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FOREWORD
Carol Tarlen never published any books. That puts her in good company I think. For example, Einstein and Jesus never wrote
books. But Carol did write books, and she enjoyed compiling three chapbooks for her close friends, "Letter from an English
Prison" (stories), and "Fire" and "Trailer Trash" she renamed "White Trash" (poetry). She
just had no interest in publishing other than these vanity editions. It was always more important to spend time with her grandchildren
or to feed a hungry person, and I should mention that she spent some nights in jail for committing the heinous crime of feeding
hungry people with the Food Not Bombs group.
To the extent that she was known at all on "the Beach," Carol was known as a poet. She had emceed many poetry
reading series and had lived in the neighborhood for years. She was also widely anthologized and a widely published fiction
writer. Her dear friends Agneta Falk and Julia Stein were encouraging and directing Carol to focus on publishing her books
at the time she died. Julia also helped me with the manuscript of "The Maggie Poems," which open these collected
poems.
When Carol died one famous North Beach poet said that it had been many years since there had been such an outpouring on
the passing of a North Beach poet, not since Bob Kaufman. Like Kaufman Carol's work shows nothing but contempt for the comfortable
classes, usually with caustic humor. The genius of her work is in the way it empowers the reader. The influence of the Beats
and William Carlos Williams is obvious, but also evident is that of Ernesto Cardenal and his documentary poetry technique.
Thematically, these poems bookend the 20th and 21st centuries' working class struggles centered on New York City and
the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in the early 20th century "Sisters in the Flames," and 9/11 "What Makes
Us Human." Carol's poem, "Fire," reduced hard core South Korean unionists to tears when she read it to them.
They were deeply moved that an American woman cared about the martyred Jeon Tae-il.
This collection represents the thirty years of Carol's prodigious poetic output, and, dear reader, you are in for a treat,
more than that, a full meal, not unlike those for which she was arrested in San Francisco public parks. Reading these poems,
then, is an experience both collaborative and subversive against the dominant paradigm, in short empowering. Enjoy.--David
Joseph
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