Blue Collar Holler

Fall Editorial

2012-01-08T08:51:00.004-05:00

This issue comes out at the most exciting time since we began publishing our journal. In nearly every city across our country and many around the world, people are rising up and occupying the town squares. These protests are qualitatively different than any we have seen in recent history. The corporate media pretends to be puzzled, focusing on the lack of issue-based demands and leaders on one hand, and intent on smearing, discrediting, and destroying the movement on the other.
There are many issues involved, but the focus is on Wall Street and the mass realization of the division of wealth between the 1%, and the rest of us -- the 99%, and the connection of that amassed wealth to power. The formerly unspeakable truth is that the many seemingly insurmountable issues, from unemployment to endless war, to the plundered economy and the unfolding ecological crisis are like the branches on a tree. They are connected at the root by a strangling knot of corporate interests. As the signs at growing protests say, capitalism is the crisis. The basic demand of reclaiming a representative republic by separating wealth from power strikes at the heart of our corrupt corporate oligarchy. As Frederick Douglas said, "Power concedes nothing without a struggle." This life and death struggle is heating up and it will not go away. Your editors have been spending much time on the streets in the escalating struggle for working class democracy, as have many of you. We will continue to do so.
This collection, as ever, speaks from where we are. The poets in this issue are angry, we are desperate, and we are actively resisting. We know our class history and we know the players in this scam system. To paraphrase the great poet, Tom McGrath, we have discovered the grammar of the common good, we are speaking a language that can be understood. We are proud and elated to be a part of the paradigm shift that we hope is the dawning of a better world. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

A Note about Paypal Subscriptions

2011-12-30T06:39:00.002-05:00

Those who have subscribed on line via Paypal should note that the set-up for subscriptions automatically self renew rather than simply reminding you. That is how Paypal "subscriptions" work. This causes some issues and is intrusive -- especially in hard times or if one doesn't intend to renew. I have changed that on our website and have provided options in a drop-down menu. Where it now says "subscription" is actually set up as a payment so it will not self renew. Options include, 1 year, 2 years, and Partisan Supporter for $120.00 which breaks down to only $10.00 a month.

The latest issue of our journal is in progress. I am awaiting printer supplies. but hopefully it will be out in a couple of weeks.

Supporting Occupy Together

2011-10-15T10:03:00.005-04:00

Your editor has been spending a lot of time on the street as part of the Occupy movement. I will be out there again today. As some are aware, one of the ways to support our press is through our progressive T-shirt site

In support of Occupy Wall Street, we at Partisan Press have already donated money and time. We also have a new T-shirt on our site -- proceeds will support the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Summer Editorial

2011-09-28T11:49:00.007-04:00

Another record hot summer, rife with the devastating storms of nature and human fury unleashed. We've seen hurricanes and record droughts. Fires continue to rage out of control around the country from Texas to Florida to the Midwest to the East coast. Floods inundate entire regions as do the growing disasters of a failed economy. More of us are out of work or under employed than at any time since the Great Depression. The news reports that one in six are now below the official poverty line.

As our country all but shuts down, we are further assaulted by the corporate storm troopers of the extreme right who hold a weak administration hostage. Their ongoing obstruction purposefully cripples any chance of an economic recovery. Our working class, already reeling, is further threatened by the destruction of hard won workplace rights: the elimination or gutting of Social Security, vanishing workplace safety regulations, and the destruction of every shred of a safety net from unemployment to worker's compensation. Also threatened is our national infrastructure which includes the Postal Service upon which so much, including our small press, depends.

This is a brutal collection in which hellish jobs and the lack of them seem to cover the narrow range of the quagmire we find ourselves in as employers take advantage of a bad economy to extract even more out of fearful workers. Women continue to bear the brunt of abuse, from domestic violence to hyper-exploitation in the workplace to the violence of the sex trade and outright slavery. This too is expressed in these pages. Reading the experiences described in these poems is like much needed cold water in the face.

