The Poet Tree.
By T. Kilgore Splake
2010; 46pp; Kamini Press,
Ringvägen 8, 4th floor,
SE-117 26 Stockhom, Sweden.
order@kaminipress.com
$9.00.

Splake is Señor Minimalist Surrealist. Tiny little graphic word-specks thrown at you, you’re activated, and then comes suprise specks number two, three….seldom beyond fourteen, somehow fitting into a unified, Daliesque overview. Here’s the title poem: “denander drawings/liliput poems/tibetan prayer flag colors/suffering autumn storms/ vanishing in winter blizzards/burried until spring/to be born again.” (“poet tree,” p.9).
The minimalism really works! And at times a real-world picture vividly emerges, much more effectively than maximalism because there’s no unrelated static: “first dawn/streaking gray horizon/cold steady drizzz/crossing brautigan creek/moving toward summit/early moring silence/out of body/dream dance/flating above trees/existential wholeness/ delicious poet’s / joie de vivre.” (“Cliffs,” p.24).
The philosophy behind all this captivation is very uplifting too. Negate the negative, flow into the positive, a kind of get-you-between-the-eyes buddhism that you can’t escape from as you allow yourself to fall under Spake’s philosophical-religious spell.

Two Torch Singers.
By Gerald Locklin
2010; 12 pp; Pa; Kamini
Press, Ringvägen8, 4th floor,
SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden.
No Price given.

I just received this as a “New Year’s Greeting from Kamini Press, 1010,” and only 125 copies have been printed, but….it’s a tiny masterpiece that shouldn’t be overlooked. A water-color cover by Henry Denander of two overblown beauties, Julie London and Polly Bergen, impressionistic portraits of the torch singers in the poems themselves. The poetry is Locklin at his most direct, no-nonsense best: “In high school, when I was discovering/That music could be sexy,/There were two torch singers….whose albums I played until the vinyl wore thin/And the needles went blunt. “ (p.7). Followed by bio-data about Julie, primarily a singer, and Polly, both singer and actress, ending with a little tearful goodbye to them (and their times): “Polly was a woman worth growing up for./Polly/Was whatever a man or boy needed her to be./And God could she sing! There wasn’t any role/That woman couldn’t fill: Perfectly.” (p.9).
Reading Two Torch Singers you can see why Bukowski saw Locklin as an ignored treasure– straightforeward, to the point, emotionally on track,one hundred percent able to relate to.

thank you very much
and I have to say it is always a highlight for me to see people
who work like you – wonderful!!!

elias schneitter
am weingarten 15
6170 zirl tirol
austria

New Year’s greetings to you as well. Ronald Baatz’s WATCHING SPARROWS is a great poem, made all that much better by the exquisite Kamini Press production. Hats off to another job well done and I’m greatly looking forward to your next project. Keep up the good work! Go Kamini go!

Cheers,
Mark Terrill