the Marymark Press or the Blue Collar Review, that I knew the poem was by him before I ever got to the writer's name at the bottom of the page. And I don't think you can pay a writer a higher compliment than that. Go to Talking Leaves or Rustbelt or wherever better books are sold, and get this book.

-Reviewed by Bradley Lastname, Editor of The Press of The 3rd Mind

Review of Joe Verrilli's "Jerry Springer Stands In For Ghost-God" as reviewed in Barbaric Yawp: 

I found myself gritting my teeth the whole time I was reading this. Verrilli sounds off about how incredibly messed up certain people are and how messed up society is.  His targets include " the squeaky clean ambiance/ the thinly-veiled superficialities/ the braindead masses who need the lies/ to cover their pathetic truths with" and "those who believe they understand/ who are convinced they will triumph/over the weak sensitive/ with their detestably transparent politics/ who will keep hypocrisy alive and kicking/ who will try to forcefeed the mediocrity/ to the true individuals." But I could go on and on. Verrilli comes close to ranting--he's had enough, he sounds desperate, gasping for a breath of fresh air, disappointed again and again by his society and his world. In a way, he reminds me of the prophet Isaiah with his whiplash poetics, pointing a stern finger at the bastards and fat imbeciles who lead others astray.

           Not that Verrilli is a dour curmudgeon. Nearly every poem contains puns and various forms of wordplay, and there are a few lighter pieces--but not many. If you want to get yourself wound up as tight as a fist, this is the poetry chapbook for you.

Reviewed by John Berbrich/Editor of Barbaric Yawp

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Review of Joe Verrilli's "Jerry Springer Stands In For Ghost-God" as reviewed in Zen Baby:

Verrilli is a voice of the true outsider, trying to rise above the din of the banal and mainstream, seriously questioning what most folks consider entertainment, real life, love. There are no weak lines in this new chap, each one cuts, delving into loneliness and psychology as in "A Fond Look Back At Life So Far."

Is "Flesh and Blood" about war, sex, birth? maybe all three. The poetic angst of a creative man stuck in Bridgeport, Connecticut; a town where people think zines and poetry are weird, and people like Verrilli, dangerous. "I thought the dickhead walking behind me/had launched into an avant garde soliloquy/but he was only talking into his cell phone." (from "Are You Ready For Your Enema, Mister Jones?")

Reviewed by Christopher Robin/Editor of Zen Baby

feel my disease* by J.J. Campbell * 28 pgs * $5 * Scintillating Publications
21 Russell Street, Burlington, VT 05401 * 

    feel my disease is J.J. Campbell's newest collection of poems, published by Scintillating Publications.  The price for the chapbook is five dollars.
    If you are not familiar with Campbell's work, just look around the small press, both in print and online.  You're bound to find him.  Campbell's output is prodigious and varies, like most, in quality.  But, when he is on, he is as good as any.  feel my disease has some great poems and some not so great, but the great ones make this collection worth the read.
    Campbell's poetry tends to the self-deprecating, listing the many ways he is inadequate.  As a lover, a citizen, a son and a poet.  They are often humorous, but it's the times when J.J. gets serious that his poetic abilities most shine.  In the poem the unexpected death of an old friend J.J. addresses a dead woman.  "i never saw your beauty / until i saw you in your casket" he writes.  He continues, "...or maybe just seeing you / finally at peace / that brought these tears".  He ends the poem, "who would have thought that / out of all the juices we / shared over the years / the ones that meant the most / would come after your death".  Touching.
    But, just when you think Campbell's gone soft on us, a few pages later is a poem titled a matter of convenience.  "they're building a funeral home / right across the street from / the local nursing home // all in the spirit of / one-stop shopping / i imagine".  It's the insightful, cutting wit that we all have come to know and love from J.J.  Most of the poems of feel my disease are of the latter, where he paints himself the outcast, porn-addicted, masturbating poet living with his mother and striking out with the ladies.
    If you know of Campbell's work, this would make a worthy addition to your collection.  If you don't, feel my disease would be a great primer.  I think some of his earlier collections are better, but this one is solid and most anyone can find a few to nod their head at.


Reviewed by justin.barrett