For his hard hitting epic poem, "I Am The Rouge" Gregg Shotwell of Grand Rapids, Michigan is the winner of our annual Working People's Poetry Contest. He wins the $100.00 prize, along with a one year subscription. Due to the strength of the entries, we have two runners up; Ed Werstein for his poem, "Teaching Women How to Fly" and Margaret Sherman for "Let the Toilers Assemble." Each of these poems could have been the winner. The runners up receive a one year subscription. These poems are published in this issue and are also posted on our website for one year. We are grateful to all who entered our contest and look forward to your entries in the coming year.

As summer comes to an end, a new season of struggle is upon us. We fight for our lives against the short-sighted, destructive idiocy of the corporatist right. That struggle is heating up. There are large demonstrations, some ongoing, planned for September and October. Important as they are, they will not be enough. They must be the foundation of a newly organized movement to take our country back from the brink of collapse and stop the rise of fascist corporate feudalism. Worker's interests must remain at the core of that struggle. As wordsmiths we have a vital role to play. We hope, with your ongoing support to be on the front lines.

Saving the Small Press

2011-09-27T12:16:00.005-04:00

The Postal Service is in trouble and the Wingnuts are out to kill it. We must fight back. The further reduction or collapse of the Postal service means the demise of print publications which rely on the mail and on bulk mailing service. Aside from the reality that the Postal service is a vital and basic part of our national infrastructure, this directly impacts all poets and writers as well as literate readers. As such, I urge you to write your Congressional Representative in support of H.R. 1351, the United States Postal Service Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011. Also, call your local Postmasters to support keeping your post offices open.

New From Partisan Press

2011-08-10T07:49:00.007-04:00

Partisan Press is proud to publish a powerful collection of Poems by Ben Balthaser. Dedication explores his families history; a history of Jewish Communists, a legacy of organizing and the struggle for dignity, economic justice and human rights. A legacy often overshadowed by Zionism and its right wing drift.

Martín Espada writes, "In an age when politicians and pundits use the word "socialist" to demonize even the most mild-mannered opponents, Benjamin Balthaser's family history in verse, focused on his grandfather, a union organizer and Communist Party activist—reminds us that radicals also built this country, fighting for the very rights we take for granted today. Balthaser paints what I have called elsewhere "the emotional landscape of the dissenter," showing us, as only poetry can, how it felt to rally around the cause of the Spanish Civil War, to be interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, to bury beloved, yet incriminating books on a winter's day. That this complex and misunderstood history also works as poetry—in chiseled diction and lightning flashes of imagery—is a great credit to the poet. Benjamin Balthaser believes in the powerful example of his Jewish, Communist forbears, and rescues their story from oblivion. More poets should have his kind of vision; indeed, more poets should have his kind of dedication."

Dedication is not so much about nostalgia or preserving a vital historic legacy of Jewish left activism as it is of honoring its history and its continuity. Many of the strongest voices on the left and within the worker's movement remain those of Jews.
At only $14.00 (shipping included) this vital collection will enrich the reader and hopefully, nourish and strengthen our commitment to the struggle for a better world.

Working People's Contest Winners

2011-08-02T10:48:00.005-04:00

At long last and after much deliberation we have chosen the winner of the Working People's Poetry Contest. It wasn't easy and we had two runners up, both which could have just as well been the winner. These are dynamic poems and all are good examples of progressive working class poetry.

The winner is Gregg Shotwell for his poem "I Am the Rouge." Very close runners up are Ed Werstein for his poem "Teaching Women How to Fly" and Margaret Sherman for "Let the Toilers Assemble" -- a painfully timely poem. All of these are posted online for a year and will appear in the next issue of the Blue Collar review.

The winner receives the grand prize on $100.00. He and the runners up also win a year's subscription to the Blue Collar Review. Several other poems that were not winners were very good and will be published in future issues of the journal as well.

We are thankful to all who participated by entering poems in our contest and hope to see more entries in the coming year.

Spring Issue Editorial

2011-06-29T10:19:00.005-04:00

It has been a hard Spring with over a thousand tornadoes, record flooding, much of the country on fire, and a comatose economy leaving too many of us without jobs. It seems all our government is doing in response is threatening us with "austerity" and expanding its military aggressions around the world.

