Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

To begin, a definition: “Triptychs” are typically three-paneled paintings or a photograph series that explores a unified theme in different ways. The triptych of this collection is three short stories: “Long Live the King,” “The Deposition,” and “Lunar Seas.” Thematically, there could be several broad-based connections between the three stories, as they each cover a range of human emotions and relationships. Other reviewers have put forth their own theories. To me, the triptych here is unified as Past, Present, and Future explorations of what is most “savage” (read primitive, archetypal, low-vibrational) in Humankind’s relationships to its dark secrets as they are expressed in both our codified, societal Myths and the ones we individually construct. The cover design, by Keri Knutson, creates an initial unification of the stories by overlaying key elements from each on a macabre human skull. The chosen symbols could be used as a start, if the reader so chooses. The first story,

 (Impress 2015) By Joey Madia As Founding Editor of www.newmystics.com , which hosts pages for seventy authors and artists from around the world, I have the opportunity to give the creators of innovative and thought-provoking poetry a forum for their work. In cultivating the e-publisher/author relationship, I am sometimes asked to review additional work by an author. In the case of Jack Galmitz, in 2014 I reviewed three of his chapbooks— Objects , Yellow Light , and A Semblance . During the course of our correspondence, Galmitz wrote that his poetry is based on “the indeterminacy created by ambiguity—sometimes two words that are joined together when left alone on the page makes one realize there are many ways to take them and this leaves doubt and makes one look and be aware of what is there and this is the purpose I think of art.” This philosophy brings to mind some of my current favorites in the poetry world—Heller Levinson and Eileen Tabios. They share Galmitz’s ability to

 (Hanover, NH: Smith and Kraus, 2014). ISBN: 978-1-57525-892-8 I still remember the day, seven years ago, returning to my secluded three acres in West Virginia from a meeting with my theatre company in New Jersey, to find a package from Larson Publications. Inside was a note, and a copy of Jon Lipsky’s Dreaming Together: Explore Your Dreams by Acting Them Out , which I promptly read and reviewed. It has never remained on the shelf for any appreciable length of time. I go to it time and time again. Jon Lipsky passed away some months later, before we could talk. It was not until many years later, in speaking with the publisher, that I found out that Professor Lipsky had specifically requested that I receive a copy of his book for review. Perhaps it was the name of my theatre company at the time, New Mystics, or my work with a few theatre companies that used dreams to create plays, that led to my name being placed on the potential reviewers list. Like dreams themselves, how it came

(Thomas-Jacob Publishing, LLC, 2015), ISBN: 13   978-0-9963884-3-6 As I have made the journey from reader, to writer, to student, to professional writer, to teacher of workshops and writing classes, and then to book reviewer, I have come to believe that there are three kinds of (proficient, “talented”) writers at work in the world. First, there are the Storytellers. People like Hemingway, that come from the gut, who go fearlessly into the vortexing dream-space of human experience to capture something in the net of their creating, who can spin a captivating yarn without too much verbal or plot complexity but plenty of power and resonance. Then there are the Technicians—those who inherently and through 10,000 hours of practice, understand and apply structure, word choice, syntax, and suspense… who “do the task of writing” at a high level. The third type of writer is the one who is smart enough, dedicated enough, and capable enough to know that, despite the fact that Storytellers

 (Loveland, OH: Dos Madres Press, 2015), ISBN: 978-1-939929-36-5 The arrival of a new Eileen Tabios book has become no less than an Event for me. Not only is it inspiring to see what new forms and source material this award-winning and prolific poet and editor is working with and drawing from, but it inevitably leads to my own experimentation with whatever creative works I am bringing to life at the time. Tabios is very much a writer’s writer, and one of the leading poet-practitioners in the realm of how to make the reader participatory with the experience. In essence, Tabios is such a writer’s writer that she wants everyone to be, if not a writer, than certainly an active author of their own experience and engagement. This is an aspiration that is beyond resonant with me as an artist, mentor, and storyteller. When Invent[st]ory: Selected Catalog Poems & New (1996–2015) arrived I was particularly enthused, as I have not read/reviewed anything of Tabios’s prior to 2010.

