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  • Smell Me - 1 - by cait collins.
1999. 36 pages. fingerprintpress, P.O. Box 5473, Deptford, NJ. 08096. $5.00.
www.MS-allthat.com /email: caitcollins@the-hold.com"
• paPer trip the god plan - by cait collins.
2000. 36 pages. fingerprintpress, P.O. Box 5473, Deptford, NJ. 08096. $5.00.
www.MS-allthat.com /email: caitcollins@the-hold.com
• Arbitrariums - 1 - by Sheila E. Murphy.
32 pages. 2000. Broken Boulder Press, P.O. Box 172, Lawrence, Kansas, 66044. $3.00.
see: www.brokenboulder.com /email: Shemurph@aol.com
• Three-Part Inventions - by Sheila E. Murphy.
36 pages. 2000 Potes & Poets Press, 181 Edgemont Avenue, Elmwood, CT 06110-1005. $10.00
http://www.the-hold.com/murphy.html /email: Shemurph@aol.com
Scattershot Haze ( A Tribute to the Beats ) - by Ralph Haselmann, Jr.
140 pages. 2001. $16.00 softcover plus postage and handling from http://www.Xlibris.com" or call 1-888-7-Xlibris in Philadelphia. Also available through Amazon.com, Borders.com and BandN.com and special order though your local bookstore. Hardcover $25 plus s&h and e-book $8.00.
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• Smell Me - 1 - by cait collins.
1999. 36 pages. fingerprintpress, P.O. Box 5473, Deptford, NJ. 08096. $5.00.
www.MS-allthat.com /email: caitcollins@the-hold.com
• paPer trip the god plan - by cait collins.
2000. 36 pages. fingerprintpress, P.O. Box 5473, Deptford, NJ. 08096. $5.00.
www.MS-allthat.com /email: caitcollins@the-hold.com"
At the grave of Charles Bukowski, Cait Collins left a blue and silver pinwheel, some smoked cigarettes, empty bottles and her vibrating vibrator stuck into the ground. Inspired by the candid and anarchistic self of Charles Bukowski - that free man, now free of even the earth - Cait Collins not only has Bukowski's sense of humor but also Bukowski's passion for
writing about the American underbelly, bar life, and erotic sex. Full of self-love in her poem "Likes" she lists her likes as follows: me/ sex/ sex with me/ sex with other people. Pure unexploited sex love and happy animal passion sex certainly is a preoccupation in these poems. There are a number of poems about in car masturbation, about flashing her breasts and sucking on a sex-toy. These are among the most expressionistic, outrageous
and funny. Her sex poems are vivid and lurid. However, beyond their carnal surface, a type of karma-sutra spiritual freedom via meaningful, personal fulfillment is proposed.
Lusciously absorbed with herself, frank and tender, tongue out and tongue in cheek and plenty of tongue all the way around, a Cait Collins poem spurts bursting and bubbling flesh happy fantasy ecstasy. Collins is a living loving maid in the middle of her life - living it finally on her own terms, by her own rules and being herself. As a poet if she cannot express other than what she is, which is a real she imagining herself all day long in the real of this world and acting on it. Self expression, writing poetry, is an opening, unbuttoning, revealing of a self that Cait Collins has taken out of the hat-box, placed on her head and proudly struts about
New Jersey, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Pedro. Anything and all things forbidden or unsanctioned behavior, speech and
thought, becomes the stuff of a poetry of liberation. The poems are almost a please see my naked, sometimes-silly, always-ready, sometimes sad and sentimental soul. She writes in her poem "To Erins, Etcs."
understand this:
words about experience
are words of experiences and
I do not pretend
the almighty
movements
of the
deep
blue
me
See also her other books: Smell Me Again and In the Midst of Erected Poems and her site: smell-me.com
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• Arbitrariums -by Sheila E. Murphy.
32 pages. 2000. Broken Boulder Press, P.O. Box 172, Lawrence, Kansas, 66044. $3
see: www.brokenboulder.com /email: Shemurph@aol.com
• Three-Part Inventions - by Sheila E. Murphy.
36 pages. 2000 Potes & Poets Press,
181 Edgemont Avenue, Elmwood, CT 06110-1005. $10.00
http://www.the-hold.com/murphy.html /email: Shemurph@aol.com
Arbitrariums is a fine initial definition of the poetry of Sheila Murphy because the poems seem to be composed of randomly, arbitrarily selected, phrases ordered, haphazardly perhaps, to look like a poem. However, a close reading of her intuitively chance generated poems reveals
that throughout her poetry she, obviously, quite purposely breaks all the rules of poetry as one might understand them. She is among the most anarchistic of poets - abolishing all notions of literary pretence and power and delivering poetry back to its primeval dream state.
