Sharing the Love & Poetry to Celebrate Valentine's Day!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013 -- Poets Wear Prada is  sharing the love with a different poem from our collection of poetry books every few hours starting today thru' Friday to celebrate Valentine's Day!  Enjoy and share them with  someone you love.

Pale Male & Lola

Pornography in the Park

by Mary Orovan

Public mating,

      out in the open,

   Grey owl has cozied

with Red owl 

     in hollow hole

of the old Pin oak,                                    

     fluffing each other's cheeks,

 waiting for the moon.

    

And Pale Male and Lola,

    our City hawks, atop the Carlyle Hotel,   

                     aerobatic display,

always Valentine's day.

Indigo go go

   puffed puffed pigeons

followingcirclingfollowing,

   woo.     Bill and … .

   Egregious acts

of ubiquitous birds

        oh, baby, all over the City.         

              Edgy music in the Ramble

    wild timbres and rhythms

bird calls                       

                                        bird calls

   birds answering

                           love on the fly everywhere.

This poetry selection, "Pornography in the Park" by Mary Orovan, is from "Green Rain," published by Poets Wear Prada in 2008.

Green Rain
by Mary Orovan
ISBN 978-0-9817678-5-7
Soft Cover, Perfect Bound, 30 pp.
$10.00
Buy online at Amazon.com
http://amzn.com/0981767850/
And from CreateSpace
https://www.createspace.com/3479061

Praise for Mary Orovan's "Green Rain":

We really enjoy your use of imagery, descriptive language and insight.

  

—Pat Swenson, Editor Emeritus,

Avocet, A Journal of Nature Poems

Besides being wonderful poems they have an undercurrent, sometimes a flood-tide of sensuality, Eros and Thanatos, which gives the book a life above and beyond the beautiful words.

—George Spencer, Co-host of ABC No Rio

 

Poets Wear Prada is a small literary press based in Frank Sinatra's hometown, Hoboken, NJ, publishing beautifully designed books of excellent poetry since 2006.  Roxanne Hoffman and Jack Cooper, editors & co-publishers. 

February 12th is Abraham Lincoln's Birthday!

Daguerreotype of Abraham Lincoln at age 54, 1863

Tuesday,  February 12, 2103 -- Abraham Lincoln, "Honest Abe," our 16th President of these United States, was born 204 years ago on  February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Kentucky, U.S.A.  He served as President from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865, and is probably best remembered for leading and preserving the nation during the American Civil War and for issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, leading to the abolition of slavery in this country in 1865.


In celebration of Lincoln's birthday, here is "For Lincoln," a poem by Austin Alexis, with an illustration by Charles Haywood Johnson, from Austin's book, "For Lincoln & Other Poems" (Poets Wear Prada 2010):

“Abe” by Charles Haywood Johnson

FOR LINCOLN (1809-1865)
by Austin Alexis


I.

Your old-man skin
worn on your
young-man posture
in a youthful country
about to grow up fast.


II.

You went to the theatre
not knowing
and not wanting to know.
All that red velvet!
And you didn’t pay heed
to the color.


III.

What suit, what formality
did your wife package you in
as she, understandably, unraveled ...


IV.

The memorial pictures you
with monumental hands,
eyes eying the land,
and a huge face
housing a subtle smile.

For Lincoln & Other Poems
by Austin Alexis
ISBN 978-0-9841844-3-9
6" x 9" Saddle Stitched, 34pp.
$10.00 (+ $2 S&H by Mail Order)
Release Date: March 2010
Available at Babbo's Books
242 Prospect Park West
Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.babbosbooks.com
Phone: 718.788.3475
Perfect Bound Edition Now Available from Create Space:
www.createspace.com/3440550
And on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Other-Poems-Austin-Alexis/dp/0984184430/

Remembering "The Wolf Man" Lon Chaney Jr

Lon Chaney, Jr (February 10, 1906 – July 12, 1973)

February 10, 2013 -- Lon Chaney, Jr.,  son of famous silent film actor, Lon Chaney, an American actor known for playing such characters as The Wolf Man, The Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster and Count Alucard for Universal, was born born Creighton Tull Chaney,  107 years ago today, on February 10, 1906 in Oklahoma City.

