fair trade

anna and i were supposed to go to sf tonight and see death cab for cutie in concert but we are both nursing colds -- damn things are lingering on for so long they are beginning to feel like permanent conditions -- and were too pooped to make the drive, stand in line, and endure the crowds. we've seen the band twice before so it ain't like we are missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity.

well then there was work to get thru. which i did. feeling like the morti viventi i arrived home like i was on the set of romero's night of the living dead [1968]. just as well but then i found a small package waiting for me. it was a book by ozzie poet pete spence, perrier fever [grand parade poets, 2011]. i've been digging the groove laid down by spence for several months now. i think he might be better known here in the u.s. as a visual poet. spence is a wonderfully exuberent -- if i may say it this way -- alt-lyric poet. i feel a spiritual kinship with the writer as we are both lower-case kind of dudes and write -- if i may be so bold -- in a pretty concrete manner. i don't want to get too carried away because spence is spence and i am some one who is a different person.

but anyway, i think spence is an awesome writer and his work simply makes me glad to be alive. here's a small taste from the book.

shop

i thought the shop
was called SLIDE
until i walked into the door!

you can hear a touch of berrigan in this tercet as well as oz's own john forbes. however, spence has a visual quality that i think makes his poetry cinematic. spence is also deeply indebted to the l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e poets too which makes him even more appealing as an example of a writer who married nyc school, avant and post-avant writing into his own inimitable australian ear.

okay, enough of that. i have to thank kris hemensley for sending the book from his own poetry only bookshop in melbourne COLLECTED WORKS. i offered to trade a couple of my chapbooks in exchange for the spence which kris obliged by sending it along. i fear it's not a fair trade. even so, i'm happy as a tick buried in the thigh of a fat dog to get the poems of pete spence between two covers. thank you, kris.

peace