As we limp into the oppressive heat of Summer, our desperation and anger building like super cell thunderheads, the dark promise of our militant fight-back grows.

So too the threat from the corporate right. Desperate to maintain their dying order, the police state continues to expand as legislating puppets rip away our hard won rights and life saving entitlements, eviscerating Medicare, Social Security, our right to organize, environmental protections, and our children's education. Nothing is sacred to the corporatists but profits and the delusional power of military might. Nothing frightens them more than the spectre of our awakening to unity as a class, acting in our own interests. Thus they do everything in their power to keep us divided using wedge issues, lies and fomented hatreds.

The poetry in this issue laments our losses, particularly of good jobs, without saccharine nostalgia. It voices our anger at the abuse of dehumanizing work. The poets and writers in this collection see through the lies -- our vision clarified by experience. These poems glow with the sanity of solidarity and the humanity of militant class consciousness, as opposed to the self-absorbed, anti-social, fear-laden anger and judgment pushed by the teapublicans. This conscious working class is our hope for the future of civilization.

In these anxiety ridden times we are especially grateful for your continuing support making possible the publication and salvation of our voices here.

Flyin' Harleys in Purple Haze

2011-04-19T11:55:00.006-04:00

A new collection by noted poet Gerald R Wheeler whose work has often graced the pages of the Blue Collar Review.

Reading Gerald Wheelers Flyin' Harleys in a Purple Haze gave me the same feeling I had after viewing the exhibit: "Requiem: by photographers who died in Vietnam and Indochina." Among the photos displayed was the unforgettable "Girl in the Picture" of the napalmed naked girl anyone who has ever seen will never forget. These are war images and personal poems, frozen in time, exploding, or, about to, onto the page. These are poems recording the bravery, suffering and senselessness of war and the human cost the exact. When will we ever learn?
-- Alan Catlin

Winter Issue Editorial

2011-03-28T09:40:00.004-04:00

This is proving to be a hard year. As we go to press the worst nuclear accident in history is in progress following the horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In our own country an ongoing disaster of historic proportions continues as well. The primary difference is that our own disaster is strictly man-made. The economy continues to struggle like an engine that refuses to turn over leaving millions of us out of work. Those with jobs live in fear, because, as every worker knows, high unemployment creates an army of desperate people willing to work for less and don't the bosses know it too!

From Michigan to Wisconsin to Virginia to Florida and elsewhere working people are under vicious attack by corporatist reactionaries. Like the danger posed by the Japanese nuclear meltdowns, this too is a global phenomenon. As the Market System continues to melt down, those at the top of it resort to desperate measures foisting the "neo-liberal" policies of austerity, crushing of unions, rolling back of social programs and inevitably, civil liberties while padding their own pockets. The same policies we have forced on poorer countries are now being pushed in our own.
The positive side is that from Cairo to Athens to Bahrain to Madison people are rising up to fight back. We have no choice. We know that we've been had by a corrupt system of thievery and we know that a better world is possible. Our country and our planet may be broken but it isn't broke. We know where the money and resources are and we refuse to be tossed aside like trash or reduced to serfdom.

The poetry in this issue voices the pride we take in work -- too often as nostalgia. It voices the desperation we feel as even the basics of food and shelter many took for granted are pulled beyond our reach. It voices the anger we feel as conscious workers who can see through the lies and understand that our enemies are not teachers, the poor, immigrants, women, Gays, or labor unions.

It is always an uphill struggle with long odds when fighting an entrenched ruling class. They not only have armies of goons and weapons of mass destruction, they have a seemingly all-powerful media. With it they create false controversies to sow confusion. They create fake political fronts like the "Tea Party" and give it the false legitimacy of prime time coverage to cynically twist righteous working class anger against our own interests. They use the old tactics of scapegoating, victim blaming, racism and nationalism and play on real fear. They fully understand the power of culture in shaping attitudes and guiding behavior.

We, on the other hand mostly have each other. Some of us have the internet, monitored though it is, to communicate with each other nationally and globally in order to expose the system and to coordinate our fightback. We also have our political groups. But unless we address and counter the reactionary culture of militarism, vengeance and competitive commodity fetishism we will not have the critical masses necessary to overcome the corrupt monstrosity of capitalism which threatens our very survival.

