So grateful to author Nancy McCabe and BELT Magazine Editor Ed Simon for this sweet and thoughtful review of ALL SKATE. Read the full review here >> https://beltmag.com/skating-with-lori-jakiela/
Mar 22
So grateful to author Nancy McCabe and BELT Magazine Editor Ed Simon for this sweet and thoughtful review of ALL SKATE. Read the full review here >> https://beltmag.com/skating-with-lori-jakiela/
Jan 12
first published in http://misfitmagazine.net/
Dave Newman, She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall, Roadside Press, Magical Jeep Distribution, available on Amazon, 200 pages, 2024
Poet and prose master Newman scores big in this collection of seven tight stories. While these people don’t know each other, they probably would make instant connections. Most of them are at an age, pushing 30, unmarried, working loser jobs, half-heartedly finishing college degrees in something with a vague dream of bettering their lives at some, unidentifiable point. They are invariably women, though not always, neither really good looking or unattractive, casual drug users, alcohol abusing, one-night standers or in nowhere relationships. They are increasingly aware this life is going to offer them nothing if they don’t get their asses in gear and yet… And yet they lack motivation, the will to do so. These people are not hopeless or particularly exceptional, they are just, well, people, people I have known, hell, I might even have been one of those. Once a book I wrote based on real-life experiences was rejected with a scathing rebuke among the many, often right, alas, observations was the main character has no plans. ( I cut that part out and it became the book I wanted it to be so it wasn’t a complete loss) He has children, degrees, a crappy job but he has no real plans, well, sweetheart if you were draft eligible during the early 70s with a family or not, you’d be lucky to have a crappy job, because no one would hire you and only the government could provide the much-needed assistance to see you through to the next crappy paycheck… Newman’s people could be my children. They are not, but they could be. Read Newman, he knows of what he speaks.
—Alan Catlin, Editor misfitmagazine.net
She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall by Dave Newman is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/throws/168
Jan 10
first published in http://misfitmagazine.net/
Karl Koweski, Abandoned by All Things, Roadside Press
Distributed by Magical Jeep Distribution, available on Amazon, 2024, 136 pages $15-
Koweski’s journey in life travels from the Midwest to the deep South. He observes Alabama’s barely sentient senator Tommy Tuberville as “the mostly evil, largely senseless/senator of Alabama” whose modest credentials for elective office, (to us Northerners, who could give a rat’s ass about college football,) was as a relatively successful coach at Auburn. Koweski’s musings about life are from the point of view of a guy who never completely “straightened out and flew right” as a football coach would demand. In fact, he was what you would call a fuck-up, but one who became an unpretentious, regular guy. He’s a stand-up dad and husband who remains a devoted Chicago Cubs fan, which once was, until recently, the ultimate exercise in futility. One could argue lifelong Cubs fans know loyalty beyond the boundaries of common sense (a sentiment Red Sox fans can appreciate) but ultimately paid off. The Cubs are and continue to be, an extension of the family, one could argue, which makes the poem for the late Ron Santo, a symbol of hardnosed, unflinching toughness as a player that transferred to his life and a fatal battle with a disease that claimed parts of his body piece by piece, until he died. Fittingly, a fantasy poem describes how the poet is faced with a choice by the deity who governs the afterlife, “Cubbies winning the World Series/or Trump losing the presidential election…”(of 2016) Of course, the poet chooses the Cubbies winning the World Series. Somewhere Ernie Banks is smiling…As Koweski mused, “how batshit crazy could Trump/truly be?” Alas, we are finding out now…The bottom line was, remains, it was an impossible choice and you had to choose something. The lady or the tiger? Koweski is a poet for the reader who grooves on the stuff of everyday life.
Abandoned by All Things by Karl Koweski is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/abandon/164
Other Books by Karl Koweski:
Under Normal Conditions (poetry)
Thrift Store Jackets (stories)