Story
Problem Child
Ron Kolm
It all started with a big bang -- the sound of something heavy smashing against a wall, and it came from the apartment directly below mine. I headed out into the hallway to see what had happened, and was greeted by the secon...
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Essay
Mike Golden: The Unbearable Beatnik of Lite – & Dark
bart plantenga
I come from a long line of people who drank rat poison. They got headaches every time because they thought the skull & crossbones over the instructions was just a cool logo.
Mike Golden [RIP], bless and rest his littl...
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Review
One Hundred Years Among the Daisies, poems by George Wallace – Review
Ron Kolm
One Hundred Years Among the Daisies, poems by George Wallace. Published by Stubborn Mule Press, 2018.
I have this notion that the chunk of time we’re going through in ‘our’ American culture, under Mr. Trump, is ...
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Essay
Matty Jankowski, RIP
Ron Kolm
There was a posting on Facebook on Saturday, January 12th, by Joe Maynard, an old friend, saying that a buddy of ours, Matty Jankowski, had just passed away in Florida. It was a very moving tribute, and it also contained a l...
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Review
A Hermit Has No Plural by Gabor G. Gyukics – Review
Ron Kolm
A Hermit Has No Plural by Gabor G. Gyukics, Singing Bone Press.
A Hermit Has No Plural, a collection of poems by the great Hungarian writer, Gabor G. Gyukics, is wonderfully unique. It is a surrealist vision of a world...
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Poem
Hand Job
Ron Kolm
Hand Job
It’s my first day on the job
In a plant making hand trucks.
“You’ll be rubbing acid on new
Welds to seal them,” the foreman
Tells me. “Here’s some rubber
Gloves,” he says, tossing me a pair. ...
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Sensitive Skin Books
Mayakovsky Maximum Access
Jenny Wade
Sensitive Skin is proud to present Mayakovsky Maximum Access, new translations of selected poems from Vladimir Mayakovsky, translated and with commentary by Jenny Wade.
Futurist, revolutionary, propagandist, hooligan, lover, martyr, clown—the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was the powerhouse of Russia’s Silver Age. This bilingual edition provides “maximum access” to 24 of his best known poems, including:
—Precise English translations
—Stress marks in the Russian text
—Commentary on syntax, wordplay and neologisms
—Clarification of cultural, historical and literary references
—Essays on theme, persona and poetic technique
“Readers familiar with Mayakovsky’s verse in Russian will enjoy the poetic wit and insight of Jenny Wade’s translations, which also shed light on some of the verbal and syntactic riddles of the original: those seeking to grasp the Mayakovsky phenomenon in English ...
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Poem
Hells Kitchen
Ron Kolm
Hells Kitchen
After the war in Vietnam
Wound down, and my stint
Doing alternative service
Came to an end,
I had to stop
And take stock
Of my situation.
I could return to Pennsylvania
And get a job in a factory
D...
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Poem
Classical Music Lover
Ron Kolm
Classical Music Lover
I was sitting behind the cash register
In Eastside Bookstore
On a warm summer afternoon
In June, 1976.
The evening junkie group nod
Hadn’t started yet,
But they would eventually
Shuffle in...
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Sensitive Skin Books
A Change in the Weather (revised)
Ron Kolm
Sensitive Skin is proud to present A Change in the Weather, a new collection of poems by legendary downtown poet Ron Kolm, founding member of the Unbearables and author of The Plastic Factory, Divine Comedy, Suburban Ambush,...
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Review
Sensitive Skin Contributors 2016 Favorites – Books, Movies, TV, Art, Performance and Music – Reasons to Live
The Editors
Before we get on to the 2016 Favorites, first things first, I need to get this off my chest: Hey 2016 - go suck a bag of d***s, will ya?
OK, and now, without further ado, presented without rhyme or reason, here's our annu...
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Story
A Christmas Miracle, Sort Of…
Ron Kolm
It’s a cold morning, two weeks before Christmas, and I’m walking across 57th street on my way to work when I noticed him up ahead, shuffling along the curb -- silver hair, blue jacket and white sneakers – not dressed f...
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Book
Duke and Jill – A Review
Jim Feast
Ron Kolm’s new collection of short stories, Duke and Jill, recounts the adventures of two woebegone, half countercultural, half drugstore-cowboy lowlifes, who shabbily inhabit the 1980s East Village, always one step ahead ...
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