Small though our journal is, that is our mission. Of course we cannot do it alone but we do have an impact. Each issue that goes out -- each individual copy has a life of its own. Many continue to circulate for years reaching people and opening eyes on a level only progressive culture can do. We depend on your support to continue our -- your work; to get the insights and inspiration of our class's best poets and writers out to as many as eyes as possible.

This is our annual fund raising issue. In it you will find an insert asking for contributions which are also tax deductible since we are a 501(c)3 not-for profit press. I know how tough these times are but that is all the more reason to give whatever you can because tough times make progressive consciousness even more vital. We must do everything in our power to inspire class solidarity and counter the nascent fascism being pushed by the corporatocracy. We thank you in advance for any support.

Editorial correction: The poem, 'The Rite to Work" on page 3 of this Winter issue is by Michael S Morris, as it is listed in the contents. The author was mistakenly mislabeled on the page.

The Triangle fire

2011-03-25T21:57:00.002-04:00

On March 25, 1911, one hundred years ago today, a fire started at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York. The fire resulted in the deaths of 146 workers.

The factory was a sweatshop of the sort common during those years (and still persisting to this day) in which workers worked long hours for low pay in terrible working conditions. The fire started on the upper floors of the ten-story building. Among the factors contributing to the loss of so many lives were a locked door to a stairwell; a fire escape that collapsed; oily floors that caused the fire to spread quickly; the factory owners kept the doors locked, supposedly to keep workers from leaving early or stealing, though more pointedly to try to keep union organizers out of the building. Fire department ladders reached only to the sixth floor. Many of the workers who died leaped from the upper floors, rather than be burned alive.

The fire and its aftermath led, in time, to major improvements in laws affecting work safety and fire safety, in New York and elsewhere in the United States. Much of this came as a result of a concerted push by the organized labor movement.

A good website about the Triangle fire is here, in the website of Cornell University. It includes a history of the fire and subsequent events, news reports about the fire, accounts by survivors, a list of names of the identified victims of the fire, some general historical background, resources for further research, and a lot of other information.

Walking through a River of Fire: 100 Years of Triangle Factory Fire Poems, edited by poet Julia Stein, was published this year by CC Marimbo in Berkeley, California. The collection, which features 21 poems by nine poets, is a powerful gathering of voices speaking about a terrible moment in history. * Ordering information for the anthology can be found in Julia Stein's blog California Writer, here.

Also in her blog, here, Stein gives a rundown of public events in California (mostly in the Los Angeles area, as nearly as I can tell) in commemoration of the fire. A number of the events have taken place by now, though a few are still ahead.

I've reviewed the anthology Walking through a River of Fire in my blog A Burning Patience, here.

180 years ago today in France

2011-03-18T22:02:00.000-04:00

March 18, 1871 -- 180 years ago today -- was the beginning of the Paris Commune: an armed insurrection in which workers in Paris took over the city and drove out the capitalist government. It was a landmark in the history of attempts by working people to take charge of the political and economic forces that daily affect our lives in the most basic ways.

During the next two months, the insurgent workers formed a new government, made up of people who had participated in or supported the insurrection, and made the beginnings of attempts to improve the basic conditions of life for the working population of the city. Similar uprisings occurred in several other cities in France, though in most cases these were brief and the workers did not succeed in seizing political power.

At first the ousted capitalist French government made token attempts to negotiate some type of agreement with the new revolutionary government of Paris. This while Paris existed essentially in a state of military seige. Toward the end of May the French army entered the Paris (at a weakly defended area of the city outskirts), and proceed to retake the city. As the army advanced into the eastern (and more heavily working-class) part of Paris, and several days of fierce barricade fighting ensued.

In the end, the Paris Commune was defeated. In the succeeding weeks, wholesale slaughter followed, as the French government summarily executed as many as 30,000 workers, and arrested and imprisoned thousands more.

A more detailed account of the events can be found in the Marxists Internet Archive, here.