Joel Allegretti  recalls his own adolescent transformation and the famous wolf man in this excerpt from "The Wolf Man of St. Mark’s Place" from his latest book "Europa/Nippon/New York:: Poems/Not-Poems" (Poets Wear Prada, 2012):

Thanks to Universal Pictures, the werewolf relocated from superstition to celluloid. The studio’s initial offering, Werewolf of London (1935), left nary a paw print at the box office. The second, The Wolf Man (1941), transformed the creature into a genre matinee idol who joined the rarefied movie-monster pantheon, taking his distinguished place next to Dracula, Frankenstein’s creature and the Mummy. Objects associated with the werewolf — full moon, silver bullets — entered the popular lexicon in the picture’s wake.

My personal experience was considerably less picturesque than that of Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney the younger). There was nightfall, but no machine-generated fog, no gypsy’s portentous utterances, no Béla Lugosi in one of his progressively lesser roles. I roomed with two other New York University graduates in a tiny apartment three floors above a record shop on St. Mark’s Place in East Greenwich Village. In the summer of ’75, I had the itch to leave the reek of Manhattan. Instead of going home to Minneapolis, I decided a long weekend upstate was the ideal prescription and bought a bus ticket to Monticello, where my mother’s cousin lived.

On Saturday night — I think it was close to midnight (how appropriate) — while the family was in bed, I took a walk in the backyard along the edge of the woods. Yes, the moon was full and as bright as a klieg light. Out from the trees a German shepherd puppy bounded up to me. Laughing out of surprise as well as glee, I wiggled my fingers in the critter’s snout. It thanked me for my playful gesture by closing its callow jaws on my hand and bolting back into the forest. Under the moonshine, I saw the miserable animal had broken skin. I rushed into the house and treated the wound with hydrogen peroxide, a gauze pad and adhesive tape. The next morning, I was in the local emergency room for a rabies shot.
 
I was dying to abbreviate my trip and late in the afternoon boarded the bus to  New York — this in spite of Cousin Maria’s protests. Did I mention she had the same first name as the actress who played the gypsy woman in The Wolf Man? Don’t you love coincidence?
 
Back in the city and feeling weak from the needle, I sprawled on the sofa by the living room window. One roommate stepped out to buy me a falafel sandwich. The other was somewhere.
 
The full moon spilled itself on me, and I learned the little German shepherd was neither German nor shepherd.
 
Chaney Jr.’s shape-shifting scenes are colorful. They had to be if the film was going to lure moviegoers. I’m sorry to report the real-world transmutation is removed from the fanciful worlds of cinema and village beliefs. No, I don’t sprout hair like a sideshow freak, although my eyebrows do acquire a Vlad the Impaler bushiness (pardon the mixed metaphor) and a day’s five o’clock shadow takes on the look of two days’ worth. My canine teeth don’t gain a couple of inches. My voice is my voice, but with a dash of Louis Armstrong. I don’t feed on human biceps; raw pot roast fits the bill. The profound shift is in my personality. The closest analogy is Mr. Hyde. Still, werewolf or plain old were, I’m an American, damn it. Derring-do fills my bones as much as marrow. My father was a Minnesota state assemblyman who always taught me the following: Whether fortune blesses you or misfortune befalls you, ask yourself, “How can I capitalize on this?”
 
The Bowery was only a hop, skip and a lunge away, so I loped to CBGB, called myself Lou Garou and formed a punk-rock band with a trio of like-minded fellows. I was the lead singer.
 
Our name? The Larry Talbots.