 (New Milford, CT: Visionary Living, Inc., 2014). ISBN: 978-0-9860778-3-8 Over the past five years, I have reviewed many of the encyclopedias and books on the paranormal by Rosemary Ellen Guiley, one of the leading experts in both the paranormal and metaphysical fields. I have also been able to accompany Guiley on some of her field investigations, and have never been failed to be impressed by her professionalism and scientific approach to phenomena. Those traits consistently carry over into her books and numerous radio and television appearances, and her dream workshops and accompanying books (this is her eighth on the subject) are no exception. I was first introduced to the value of using dreams for both self-improvement and as a source of creative inspiration early in the new century, first by a spiritual mentor and then through the books of Robert Moss. Since that time I have kept a dream journal, incorporated dreamwork into my theatre workshops and training of actors and

by K. P. Ambroziak (Published by the author, 2014). ISBN: 9781500405359 I love most things vampire. I write about them, have shelves full of movies featuring them, and even more shelves filled with books, both fiction and historical studies, of the vampire phenomenon. I even have a bunch of favorite songs about them. Amidst all of these myriad materials, my love of vampires has a lot of restrictions and must-haves/must-not-haves—because there is a lot about vampires being written and filmed that misses their core Brutality. Their addiction to Blood is as fierce and all-pervasive as a heroin junky’s—and, when it is well done, the addiction drives them, in the end, to always show their fangs, no matter how much their charm has fooled us. The best vampires are not to be trusted, and they know it. They tell us so, over and over. They are prone to excuses and rationalizations. They are inclined toward boredom, infighting, and existential crisis. So, when a new book about vampires

 by Ken Gerhard (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2013). ISBN: 978-0-7387-3720-1 The field of cryptozoology, which many consider a pseudoscience, involving the search for and study of “hidden animals” such as Bigfoot, is one that is equal parts fascinating and controversial. In the age of Reality Television (which we all know often has little to do with “reality”), there is a vast array of shows in which cryptozoologists and their teams go out into the woods and other undeveloped geographical areas in search of creatures from the Mothman to the Owlman to the Chupacabra. For those who follow this field, names like John Keel, Loren Coleman, and Stan Gordon dominate, although there is a younger, very hip group of cryptozoologists out there, doing field research, and gathering reports and doing interviews with witnesses of a plethora of sightings, all over the world. Having witnessed a few unexplainable entities, and having a number of good friends in the fields of cryptozoology and, more

 (Beaufort, NC: Pirate Privateer Productions, 1994). ISBN: 0-9658878-0-4 by Joey Madia Four months ago my family and I left the mountains of West Virginia for a new life near the water in the idyllic town of Beaufort, NC, on the so-called Crystal Coast. Without a doubt, Beaufort lives up to its billing as one of the best little towns in America. Its waterfront is packed with quaint shops, excellent restaurants, and an always changing array of sailboats, fishing trawlers, and yachts, and the locals truly do exude the legendary Southern Charm. Another interesting aspect of Beaufort is how it loves its pirate traditions. Although details are sketchy, it is recorded that Spanish privateers made off with several ships docked in Beaufort Harbor on June 4, 1747. Emboldened by the lack of resistance, they returned on August 26, 1747, taking over the town. They were soon repulsed by a force of militia and never returned. This local triumph is celebrated through an elaborate re-creation e

(Boston, MA: Black Widow Press, 2015). ISBN: 978-0-9960079-8-6 To engage with Heller Levinson’s poetry is to make the commitment to immerse . To commit . Reminding me of a combination of the visual–typographic poetry of Vernon Frazer, the fractal approach of Ric Carfagna, and the boundary-pushing poetic theories of Eileen Tabios, Levinson’s barrage of words and forms and breadth of artistic starting places (plasticity of language and its meaning, philosophy, music, visual arts) comes forth from the writer’s inner alchemical furnace into a vortex powered by a girding energy of quantum physics and Eastern spiritual tenets that swirl the material together, where it places on the page, not randomly, but in a molecular–textual structure that one could walk the exploratory halls of for days on end. Given that there is no chance of even scratching the surface of this work in a two-page review, I am choosing a handful of sections (what Levinson terms “modules”) that were particularly reso

(Foreword, Elizabeth Tucker) (2011) ISBN: 978-1-4560-7551-4 A few weeks ago I published my review of Josette Berardi’s I’m Not Dead, Am I? Although that book came out a year after this one, I chose to read it first because the scope was larger, discussing the paranormal experiences of her family, especially her daughter, in the context of her mother’s severe illness and hospitalization.   The Man at the Foot of the Bed is a much different book, with an appropriately less intimate and passionate voice, which operates on two levels: the first is as a memoir of her daughter Nicole’s experiences, from a toddler to her late teens, as a medium who can communicate with the deceased and who has had encounters with other, darker, entities. The second is as a primer and resource guide for parents and others who have a young person with mediumistic gifts in their life and those interested in obtaining a reading from a medium. Berardi opens with the following: “This book is dedicated to al