Ready for Crime Time

Expounding on crime poetry, Crime Writers of Canada Regional Vice President Kevin Thornton kindly mentions me and links to The 5-2 in this month's issue of Crime Time, the CWC's newsletter. Thank you, Kevin.

Day 9: Thinking With My Skin; Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme

Bill Cameron returns to discuss "The NRA's Modest Proposal", and poet/voice actor Matt Forrest Esenwine interviews me on Day 9 of 30 Days of The 5-2.

Belly Up to the Bar

I bellied up to be interviewed by 5-2 contributor Thomas Pluck.

Welcome, Readers of Criminal Element

Today on the crime and mystery news site Criminal Element, I have a post about crime poetry and the upcoming 30 Days of The 5-2 blog tour.

If you'd like to join the tour, prepare a blog entry about your favorite 5-2 poem, and post it on a day of your choice in April, National Poetry Month. If you don't have your own blog, I can host your entry here.

Reviewed in MYSTERY SCENE #120

Betty Webb reviews The Lineup #4 on page 56 of the Summer 2011 issue, highlighting works by Charles Harper Webb (no relation), Jeanne Dickey, and Reed Farrel Coleman, concluding, "This startling collection, a combination of beauty and horror, is one of Poetic Justice Press' strongest yet."

Thank you, Betty.

Press Release: An Evening of Criminally Good Verse

Presenting an Evening of Criminally Good Verse

Tuesday, May 31st, 6:00 P.M.

@

The Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street
New York, NY 10014
www.corneliastreetcafe.com

Please call (212) 989-9319 for reservations. Cover: $7.


Contributors Jeanne Dickey and Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson join editors Reed Farrel Coleman and Richie Narvaez reading from the recently published fourth annual edition of The Lineup: Poems on Crime.

Published by Poetic Justice Press since 2008, The Lineup invites poets' honest reactions to what they see as crime in fifty lines or fewer.

A limited number of The Lineup #4 will be sold at the reading. Copies may also be purchased locally at The Mysterious Bookshop (58 Warren Street, NYC). Visit Poetic Justice Press on the Web at http://poemsoncrime.blogspot.com.


Reed Farrel Coleman is a three-time winner of the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award for Best Novel. He has also received the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards, and has been twice nominated for the Edgar® Award. He teaches writing classes in mystery fiction and the novel at Hofstra University.

Jeanne Dickey's work has appeared in literary journals such as Passages North, RE:AL, Karamu, and The Good Foot. She is working on a novel, A Fanciful Glamour, which she hopes to complete by the end of the year, if not sooner. An except of that novel is forthcoming in the anthology The Unbearables Big Book of Sex.

Richie Narvaez has had work published by Mississippi Review, Murdaland, and Thrilling Detective, and in the anthologies Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, Indian Country Noir, and You Don't Have a Clue. He is the editor of the online humor journal Asinine Poetry.

Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson is a Canadian currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Hart House Review, Imago, Softblow, The Toronto Quarterly, Neon, Right Hand Pointing, and the anthology Killer Verse. Her first collection of poems The Victims Of Ted Bundy: Washington State is forthcoming this winter from Jeanne Duval Editions.

Lineup Interview at Do Some Damage

Today on the crime fiction group blog Do Some Damage, Lineup 4 contributor Steve Weddle interviews me leading up to the April 1 release of The Lineup #4.

One of Steve's questions, "Is poetry harder to write than short fiction?", prompted me to write two brief instructional blog entries for those who primarily write prose. I'll repost them here tomorrow and Wednesday.

From James R. Winter

Crime fiction author and reviewer James R. Winter was first to buy The Lineup #3 when it went on sale April 1. On this last day of National Poetry Month, he's blogged a review:

Annually, Gerald So, the fiction editor at Thrilling Detective, heads up a volume of crime-related poetry called The Lineup. As National Poetry Month draws to a close today, I thought I’d take a look at the latest issue.

The Lineup #3 begins strong with co-editor Sarah Cortez’s tale of a ride-along gone wrong. An officer is shot, and his civilian rider is unable to call for help. James W. Hall ponders the women found murdered from time to time, never where they were taken from. And Carrie McGrath wonders if the crimes of men cat-calling her might cause her to commit a crime herself.

It’s Amy McLennan who provides the strongest pair of poems. In “Prowling,” she gets into the head of a burglar who never leaves any sign of his presence, despite not wearing gloves. In “A Life of Vice,” a woman has no regrets over her life of using lovers and drugs, even if she’s reached the end of her rope in a bus station john.

The Lineup is largely blank verse and free verse, which works best for this type of subject matter. It’s poetry that has a spoken feel to it, almost as if it’s reaching toward the poetic prose of some of its writers. This is especially evident with veteran poet and author Reed Farrel Coleman’s effort, “Victim’s Kiss.” Like many of the poets in this volume, their verse reads very much like their prose. It’s a dark eye-opener.