[First published in "KNOCK"]

EUROPA/NIPPON/NEW YORK: Poems/Not-Poems
by Joel Allegrettei
ISBN 978-0615600208
Soft Cover, Perfect Bound 52pp.
$12.00
Release Date: March 25, 2012
Now available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615600204
and from CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/3785527

Pop culture chronicler Allegretti leads readers of his latest book on a cinematic journey through time and space replete with airplanes, submarines, the expected cathedral stops, plus surprise encounters with marquee idols and urban legends. “Come, children, and take your seat for ‘Europa/Nippon/New York,’ where Joel Allegretti spans the globe with ears to the ground and eyes toward the stars,” Daniel Nestor, author of “How to Be Inappropriate,” urges. Commends Peter Covino, winner of the 2007 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, “Everything instructs, engages, and delights us through the wide-angle lens of this wonderful new collection where ‘the next world is the next movie.’”

Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year!

   Xin Nian Kuai Le， 新年快乐
GUNG HAY FAT CHOY 恭喜发财

February 10, 2013 -- Gung Hay Fat Choy! 恭喜发财 Today is Chinese New Year's Day, the first day of the first month of the lunisolar year in the lunar calendar, and marks the beginning of the Spring Festival, the longest and most important festival in  the Chinese calender, which ends with the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month. The new year will be the year of the black snake.  New Year's Day is a time to forget your grudges, reconcile with friends and family and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.  Cleanse your home, sweep away any ill-fortune to make way for good incoming luck.

To celebrate Chinese New Year we are sharing a poem by  by Erik La Prade, from MOVIE LOGIC: Poems, La Prade's new book of poetry from Poets Wear Prada:

 

New Year’s Secret

On Sunday afternoons, the old Chinese
Fortune readers hang red cloths on the gated
Metal entrance to Confucius Park, Chinatown.
Since they speak no English, they each have
A woman to translate questions.
Most of the readers are refugees from
Pre-Mao China. Too old after World War II
To be reeducated, they would have disappeared
Had they owned land or houses,
Or dabbled in superstition.
I stand by the entrance, looking at their faces,
As several of them offer to read my palm.
Their pet songbirds, housed in wooden cages,
Sit on the lawn. Occasionally, the birds’ songs
Mix with the sounds of men playing mah-jongg
At nearby chess tables. After twenty
Minutes, it costs me ten dollars to learn
I’ll live to be eighty-six.

For your own fortune visit: http://www.gotohoroscope.com/2013-horoscope/chinese-new-year.html 

MOVIE LOGIC: Poems by Erik La Prade

List Price: $12.00

5.5" x 8.5" (13.97 x 21.59 cm)
Black & White on White paper
36 pages

Poets Wear Prada
ISBN-13: 978-0615761237 (Custom)
ISBN-10: 0615761232
BISAC: Poetry / American / General

"In this latest collection Erik La Prade continues his cinematic verse celebration of urbanity and human tenderness, showing us life freeze-framed into mise-en-scènes of hilarity and heartbreak, as he walks the high wire of a 21st-century NYC life in the arts."

— ALAN KAUFMAN, author of Drunken Angel, 

editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry 

 "La Prade is a gifted poet, memoirist, critic, photographer, and urban chronicler of lost artistic and literary byways, with a historian's eye for New York cultural history and downtown avant-garde. Put simply, he dazzles."

— GARY SHAPIRO, journalist 

Now available at CreateSpace.com: https://www.createspace.com/4146252
And on Amazon.com: http://amzn.com/dp/0615761232/

Remembering American Poet Musician Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) Part II

An excerpt from "Four Poems for Sidney Lanier" by Erik La Prade, from MOVIE LOGIC: Poems,La Prade's forthcoming book of poetry from Poets Wear Prada:

Henry Ritter
Ema Ritter
Dema Ritter
Sweet Potatoe
Creamatarter
Caroline Bostick
Daughter of
Bob & Suckey Catlen
Born at Social Circle
1843
Died at Wetumka 1852