Sometime during the months after the achievments and subsequent suppression of the Commune, French poet Eugène Pottier (who worked for a living as a tailor's assistant) wrote a six-stanza poem in response, titled "L'Internationale." Some years later, in 1888, the poem was set to music by Pierre Degeyter, a Belgian lathe operator. In the years since, the first verse (along with some of the other verses, sometimes) has been translated into many other languages, and has become an unofficial but widely sung international anthem of the communist movement around the world.

The version featured in the soundtrack of the movie Reds (starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton, among others) was sung by the Moscow Soviet Radio Chorus, recorded in 1926.

I Googled and found a website, here, based on Russia, with links to online audio recordings of "The Internationale" in a variety of languages. Most appear to be MP3's though some are in other audio file formats (RealAudio, etc.). * I haven't attempted listening to any of the recordings linked at the webpage, and don't know how reliable any of the links are or what quality any of the recordings are.

Over the years I've seen at least a couple of versions of English translations of the words, with slight variations of each. The one I'm most familiar with is following version:

Arise, ye prisoners of starvation,
Arise, ye wretched of the earth.
For justice thunders condemnation;
A better world's in birth.
No more tradition's chains shall bind us.
Arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations;
We have been nought, we shall be all.

'Tis the final conflict,
Let each stand in their place.
The international working class
Shall be the human race.

This the final conflict,
Let each stand in their place.
The international working class
Shall be the human race.

*

Salud.

Adrienne Rich on ‘Tonight No Poetry Will Serve’

2011-03-06T08:32:00.002-05:00

"Maybe some North American ears have trouble with poetry because of the noise from an aggressively voiced ruling ethos—its terminology of war, success, national security, winning and losing, ownership, merchandising, canned information, canned laughter. Poetry can be direct, it can be colloquial, it can be abrupt or angry, but it’s not that vacuous noise; it wants to unseat that kind of language, play other kinds of sound tracks."

A thoughtful and inspiring interview with Adreinne Rich in the Paris Review.

Fundraising

2011-03-02T08:24:00.004-05:00

Money is not something we like to write about or harp on but its necessity is undeniable in keeping our journal in print. This is our annual fundraising season and the next issue of our journal will have an insert asking for support. As we begin to put that issue together, we are looking at a tight squeeze for supplies and mailing costs.

Ours is a worker supported press which has survived nearly 15 years on the dedicated efforts and generosity of those who find our mission of publishing progressive working class literature important. For much of that time I made up the shortfall but I've been relegated to surplus citizen status and no longer have the resources. Partisan Press is a 501(c)3 charity, thus any donations you make are tax deductible which can be advantageous as a tax write off to some. I know these are hard times but I believe the times call for the kind of class awareness and solidarity that comes with working class literature. Consider setting aside a bit of your tax refund to support our efforts. This is a collective, volunteer effort and every cent counts. The bourgeoisie have the Koch brothers and Rubert Murdoch to pump out anti-worker distorted culture. All we have is each other to make our own voices heard. We hope to keep going for the indefinite future and would like to expand our efforts, publishing anthologies and collections of vital work but that depends on the support we receive.

Checks can be sent to Partisan Press, P.O. Box 11417 Norfolk VA 23517. Thank you in advance.

Autumn Issue Commentary

2010-12-15T17:18:00.000-05:00

Community. It is essential. It is the basis of society upon which we most rely to survive hard times. As the days grow shorter, as light gives way to darkness and the impending harshness of winter, autumn is a season that naturally brings us together. The working class consciousness which permeates the work in this collection is the basis for the community upon which the future of civilization depends.

In this issue we have poems and stories of alienation, indignation and resistance to workplace degradation; of love, desperation, hardship, hypocrisy and war.
Much of the focus of this journal is on themes of work and our lives as working people. Rarely, though, do we publish much on the work of writing. In these pages we have poems about poetry and the difficulty of being a working class poet. We aren't well represented on the rosters of big contest winners nor are our strongest poets commonly sought out by the major publishing houses. Poetry with political content is suppressed by universities. The gate keepers of culture do not allow anything that makes people think outside the officially sanctioned box.