From Catfish McDaris

Care of contributor David S. Pointer, McDaris—the popular veteran small press poet and editor—gave a straight-shooting review of The Lineup 3. I've reprinted it below, omitting, with McDaris's permission, the odd comment best understood only after reading the poems:

THE LINEUP Poems On Crime Issue 03 / 2010

Reviewed by Catfish McDaris

The Lineup is a fine collection of [nineteen] punch you in the gut poets. They come at you from so many angles, it takes a second and third reading to catch all the hard lines. The four editors—Gerald So, Sarah Cortez, R. Narvaez, and Anthony Rainone—work together well, choosing crime from every walk of life. The first poem by Sarah Cortez, a Texas cop, hooked and scared me. It was titled "Ride-along", about a young girl doing a beginner’s ride with a seasoned cop. Things go wrong and get violent. My young Latina daughter is doing ride-alongs now in the Latino areas in Milwaukee. This poem disturbed me. The makings of any good read are the amount of emotion evoked.

There’s a whiff of serial killer in The Lineup, but after all the movies and television it, doesn’t seem as gruesome as it should be. Since I now live in the home [state] of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein, cannibals are like corn candy. Larry D. Thomas’ poems are great...

James W. Hall’s "Decomposing Women" was an episode of C.S.I. Maybe it's me watching too much television and my wife solving all the crimes before me? Michael A. Flanagan’s words were stupendous. Henry Chang's "Takeout (as we roll)" was Chinatown steel right to the heart. [His] "Chasing the dragon," I could relate to, unfortunately. James M. McGowan’s "Running for Home" and "Teenage Sniper" reminded me of what good storytellers Irishmen usually are.

David S. Pointer’s "Certain Methods" brought me back in time to my military service. These words jumped off the page with Semper Fidelis adrenalin[...]Kristine Ong Muslim’s prose poem is sheer terror and bloody frightening.

Anne Frasier’s "Home" is a bit Jack London & Poeish. Amy MacLennan's "A Life of Vice" I could smell the dirt and itch. Wallace Stroby's "Independence Day, 1976" shared a sad dream of reverie.

This a super collection of words about crime. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a 9. This is my opinion and you know what they say about opinions.


Catfish McDaris
McDar3 AT aol DOT com
http://catfishgringoriver.blogspot.com

[I'd like to comment that James W. Hall's "Decomposing Women" was reprinted with permission and acknowledgment from his collection The Lady from the Dark Green Hills, published in 1976—pre-dating the C.S.I. phenomenon. —Gerald]

From Victor Gischler

I've been a fan of Victor Gischler's work since UglyTown published Gun Monkeys. His second book, Pistol Poets, convinced me if I ever started a crime poetry journal, I should get his opinion. And so I have. On his blog today, Gischler gives his honest take on The Lineup 3:

Gerald So was kind enough to fix me up with with a .pdf copy of THE LINEUP #3 and I have to say I'm impressed. In my opinion, most of the poetry written in the world is utter garbage. When you pick up a Norton Anthology of literature and read some of the classic poems within, you have to understand that each of those gems represents thousands of discarded turds that poets have penned over the centuries. So when I open the pages of The Lineup #3 and see that 75% of the poems within are actually good, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. You beat the odds, guys. Congratulations.

Not all the poems hit the mark, and without bothering to name names, I'll simply say that some selections suffer from that age old poetry problem -- prose with line breaks. Taking run-of-the mill sentences and giving them neat little line breaks so you have a narrow column of words skipping down the page does not a poem make. Hey, I'm guilty of this myself. One time, I took a crime "poem" I'd written and took out the line breaks and sold it to Crimestalker Casebook as a short-short piece of fiction. It happens.

But many more of the poems are quite enjoyable. I suppose I could go poem by poem and point out some nice use of language and some vivid imagery I think works pretty well ... but I'm a lazy lazy man. Trust me. It's in there, and you should take a look for yourself. I will say that the James Sallis and James W. Hall poems were among the most memorable. Many of the selections are expertly rendered, yet simultaneously accessible to the reader that might not normally make a habit of reading poetry. Try it.

From Michael Allen Dymmoch

Dymmoch, crime writer and blogger at The Outfit: A Collective of Chicago Crime Writers posted about The Lineup 3 today:

Crime poetry...sounds like an oxymoron. Poetry is refined. And literary. It’s not something usually associated with crime. But “the ultimate economy” is an art form that lends itself surprisingly well to the subject, to the damage crime inflicts, to the emotions crime arouses. We like crime fiction because it deals with the most serious subjects. And it’s dramatic. It plays with our fears, threatens our hopes. It lets us deal with horrifying subjects at a little distance. Poetry does all that too—but more economically. In good poetry, the point is never lost in a forest of verbiage, the plot never wanders. Far more than in prose, each word has to be precisely right, a sniper’s killshot.

