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LOST HORSE PRESS NEW POETS SERIES: NEW POETS, SHORT BOOKS | VOLUME II

LOST HORSE PRESS NEW POETS SERIES: NEW POETS, SHORT BOOKS | VOLUME II

$16.95Price

ISBN: 978-0-9800289-0-4

Pub Date: 2007

Pages: 88


Marvin Bell, series editor


The Heights by Tim Krcmarik

The Woman Who Cries Speaks by Patricia Staton

Death Song for Africa by Victor Camillo


From the Introduction:


New Poets/Short Books began with work by Gwendolyn Cash, Boyd W. Benson and Lisa Galloway, poets with strong individual voices. That is true, as well, of the poets in Volume II: Tim Krcmarik, Patricia Staton and Victor Camillo. Given their differences, all six of these poets nonetheless share the poetic terrain in between the simplistic speech of the popular and the coy maneuvers of self-conscious postmodernism. Their writing is neither reductive nor routine, but easily absorbs the impurities of language on its way to singular expression.


I like the thought that most readers will know little or nothing of these poets before encountering their work in this series. It is my intention to give readers a sense of what is taking place outside the best-known lighted corridors. Amid constant reminders of the value of communication, we may sometimes forget that we also come to art to be different from one another.


This book, like the volume that initiated the series, is appearing during a terrible time in our country. Let it be remarked, therefore, that we who can see the reality, or can imagine something better, will not close up shop. In a time of hate radio and the cruelest forms of capitalism, during a period of unsurpassed government corruption and incompetence, poetry, like every art, remains a survival skill.

—M. B., July 4, 2007


    What

    I did was listen hard as the world fell. I sang,

    “This must be music,” though by now my voice was

    bricks exploding, pipes bursting, strangers crying out.


    —Tim Krcmarik, “Things That Go On Around Us”


    The woman who cuts my hair has angels

    she asks for advice.

    All I ask for is silence,

    and to sleep like a dog.


    —Patricia Staton, “Bowl of Pears and a Bicycle”


    Look in the afternoon for the mothers who walk in Argentina

    When the old wind of agony blows.

    We should think of them when shopping malls are on our minds,

    When our grass is cut low, and shining and smiling.


    —Victor Camillo, “The Disappeared”


    Marvin Bell was born in New York City on August 3, 1937, and grew up in Center Moriches, on the south shore of eastern Long Island. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Alfred University, a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa.


    Marvin Bell was born in New York City on August 3, 1937, and grew up in Center Moriches, on the south shore of eastern Long Island. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Alfred University, a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa.


    Bell taught for forty years for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, retiring in 2005 as Flannery O’Connor Professor of Letters. For five years, he designed and led an annual Urban Teachers Workshop for America SCORES. Currently he serves on the faculty of Pacific University’s low-residency MFA program. He has also taught at Goddard College, the University of Hawaii, the University of Washington, and Portland State University. He and his wife, Dorothy, live in Iowa City and Port Townsend, Washington.

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