Why, Gatsby Books, Why?

This past weekend, I received an e-mail which contained the sentence below:
​The Best-Loved, Independent Bookstore in Long Beach  is Still Lummox-Free!
My attempt at a translation:
The proprietor of Lummox Press (someone I gave up on after being embarrassed by him during two publication readings for the LUMMOX #2 issue a year previous) had difficulties with the Gatsby Bookstore in Long Beach CA.  And he is still not allowed even to have "the best-loved independent bookstore in Long Beach" carry the books by the authors/poets he publishes--because the store doesn't care for him.

Having been the object of banishment myself, I empathize with the Lummox publisher's plight (regardless of how I feel personally). 

And I find it rather childish and unprofessional of the Gatsby Bookstore to trumpet its alleged moral superiority in e-mail advertisements.

Not to mention the store's willingness to punish Lummox poets/writers by association.

Whether or not the Lummox publisher is ever allowed in Gatsby again is up to the store.

But Lummox Books should have the chance to be sold there.

Eric Morago's tact-challenged review of Alex Frankel's latest poetry book.

Full disclosure: I had a Little Red Book published years ago by Lummox Press.

http://poetix.net/reviews.htm  (see May 2014 for the full review)

Key passages of Eric Morago's review I took exception to (highlighting by me):

Birth Mother Mercy does not feel entirely whole to me, or rather, actualized. I say this for a few reasons: there are poems, and even a whole section, which feel quite disjointed from both tone and theme of the collection’s best work. This results in jarring the reader in a way that I don’t believe is intentional, and undercuts the strength of the really good poems—the weight they give to the collection. And what of those really good poems I speak of? Frankel has a handful of them in this book, mostly all about the passing of his father—his processing of that loss and the anger he feels towards his father’s widow. They’re all quite good. So good in fact that Frankel had them all published already in a chapbook entitled, My Father’s Lady, Wearing Black, put out by Conflux Press. Now there’s nothing wrong with pulling from past chapbooks, or even having a whole chapbook serve as a section of a full-length manuscript, if it fits the collection—especially if the chapbook was published years prior, has long been forgotten about, and/or is out of print. But here’s the thing—My Father’s Lady, Wearing Black was published in 2013…the same year as Birth Mother Mercy.
So upon learning this, as a reviewer, as well as a reader, I’m left asking myself: “What warrants these poems’ being republished so soon in a full-length collection only two-thirds more the size of the original chapbook—a two-thirds which is arguably not as strong.
Follow up questions I ask myself are: “Why should I buy the same poems twice?” Did Lummox not know? Was Frankel trying to pull a fast one so he could get two books out, or did Lummox solicit him for a full-length manuscript and, not wanting to turn the opportunity down, took his already balanced chapbook and flushed it out with some other miscellaneous work, thus creating a lopsided Birth Mother Mercy?

Why do I assume there was no editor for Birth Mother Mercy? A couple reasons. First, there’s no editor accredited, which leads me to suspect no one filled the role. Second, the poems that are in the chapbook, My Father’s Lady, Wearing Black, appear as exact copies in Birth Mother Mercy. This suggests Lummox had no editor to offer possible changes the second time around when it came to publish the poems once again, which only begs the question yet again: Why should I buy the same poems twice? (Even the blurbs on the back of the two books are the same.)
Why is an editor so important? Their job is to help the poet shape their manuscript—to understand and support the poet’s voice, while at the same time offering a fresh perspective in order to ultimately build with the poet a collection that is the best representation of their work. The end result should be a polished manuscript that feels fulfilled—that feels labored over by more than just the poet themselves, but by editor(s) and publisher alike.
Alex M. Frankel is a talented poet and puts good work out there, but Birth Mother Mercy is an awkward representation of his strengths, especially with My Father’s Lady, Wearing Black situated as the more attractive older sibling. Perhaps if some different (possibly editorial) choices were made with Birth Mother Mercy, the collection would stand out more to me as masterful than mishmash.

Quotes from two poets via LUMMOX magazine.

Kudos to RD Raindog Armstrong for giving rebirth to LUMMOX magazine as a mammoth annual issue (now onsale).  It throws a wide net in terms of poets and writers--and includes people from places other than Southern California.