Dymmoch went on to cite poems by Jackie Sheeler and Francine Witte, summing up as follows:

The Lineup represents crime from a number of points of view—criminals', cops' and victims'. What’s common to all the poems is the way a story is presented and emotion evoked with an amazing economy of language.

The Lineup 2 Reviewed in Mystery Scene

Mystery Scene Magazine's small press columnist Betty Webb reviews The Lineup 2 on page 58 of the Holiday 2009 Issue (No. 112). She highlights poems by Jennifer L. Knox, Christopher Watkins, Patrick Carrington, and Carol Novack, and goes on to write, "a collection like this matters tremendously, especially to those learning the writer's craft."

Thank you, Betty.

The Lineup in Sweden

Last year I sent a copy of The Lineup #1 to Swedish journalist Bengt Erikkson. Richie found his review (in Swedish) yesterday, posted earlier this month.

Dave White reviews The Lineup 2

Dave White is the author of When One Man Dies and The Evil That Men Do featuring New Jersey P.I. Jackson Donne, who previously appeared in Derringer Award-winning stories on The Thrilling Detective Web Site.

Dave has also lent his ear to several of my poems, so I've been waiting to hear his thoughts on The Lineup #2.

Twanalyst.com calls Dave a poet, so I hope he's convinced to submit to The Lineup himself.

Spreading the Word

Detectives Beyond Borders' Peter Rozovsky blogged briefly about The Lineup Issue 2, writing in part, "Fans of narrative concision and crime songs might also want to check out The Lineup and open their minds to poetry about crime."

Sarah Cortez Interview on La Bloga

Manuel Ramos interviewed Sarah Cortez about The Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, but they also got to talking about crime poetry and The Lineup:

Manuel Ramos: Your poetry was featured in the first issue of The Lineup, a magazine devoted to crime poetry. What is crime poetry and how is it different from other kinds of poetry?

Sarah Cortez: I’m glad you asked about The Lineup, the chapbook series so wonderfully edited by Gerald So, with Patrick Shawn Bagley, R. Narvaez, and Anthony Rainone. The poetry featured deals with some aspect of criminal behavior whether from the victim’s, criminal’s, or another’s perspective. In trying to define what is different about crime poetry from other poetry, I would say that the subject matter focuses the poet’s eye very particularly. So that in trying to accomplish that “great” poetic task we talked about above – putting the inexplicable into words – the poet must unflinchingly hone in on physicality, whether the physicality of the crime scene, the victim, the suspect, and so on. What I see when I read poems from Lineup is the unremitting eye of each poet beginning in the sensory world of the crime’s occurrence. And, of course, the higher the emotional content of an event, the harder it becomes to write about it with elegance. Writers, especially fiction writers, joke about how hard it is to write love/sex scenes and have them turn out well. That’s because of the high emotional content and the enormous number of hackneyed clichés surrounding love/sex scenes. Well, crime scenes carry a lot of those same burdens for the writer/poet. The poets chosen for Lineup do a fantastic job.

Manuel Ramos: I think The Lineup is an innovation with much potential power to dramatically change the poetry/crime fiction scene. I hope more readers find it. I'm delighted to note that I have a poem in the upcoming second issue, due later this summer.

Thank you, Craig McDonald.

In his column for the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of Crimespree, subtitled "The Rhyme and Reason of Crime Fiction", Edgar-nominated author Craig McDonald relates his experience with poetry as it relates to crime fiction, including his recollection of meeting me at Bouchercon 2008 and passing "a sublime couple of hours" with The Lineup on his return home.

He particularly praises Richie Narvaez's "Metro", Misti Rainwater-Lites's "Don Henley Will Be Mine" and "Not Bonnie & Clyde, Exactly", and my own "Mickey Spillane", wrapping up as follows:

The very good news is sequels to THE LINEUP are planned as annual releases so we should be able to expect another fine volume this summer.

These may well be watershed works -- ones that in retrospect we'll regard as the start of something important.

Any serious fan of crime fiction should subscribe to Crimespree. Short of attending a con, it's the closest you can get to the community of readers and writers. You can request a single copy by e-mailing Jon Jordan (jon AT crimespreemag DOT com).

"...packs all the chilling punch of good noir."

That's what Detectives Beyond Borders blogger Peter Rozovsky wrote about Graham Everett's Lineup poem "Latest Victim". Read Rozovsky's full review here.

Crime Always Pays. But Poetry? Fuggedaboudit.

Declan Burke blogs about The Lineup over at Crime Always Pays. Check it out. He even posted my poem.

Rapping about The Lineup

The Rap Sheet editor J. Kingston Pierce, who was kind enough to blurb The Lineup, invited me to wax a bit about the project's history, and about the place of crime in poetry. You can read the result here.