Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

(Press of the 3rd Mind, Chicago, 2012, ISBN: 978-0-9800257-3-9) On the last page of this brand new First Edition, there is an opportunity for readers to write in for free samples of collections by such well-known independent poets as Bradley Lastname, Eric Johnt, Robert Pomerhn, and Patrick Porter. In the past nine years I have reviewed several of the works listed. I recommend them all and any other titles you can acquire from this Chicago-based small press, because quality and relevancy are guaranteed. With this in mind, I was honored to have received an advance copy of Carli’s book and it didn’t disappoint. Being a college teacher of film, literature, and humanities as well as a reviewer of film and art and collaborative performance artist, Carli is a poet that unapologetically tells it like he sees it, dissecting from his own multi-faceted and hyper-personal perspective such topics as literary academia, Death, the personalities of the Chicago poetry scene, reality vs. illusion in nu...

(the Press of the 3rd Mind, Chicago, Illinois, 2011) I was first introduced to Bradley Lastname through his role as publisher of the early books of Patrick Porter and Robert Pomerhn through Press of the 3rd Mind, books they each sent me for review. This was early in the new millennium, when I was doing a lot of poetry writing, mail art, and corresponding with fertile-field poets like Ric Carfagna, Mark Sonnefeld, Joseph Verilli, and Vernon Frazer. I first experienced Bradley’s writing when I was asked to review the first volume of Letterhead (Highest Hurdle Press, 2007), which was in part a tribute to Harvey Goldner, a mentor of Pomerhn’s. Lastname and his co-editors also produced a second volume of Letterhead, in which some of my own work appeared. Before starting Press of the 3rd Mind in 1985, Lastname published 25 issues of the acclaimed BILE Dadazine dating from 1978 to 1984. In addition to publishing over ten books of poetry and prose, he is a painter, sculptor, and collagist and ...

Review of Highest Hurdle Press’s Letterhead Vol. 2 (Edited by Bradley Lastname, Christopher Robin, Brian McMahon, Robert Pomerhn, and Eric Johnt, Highest Hurdle Press, 2008) {Disclaimer: Two of my poems appear in this collection. They are not mentioned in this review.} In 2008 I had the distinct pleasure of reviewing Letterhead Volume #1. At the time I thought it quite the impressive undertaking, bringing together so many different types of poets from so many areas of the United States. Readers of that review (and that volume) will be pleased to know that Vol. 2 builds upon both the scope and quality of its predecessor, retaining all of its best qualities while striking new ground in content and form and offering what co-editor Bradley Lastname recently explained to me is a “…darker selection of work, because the times we live in are darker.” Amen. Embroiled as we are in a time of ongoing wars and global economic and environmental crises (the key subjects explored), the role of the poe...