Here are some quotations from the interview/essay portion of the issue:
"...I know there are plenty of people who will disagree with me on this, but I feel the battle between academic poetry and performance poetry, which seemed so important ten years ago, is largely over.  Sure, there are still disagreements over what constitutes good poetry (or even what constitutes poetry at all), but the divisions are not entirely as clear.  There is much more of a spectrum these days.  I hear poets with MFAs doing stuff that would have been considered pure performance, and I hear poets with no formal education writing poems as finely crafted as anything out rhere.  Maybe it's not all liked, or even appreciated, but it is all accepted as poetry."--from interview with G. Murray Thomas of NEXT magazine and NEWS CLIPS AND EGO TRIPS.

"Far and away the worst most flagrant element is the rampant and utterly rapacious careerist ambition practiced by increasing numbers of poets and would-be poets, a kind of relentless, compulsive self-promotion, which it it weren't so damaging would be almost comically ludicrous....unabashed status seeking...continual seeking and cultivating reading opportunities...intense conferences in restaurants talking only "shop"-which these days means comparing strategies to get published; which poetry "prize" to pursue; taking every available workshop and of course sucking up to celebrity poets.  These "name" folks are cultivated to 'get ahead'; attending no readings except your own and those of certified eminences and the ne plus ultra of this utter betrayal of the traditional poet's stance: contriving to secure a co-featured reading with the big-shot poet."

"It's hard to bust someone for undertaking an advance course of study so as to earn a living teaching about what [he or] she loves.  But "let's put it where it is": the MFA is a "union card".  And real poetry does not come from the Academy.  It comes from the confrontation of the nakedness of the poet's soul with 'being-in-the-world'.--excerpts from Steve Goldman's essay "The Coming of the YUPOETS".

NEWS CLIPS AND EGO TRIPS panel Part 2

The art of full disclosure when writing poetry book reviews.

First, I'll start with a full disclosure of my own: I once had a book published by Lummox Press and was included in an anthology of its Little Red Books series.

G. Murray Thomas, who reviews books for Poetix.net (alongside Eric Morago), knows the proprietor of Lummox and has toured with him in recent months. 

But Murray routinely reviews poetry volumes published by Lummox and even more routinely fails to offer any kind of full disclosure.  This modus operandi has also occurred with books from Write Bloody.  There, the ethical conundrum gets a bit stickier because Derrick Brown's Long Beach-based small press recently offered up the NEWS CLIPS AND EGO TRIPS anthology, based on the NEXT....poetry magazine edited by....G. Murray Thomas.

Once again, I'm aware that a certain segment of the SoCal poetry community views itself as small enough where friends write reviews of each other's books and few people don't care to see this as any kind of an issue.

And I'll give Murray the benefit of the doubt and guess he does his best to be objective when writing reviews of Lummox and Write Bloody offerings.

But, if the poetry community in SoCal wants to trumpet its idealness more convincingly, then it should avoid too many occurrences of even the appearance of conflict of interest.

UPDATE 6/5/12: Heard from Murray privately (sent him comminique via Facebook); essentially, his response is that "most people" know he knows people from local presses and that he's not interested in full disclosure.  Case closed.

RIP Scott Wannberg--poet and friend to other poets.

Just opened an e-mail and received the sad news that Scott Wannberg--a fine poet and representative of the best aspects of Los Angeles poetry--has passed away.

Immediate memories of Scott are these: his long tenure at the Duttons Brentwood store, where he curated the chapbook section (poets were assured of being paid for their work); also, there were his live readings which often began with a cappella covers of songs by John Prine.
Rip Rense's 1994 article about Scott and his poetry:
http://www.riprense.com/Wannberg.htm
Kevin Roderick's article in L.A. OBSERVED:
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2011/08/scott_wannberg_poet_of_du.php
Carolyn Kellogg's eulogy in the LOS ANGELES TIMES:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/08/poet-scott-wannberg-has-died.html

For now, I'll recommend that you visit http://www.lummoxpress.com/ for Scott's poetry published by RD Raindog Armstrong and go onto your favorite online booksite to buy a copy of STRANGE MOVIE FULL OF DEATH--a book published by Viggo Mortensen's Perceval Press.

Updated Poetry.la page.

Here's the link to my updated page on Hilda Weiss' comprehensive site www.poetry.la
http://www.poetry.la/page75.html

Video of poem AN ENCOUNTER WITH TOM CRUISE 11/1/07.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdLSpDd-FBM

THE LONG WAY HOME Little Red Books anthology coming in March.

http://www.lummoxpress.com/lrb-best.htm for complete information.