Writing phrases like: "Sustainable imaginary forest fires bleed open on deposit." - or - "Now a song no one has sung as long as anymore is being played is being therefore heard in dittoed restaurants" forces a reader to
enter the cosmology of the poem as a participant.
Without narrative structure to limit a reading of Murphy's poems one encounters meaning rather than having the purpose of a poem dictated by an egocentric author. Meaning is questioned. A reader has the option of
discovery. The act of reading poetry by Sheila Murphy allows the reader to enter the state of composition, which means to have a direct and open access to the poem's creation. In this way a reader becomes one with creator and the material of creation - simply words - and takes part in the naming or granting meaning to constellations of words. Therefore, one way to enter Sheila Murphy's poetry, which is ubiquitously published all through the small press network, is to enter the poetic act at its origin,
rather than at its closure.
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Scattershot Haze ( A Tribute to the Beats ) - by Ralph Haselmann, Jr.
140 pages. 2001. $16.00 softcover plus postage and handling from http://www.Xlibris.com" or call 1-888-7-Xlibris in Philadelphia. Also available through Amazon.com, Borders.com and BandN.com and special order though your local bookstore. Hardcover $25 plus s&h and e-book $8.00.
Ralph Haselmann Jr. is MainMan! He is one of thee busiest people in poetry. Editor of Lucidmoonpoetry (http://www.lucidmoonpoetry.com"), he is also a relentless reviewer, obviously, therefore, a relentless reader, and a prolific poet. Scattershot Haze is Haselmann Jr.'s second book of poetry.
As his subtitle suggests it is a tribute to the Beats. The Beats and company, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, Burroughs, Charles the Buk, Curt Cobain, Bob Dylan etc. and New Beats: Dave and Ana Christy (she who writes the Foreword of this book) provide the well of energy Ralph taps. I was much pleasantly surprised by the amount of poetic technical skill and classic Beat craft that Ralph Haselmann Jr. wields. There are many that would like to claim The Beats as source; however, few come close. Haselmann hits the
mark. His ear is tuned to the music, so much so one wonders where the originals leave off and where this poetry begins. There is no bridge, in fact. It is one flowing river. When Ralph Haselmann Jr. stepped into this, he became one with the poetry. A marvelous achievement. And let's add to that: fully entertaining. Within there are tributes to musicians, poets, Leonardo Dicaprio, and what I would define as ear collages or Ginsberg and
Haselmann duets. And also tribute poems to Charles Bukowski. Now, make no mistake, yes it is a tribute and Ralph Haselmann is breathing full the music and rhythms of the Beat. Still, it is a clear and unique and independent poetry. It is, truly, Haselmann's poetry. It is his poetry. He has something to say.
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Michael Basinski
Assistant Curator
Poetry/Rare Books Collection of the University Libraries, SUNY at Buffalo. His poems, articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including: Proliferation, Terrible Work, Deluxe Rubber Chicken, Boxkite, The Mill Hunk Herald, Yellow Silk, The Village Voice, Object, Oblek, Score, Generator, Juxta, Poetic Briefs, Another Chicago Magazine, Sure: A Charles Bukowski Newsletter, Moody Street Irregulars: A Jack Kerouac Newsletter, Kiosk, Earth's Daughters, Atticus Review, Mallife, Taproot, Transmog, B-City, House Organ, First Intensity, Mirage No.4/Period(ical), Lower Limit Speech, Texture, R/IFT, Chain, Antenym, Bullhead, Poetry New York, First Offence, and many others.
For more than twenty years he has performed his choral voice collages and sound texts with his intermedia performance ensemble: The Ebma, which has released two Lps: SEA and Enjambment.
His books include: Idyll (Juxta Press, 1996), Heebee-jeebies (Meow Press, 1996), SleVep (Tailspin Press, 1995), Vessels (Texture Press, 1993), Cnyttan (Meow Press, 1993), Mooon Bok (Leave Books, 1992)and Red Rain Too (1992)and Flight to the Moon (1993) from Run Away Spoon Press. Send books and magazines for review to:
Michael Basinski
Poetry/Rare Books Collection
420 Capen Hall
SUNY at Buffalo
Bflo. New York 14260
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