Each order I’ve placed so far with Boston’s independent arts co-op, Alternating Current, one of many independent presses in the ongoing revolution of creative expression in America, has arrived with a few extras. This habit is motivated by AC’s need to clear space, and broadens the recipient's view of its role in America’s current DIY lit scene. Alternating Current is headed by poet and artist, leah angstman, who spells her name in all lowercase letters since, In her writing, "all words get equal weight." When I ordered leah’s just-published collection of poetry, Some Misplaced Joan of Arc (which title reminds of Patti Smith’s proto-punk anthem “Horses”), it was accompanied by two zines from 1999.
Real-Life Poet is full of poems from “Some of the World’s Greatest Unknown Authors”, encountered by leah as a zine editor, on the open reading circuit, tending bar at Boston’s Bukowski Tavern, or elsewhere. This flash-rhyme, by John Binns, is my favorite, for its compact irreverence: “I do not wear jeans/ but I eat beans”.
The other zine, revolution calling, included an urge by Joseph Harrison to boycott Nestle for blatant lies about the safety of its products for babies, and an essay by Stephanie Nelson titled "dear government, you’ve gone too far this time . . . sincerely, america", which details and protests the trumped-up arrest and incarceration of a high school student in Princess Anne, Maryland named Heron Boyce, one of many to suffer officials’ paranoia in the wake of the Columbine shootings in Littleton, in this case largely because his poems and stories were considered “disturbing”.
Her bio at . . . Joan of Arc’s rear states that leah is “a stubborn writer who obsesses over every word so long that you are lucky you are holding this book in your hands.” Accordingly, angstman’s lines are sharp and sweet. The first piece, about movie star Edward Norton unexpectedly arriving at Bukowski one night when she “happened to be wearing/ under terrible coincidence” her Incredible Hulk T-shirt, making her look “like a geeky comic book fancore nerd” is streetwise and tender at once in its display of concealed vulnerability. Other standouts are “seventy something percent of women have mismatched breasts”, “no place like home for the holidays” and “the day I lived at the airport”, a soulful elegy to the timeless half-world available everywhere between flights.
This book and others by leah angstman, plus links to Propaganda Press, leah’s blogs, and elsewhere are available at www.alt-current.com
Comments