Four Poems for Sidney Lanier

III
Mid-August. Here, at the confluence of the Coosa and
The Tallapoosa, the Alabama River forms.
West of the river is the city cemetery, where
My people are buried. The oldest
Graves in Section G have no names or stones,
Only humps of rock sticking up from the ground.
Other names are recorded in the cemetery books.
The sun is hot and I don’t have a hat.
My great aunt walks back to the car
While I stand here, reading the tombstone
Of a much-named nine-year old girl —
“Henry Ritter,” “Ema Ritter,” “Dema Ritter,”
“Sweet Potatoe,” “Creamatarter,” real name:
“Caroline Bostick” — dead before
I was born. Her gravestone nicknames are
Scratched over like grooves on
A wax cylinder. My father recited those
Names to me when I was a kid.
Now, I can almost hear
The voices of schoolchildren echoing
Among the graves.

My aunt has lived her whole life in this small town,
And only escaped dying young with the
Help of a White lawyer.
Nothing I write now will
Change how these people — Black or White —
Lived their small-town lives.
Sweat covers my forehead. I need a drink.

Remembering American Poet Musician Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) Part I

Sidney Lanier (1842-1881)

February 3, 2013 -- Today marks the 171st birthday of American poet, musician, academic Sidney Lanier, best known for his unfinished "Hymns of the Marshes," which describe the vast, open salt marshes of Glynn County on the coast of Georgia, and for his novel "Tiger Lillies," detailing  the gruesome hardships of war.  He developed a unique style of poetry written in logaoedic dactyls, which was strongly influenced by the works of his beloved Anglo-Saxon poets.

A Birthday Song. To S. G.

by Sidney Lanier

For ever wave, for ever float and shine
Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine
Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine,

A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread
Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead,
Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o'erhead.

This vine bore many blossoms, which were years.
Their petals, red with joy, or bleached by tears,
Waved to and fro i' the winds of hopes and fears.

Here all men clung, each hanging by his spray.
Anon, one dropped; his neighbor 'gan to pray;
And so they clung and dropped and prayed, alway.

But I did mark one lately-opened bloom,
Wherefrom arose a visible perfume
That wrapped me in a cloud of dainty gloom.

And rose -- an odor by a spirit haunted --
And drew me upward with a speed enchanted,
Swift floating, by wild sea or sky undaunted,

Straight through the cloud of death, where men are free.
I gained a height, and stayed and bent my knee.
Then glowed my cloud, and broke and unveiled thee.

"O flower-born and flower-souled!" I said,
"Be the year-bloom that breathed thee ever red,
Nor wither, yellow, down among the dead.

"May all that cling to sprays of time, like me,
Be sweetly wafted over sky and sea
By rose-breaths shrining maidens like to thee!"

Then while we sat upon the height afar
Came twilight, like a lover late from war,
With soft winds fluting to his evening star.

And the shy stars grew bold and scattered gold,
And chanting voices ancient secrets told,
And an acclaim of angels earthward rolled.

To read more poems by Sidney Lanier visit: http://www.poemhunter.com/sidney-lanier/poems/

Ballad of a Weekend - Part II & III

From MOVIE LOGIC: Poems, Erik La Prade's forthcoming book of poetry from Poets Wear Prada:

Ballad of a Weekend

II

In the bedroom’s fireplace,

The fire that burned Rome

Glows: a red shadow,

Reflected in the old clock’s glass face,

Turning time to diamond-hard memory.

Nearby, a violin hangs on the wall;

Its broken strings, like crèche angels, implore us

To repent from our morning lust,

And save ourselves from old faults.

III

Sailing, we drift in a haze of water …

Blue Chinese waves on porcelain.

Fuck your analyst!

I don’t want you to understand me,

Or give me a lecture

On the language of the senses —

Not while the breeze is cool on my skin

And I can watch you sunbathe nude.

