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Collections of Lyric and Narrative Poems About Blue-Collar Life, Love, and Labor
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HARD BUCKS: A Blue-Collar Odyssey
Winner of the 2000 Swan Duckling Press Chapbook Competition
ISBN 1-893297-07-1
November 2000
40 pages/18 poems
"Whether the subject is triple overtime, workmate loyalty, the perils of spot-welding, or
dizzying labor high atop a grain elevator, Hard Bucks is a golden arrow which flies straight to the core
of work qua work: its tedium, joy, and very often, its genuine metaphysical mystery."
-Tim Scannell Small Press Review
Order Hard Bucks from
Mark Bruce Swan Duckling Press P.O. Box 586 Cypress, CA 90630 $5.00 Ppd.
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To make it with a shovel in the profession of Adam takes the back of a chimpanzee and a mind gone on Zen. That's because attention to the task at hand--
to the same yellow sand
slung in the same flat arc
over the same left shoulder
day after dark day--
beclouds the mind
and plunges the soul
into anguish.
Daydreams and memories
can relieve the shovel pusher
but like anodynes
soon wear off.
Besides, the old flame
romanced too often
in fond reflection
begins to flicker.
To keep digging
with happiness and aplomb
as leaves grow longer
and the sun climbs
through the seasons
you must learn to match
the chink of the shovel in sand
with the push of your heart
again and again
again and again
until the two are one
and the one moves in unison
with the great river of seconds
sparkling toward eternity.
Any survivor of the ditch
in this way
digs deep into Zen.
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JOURNEYMAN'S DUES
MuscleHead Press April 2002 20 pages/9 poems
"The present and previous poems in this series should certainly be collected together.
I don't think that since William Carlos William's 'Paterson' has there been such a skillful study of individual
experience, character, and revelation concerning the interior
and exterior of the industrial landscape." -Kevin Bailey
HQ Poetry Magazine
"These poems are minute records recording
minutes of life; hardships, manual labor, dirt, grime and pride. They are some of the best I have read about the rawness of life's realism." -Joyce Metzger
"Hart's poems are powerful and full of vigor. His confidence and pleasure in the sense
and sound of words are the hallmarks of a true poet." -Brenda Hall
World's Apart
Order Journeyman's Dues from
John Berbrich BoneWorld Publishing 3700 County Route 24 Russell, NY 13684 $3.00
Ppd.
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La Vida Loca
Jivin' Johnny Jenrette was on the road to Denver where union tinners pulled in 9 an hour
he'd heard. His car broke down in Wichita so he hired on with my boss to refill his wallet. Took the summer to
get it done. That's because the boss paid squat but also because Johnny barhopped six nights a week and drank
beer at home on Sundays to give his body rest.
He showed me how to measure ductwork in the air before any ductwork was there and how to
build it and put it there.
With him I learned to shoot better pool slowdance my tool on older cowgirls in North Broadway
clubs buy liquor after hours and pass a pint of Jack Black back and forth through the car window to a Devil's
Disciple on a speeding Harley.
One day in August Johnny was gone. There was no party. He didn't show at the shop and
when I went by his place after work it was dark and vacant. Since then I've driven by that little house 200
times and not once have I seen signs of a party starting up or winding down.
If I know you, Johnny, you got the 9 an hour. But sometimes I wonder where you are now thirty
years down the line.
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FACTORY STIFF
Pitchfork Press 2002 21 Pages/9 poems
"There is something intensely human about all [Hart's]
work, meaning that his lines are filled w/characters & events, not scenery & ideology. Factory Stiff is filled w/ guys who work with their hands--in a slaughterhouse, midnight
shift at a factory, a machine shop. Many characters meet their doom in these narratives.... usually in some ironic
or meaningless manner." -John Berbrich The Synergist
"With Hart you get the best of both worlds, realism, the real world, and an informed visionary- ness that's part of (as T.S. Eliot always put it) The Great Tradition. Impact
plus high-art." -Hugh Fox
Order Factory Stiff from
Christopher Gibson Pitchfork Press 2002 A Guadalupe #461 Austin,
TX 78705 $2.00 Ppd.
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Graveyard
I toil with those for whom the night is day and day is night-- the lonely ghouls of
graveyard shift.
I ride to work under the phasing of the moon and drive home in the cold dawn with sparrows
chirping and the world coming alive only to seek out a bed to try for six hours of semi-sleep-- the best one
can do on a body clock shocked beyond repair.
My pasty flesh rarely sees the sun. The heavy luggage under my pale eyes yearns for a
long vacation in darkest dreamland. I am tired tired tired and life is so godawful everlasting.
Yet, as midnight chimes, I rise again, snatch up my cloak and lunch box and float on down
to the factory over a soft new snowfall blue under the full moon. I'll sweat and shiver in the bowels of the behemoth till
sunrise tending the tireless dynamos of the American dream.
