Meet Harvey Goldner—A Review of The Resurrection of Bert Ringold
(Cinco Puntos Press, 2008, www.cincopuntos.com) “It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.” —Oscar Wilde “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”—Harvey Goldner, “Another Ancient Mariner” I never met Harvey Goldner, and now it’s too late. Harvey, who passed from this Plane in July of 2007, was a poet and personality loved by many—mostly in Seattle, where his death has left a void in the poetry scene, underground and otherwise. But elsewhere as well. I was first introduced to his work in late 2007, when I received a review copy of Letterhead, Volume 1, a collection of poems put out by Highest Hurdle Press. Within its pages was a tribute to Harvey in the form of a series of letter-poems exchanged between he and the Buffalo, NY–based poet Robert Pomerhn. In reading those letters, I was struck by Harvey’s brutal honesty as he tried (and succeeded) to help shape and mature the art of a hard-working and tale...