 

MOVIE LOGIC: Poems by Erik La Prade

List Price: $12.00

5.5" x 8.5" (13.97 x 21.59 cm)
Black & White on White paper
36 pages

Poets Wear Prada
ISBN-13: 978-0615761237 (Custom)
ISBN-10: 0615761232
BISAC: Poetry / American / General

"In this latest collection Erik La Prade continues his cinematic verse celebration of urbanity and human tenderness, showing us life freeze-framed into mise-en-scènes of hilarity and heartbreak, as he walks the high wire of a 21st-century NYC life in the arts."

— ALAN KAUFMAN, author of Drunken Angel, 

editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry 

 "La Prade is a gifted poet, memoirist, critic, photographer, and urban chronicler of lost artistic and literary byways, with a historian's eye for New York cultural history and downtown avant-garde. Put simply, he dazzles."

— GARY SHAPIRO, journalist

TGIF! A Poem to Kick Off the Weekend - Part I

From MOVIE LOGIC: Poems, Erik La Prade's forthcoming book of poetry from Poets Wear Prada:

Ballad of a Weekend

I

I remember what you wrote,

As the sound of your voice

Fills the room tonight

With sudden memories.

Your cryptic apologies

Are ridiculous now,

As when you spoke of faults

In the Earth, or of an ice age

Alive with controversy:

How buried borders

Would suddenly surface

To cover us in shapeless

Earth, the landscape

Itself moving,

Shaking down the walls

Of our room with the dust

Of timbers.

“The mind has mountains,” you said,

Quoting Hopkins. But, when the night

Folded itself into napkins of light,

I still didn’t want to read your letter,

Or, even, clean up the scattered pieces

From the floor, and so left them

Lying in the gray sand.


TO BE CONTINUED ...

MOVIE LOGIC: Poems by Erik La Prade

List Price: $12.00

5.5" x 8.5" (13.97 x 21.59 cm)
Black & White on White paper
36 pages

Poets Wear Prada
ISBN-13: 978-0615761237 (Custom)
ISBN-10: 0615761232
BISAC: Poetry / American / General

"In this latest collection Erik La Prade continues his cinematic verse celebration of urbanity and human tenderness, showing us life freeze-framed into mise-en-scènes of hilarity and heartbreak, as he walks the high wire of a 21st-century NYC life in the arts."

— ALAN KAUFMAN, author of Drunken Angel, 

editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry 

 "La Prade is a gifted poet, memoirist, critic, photographer, and urban chronicler of lost artistic and literary byways, with a historian's eye for New York cultural history and downtown avant-garde. Put simply, he dazzles."

— GARY SHAPIRO, journalist

January 30th: Remembering Steam Engines & O Winston Link

Train No. 17 Crosses Bridge 201, Wurno Siding, c. 1957

[Photo Credit: O. Winston Link]

Train No. 17
Crosses Bridge 201,
Wurno Siding, c. 1957

                              by Erik La Prade

After the Photograph by O. Winston Link

Norfolk and Western Engine #601
Runs over a bridge,
Crossing the New River at night.

The engineer leans out of the window,
Looking straight ahead —
While a trail of white smoke
Replaces the horizon.

Below the bridge —
A man drives a 1955 Buick,
Following the road as it turns right.
His face is blurred.
He is about to leave the photograph,
Going somewhere. Maybe going home —
Or leaving it.

From Erik La Prade's forthcoming poetry collection, Movie Magic, soon to be released from Poets Wear Prada in February 2013. 

January 30, 2013, New York, NY -- Rail fan photographer Ogle Winston Link, known for his exemplary documentary photographs of the last of America's steam locomotives, died 12 years ago this day.  

O. Winston Link, George Thom and night flash Equipment. New York, March 16, 1956
O. Winston Link, courtesy the O. Winston Link Museum

  

.

For more information  about Link and his photographs:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/when-steam-locomotion-ground-to-a-halt/

https://www.artsy.net/artist/o-winston-link