Review
THE BOOKSTORE BOOK, KARL MARX PRIVATE EYE & NAMING A HURRICANE – 3 Books Reviewed
Lehman Weichselbaum
The Bookstore Book
Ron Kolm
Pink Trees Press, 2023
Karl Marx Private Eye
Jim Feast
PM Press, 2023
Naming a Hurricane
Madeline Artenberg
Pink Trees Press, 2023
THE BOOKSTORE BOOK
In The Bookstore Book: A Memoir, prolific poet and prosaist Ron Kolm submits his own version of looking back. For Kolm, speaking through prose essays and "poems" (really prose essays in chopped-up lines), the life of a bookseller was both a career choice and a special window to the world. As always, if you're a writer, you don't have to look for experience, experience will find you. From early adulthood, Kolm would hit town, and, like the rest of us needing a job, went shopping for one. And like many people of letters, he knew that a job in a bookstore would make the best personal fit. More often than not, Kolm's quest was rewarded. He found his jobs with often ridiculous ease, earning him a not overly strenuous workload, a sustenance paychec...
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Poem
Penis Extensions
Ron Kolm
Warfare has always been
About extending your will
Further than your enemies.
Stones, spears and bows and arrows
Were all used in fornication.
Then crossbows, muskets,
Cannons and bombs were invented
To fuck with the m...
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Poem
CBGBs
Ron Kolm
I worked in the Strand bookstore
with Tom Verlaine.
He invited me
to CBGBs the first time his band,
Television, played there.
Punk was born that night.
I ended up getting into a fight
with my date
and we left ...
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Poem
The Beat Goes On
Ron Kolm
It was a slow night in the bookstore
so I went over to the literature section
and grabbed a copy of Celine's
Death on the Installment Plan
and took it back to my post
at the cash register.
I hid it under the counter
...
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Poem
What Will Come of It All
Ron Kolm
I’m sitting
In the Parkside Lounge
With a good friend, drinking
Too many White Russians
And bemoaning
The state of the world.
“What’s going to happen?”
I ask her.
“Well,” she says,
“There wi...
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Readings
Beer Virus Reading #9 – John Macon King, Francine Witte and Ron Kolm
The Editors
Sensitive Skin magazine presents Beer Virus Reading #9, featuring work by:
- J. Macon King (SF) 2:45
- Francine Witte (NYC) 19:29
- Ron Kolm (NYC) 35:58
Subscribe to our YouTube channel SenstiveSkinTV today and check...
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Story
Problem Child
Ron Kolm
It all started with a big bang -- the sound of something heavy smashing against a wall, and it came from the apartment directly below mine. I headed out into the hallway to see what had happened, and was greeted by the secon...
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Podcasts
Episode 14 – Ron Kolm
Bernard Meisler
Ron Kolm in conversation with Bernard Meisler.
Ron Kolm is a poet (The Plastic Factory, Welcome to the Barbecue, and most recently,"A Change In the Weather," from Sensitive Skin Press), an editor of many books, includ...
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Review
One Hundred Years Among the Daisies, poems by George Wallace – Review
Ron Kolm
One Hundred Years Among the Daisies, poems by George Wallace. Published by Stubborn Mule Press, 2018.
I have this notion that the chunk of time we’re going through in ‘our’ American culture, under Mr. Trump, is ...
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Essay
Matty Jankowski, RIP
Ron Kolm
There was a posting on Facebook on Saturday, January 12th, by Joe Maynard, an old friend, saying that a buddy of ours, Matty Jankowski, had just passed away in Florida. It was a very moving tribute, and it also contained a l...
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Review
A Hermit Has No Plural by Gabor G. Gyukics – Review
Ron Kolm
A Hermit Has No Plural by Gabor G. Gyukics, Singing Bone Press.
A Hermit Has No Plural, a collection of poems by the great Hungarian writer, Gabor G. Gyukics, is wonderfully unique. It is a surrealist vision of a world...
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Poem
Hand Job
Ron Kolm
Hand Job
It’s my first day on the job
In a plant making hand trucks.
“You’ll be rubbing acid on new
Welds to seal them,” the foreman
Tells me. “Here’s some rubber
Gloves,” he says, tossing me a pair. ...
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Poem
Hells Kitchen
Ron Kolm
Hells Kitchen
After the war in Vietnam
Wound down, and my stint
Doing alternative service
Came to an end,
I had to stop
And take stock
Of my situation.
I could return to Pennsylvania
And get a job in a factory
D...
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