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Perfect-bound haiku collections illustrated by Jayasri Majumdar
Letterpress printed
Fine linen paper
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MONSOON: Poems Written in India and Nepal
ISBN 0-944048-03-X Timberline Press, 1991 36 Pages/61 poems/ 5 illustrations
"Basho would have approved of Mr. Hart's 'Monsoon,' for it is a traveller's book of haiku
that shares with the reader the author's common and extra-ordinary experiences had during his journey from Kathmandu
to Calcutta, Hyderabad and Bombay." -Kevin Bailey
Haiku Quarterly
"Its moments of sheer revulsion and delicate beauty clearly express the earthiness and spiritual immensity of India and Nepal. The reader is momentarily swept into the vast and
minute universe of Vishnu." -Ebba Story, Frogpond
"Fleeting but highly evocative glimpses of the monsoon in India and Nepal. Simply
and beautifully illustrated." -Gerald England New Hope
International
Order Monsoon from
Clarence Wolfshohl Timberline Press 6281 Red Bud Fulton, MO 65251 $7.50 + $1.50 P&H (1 book) $6.50/book
+ $1.50 P&H total (2 or more books)
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yielding its flower to the bee gentle butterfly
a grimace in the mud-- crushed rat
a hilltop city shimmers under stars night train
sunset lovers on the seawall in the rain
our train passes from mountain tunnel into cloud
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PARIS
Winner of a Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America
ISBN 0-944048-09-9 Timberline Press, 1996 31 pages/41 poems/ 4 illustrations
" This handsome handprinted chapbook has some charming illustrations and many excellent poems.
The book is a record of a trip to the ancient ultra modern French capital and captures scenes and incidents with the perception of a photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson." -Richard
Modiano, Next
"Delightfully witty haiku about Paris and our own foibles." -Poetalk
"Paris is universal in scope... but for place names." -Liz Fenn
Order Paris from
Clarence Wolfshohl Timberline Press 6281 Red Bud Fulton, MO 65251 $7.50
+ $1.50 P&H (1 book) $6.50/book + $1.50 P&H total (2 or more books)
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post-jet slumber traffic in the rain a disconsolate sax
riffles on the Seine my map of the city wraps my arm
young lovers up close not so young
swifts cut neon twilight above the glowing and the dark apartments
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WILDCAT ROAD
ISBN 0-944048-17-X Timberline Press, 2000 37 pages/39 poems/ 4 illustrations
"The third collection of haiku by one of our more interesting poets outside the haiku mainstream."
-Jim Kacian, Frogpond
"No pretensions in William Hart's haiku." -Robert Spiess, Modern
Haiku
"Hart's unassuming haiku have a way of quietly entering the reader to do magic."
-LeRoy Gorman Haiku Canada Newsletter
"I'm a huge fan of very short but well-done poems. This book
really hits the mark with me." -Cari Taplin
Katnip Reviews
Order Wildcat Road from
Clarence Wolfshohl Timberline
Press 6281 Red Bud Fulton, MO 65251 $7.50 + $1.50 P&H (1 book) $6.50/book + $1.50 P&H total
(2 or more books)
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trip's end: a glowing farmhouse niched in the Milky Way
each nail grieves in its own voice leaving the wood
album photo on three faces the same nose
tag end of a summer pulling weeds barefoot in the rain
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ON CAT TIME
ISBN 0-944049-31-5 Timberline Press, 2004 32 pages/39 poems/ 5
illustrations
"What a delightful and beautifully produced little book...charmingly
and quirkily illustrated. These are particularly endearing poems. Mr. Hart has a lovely, light and often humorous
touch." -Michael Bangerter New Hope International
"This is a beautifully made book that is ideal for gift-giving to your friends who have also been
adopted by a cat....One could say that William Hart has haiku as his daily meditation practice because his haiku are so gentle,
so down-to-earth, so accepting of what is." -Jane Reichhold, Lynx
Order
at usual price from Clarence at Timberline (see above)
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neighbor
cat asleep on our doormat sparkles with dew
breezy-- a spider's thread warps
a sunbeam
long after sundown one twitter won't quit
the tom asleep on
the widow's porch is losing his sun
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Collections of Lyric Poems about Kolkata, India
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RABINDRA SAROBAR
effing press, 2005
40 pages/27 poems/ 1 illustration
"The theme of this chap is overcoming the grinding
poverty of [Kolkata, India], a poverty felt not only by humans, but also by dogs, kites, bats and others, all scavenging to
survive....I love the literary snapshots of the city in motion--the homeless, the bicycles, chickens headed for market, car
horns--the vast clattering babble of the city's streets." -John Berbrich, Barbaric Yawp
"Hart's writing is wonderful and makes
something beautiful out of horrible realities....This collection is recommended highly for its excellent poetic qualities
and provocative subject matter."
-Melody Sherosky
The Blind Man's
Rainbow
Order Rabindra Sarobar from
Scott Pierce
effing press
703 West 12th Street #2
Austin, TX 78701
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Fall of Ravi
Ravi is the great gold fire of life on earth toward whom all
ferns leaves and tendrils diurnally aspire.
Yet this hour tracks his slow decline between two Babel towers into
the clanging urban mire his brilliant round completeness reduced to a regal squat-- gone the awful power to melt
our eyes.
With a pang we watch him go. My god, what retching woe we'd
feel if we didn't know about tomorrow.
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Poetry in progress:
Call Me Kolkata, a collection of lyric poems about street life and the infinite in
India's former capital (written and revised)
Rinkrat, a book of lyric poems about roller speed skating and teenage romance
(being revised)
Cloud Coyotes, collection of haiku set in a mountain valley where city and wilderness
meet (being revised)
River and the City: Kolkata Tanka, a book of poems about Kolkata, India written
in the Japanese five-line style (being revised)
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