This brings us back to community. This issue marks fourteen years of publishing one of very few journals dedicated to progressive working class poetry and prose. Because of that, many otherwise neglected and isolated worker poets have found a home in our pages. Though there are always new contributors and readers, more than a few of us have known each other directly or indirectly for decades. The tradition of working class writing lives on here and includes poets associated with previous eras like the Coastliners and the New Masses. Some of you knew Tom McGrath, Meridel LeSueur, Tillie Olsen and others whose words continue to inspire. Others of us write from other sources and all of us write from our own experiences. This is a living literature and we are proud to do our part, with your contributions, to nourish it.

New Pages Review of our Spring Issue

2010-10-15T09:04:00.000-04:00

I am very pleased to see a nice review of our Spring issue by C.D. Thomas at New Pages. I would like to think that most of what is said applies to every issue of the Blue Collar Review. Thomas says about the issue' it lives here and now, and trades ambiguity for telling its truth urgently. It is my feeling that this is the essence of progressive working class literature. It's what attracts me to it and why we publish it.

Summer Editorial

2010-09-21T08:49:00.000-04:00

It's been hot; the hottest summer on record bringing raging fires to Russia and our own northwest, ravaging floods to Pakistan, hurricanes and droughts compounded by oil spills from the North Sea to the disaster in the Gulf.

The accumulated damage of centuries of poorly regulated industry and the ravaging of our planet for profit is reaching critical levels threatening not only our future but all life on earth. Despite these realities the lies, obfuscation and undermining of science designed to discredit and cripple all efforts to address the crisis continue to pour forth, mostly from well funded by oil industry billionaires like David H. Koch. Koch also underwrites many right-wing think tanks, media, as well as corporate fronts like "Americans for Prosperity" and "Freedomworks" which also heads the so-called "Tea Party.

This system of greed, exploitation and corruption is unalterably driven to wring out every inch of profit possible even in its death throes no matter the cost and consequences for the rest of us.

Our summer issue focuses on the environment as well as on war. Both are intimately connected not only because of war's destruction but because its root causes serve the needs of industry and the wealthy for armaments profits, raw materials and cheap labor. Unfortunately as we go to press these issues are more timely than ever.

As the economy remains comatose, joblessness haunts us. Too many of us find ourselves out of work with little reason for optimism. Those of us still employed live in terror of layoffs or of being replaced by cheaper more desperate workers -- the old whip saw used to keep us in line. Added to that are undocumented workers, in reality, economic refugees from the disastrous economic policies and internal interference our government has foisted on Mexico and other countries south of our border.
These economic refugees, along with Muslims are being targeted by the right-wing machine with hate-filled incitements in order to foster militant nationalist xenophobia and racism to undermine the unity we need for progress. They defend their deadly system by attempting to move the country in an extreme-right, fascist direction.

The poets in this collection aren't buying it. Like a growing number of Americans, we see through the contemptuous demagoguery knowing its class origin and purpose.

In our summer issue we are proud to announce the winners of our Working People's Poetry Contest. We were fortunate to have many entries this year but that also made choosing a winner more difficult. In the winning poem, "A Clean Wound," Gil Fagiani shows the international class reality of war, even on one side. In his poem, a Salvadoran mother mourns her son, killed in Iraq while fighting for the US; the same young man who would be vilified by the right if he came here looking for work. Gil's poem is in this issue and will be on our website for one year. Our runner up, "Oil Creek, Pennsylvania" by John P. Heckathorne illuminates the destructive wake of industry both on the environment and on workers left behind. While not the winner, he gets a subscription and his poem on our website for one year.

Against all odds we keep going -- both as a class and as a journal supported by worker poets. We are amazed and honored to be publishing going on 14 years. With your continued contributions of words and much needed funds, we look forward to many more.

Summer Issue Near Release

2010-09-16T12:40:00.000-04:00

Our Summer issue is in production! This powerful new collection of the Blue Collar Review will be out in the next week or so. If you are a lover of nitty-gritty, hard-hitting working class poetry you won't want to miss it. If you haven't subscribed or your sub has lapsed, it's time to subscribe or renew!
It's only $15.00 a year and you won't regret the small investment.

Updates and Announcement from Fred Whitehead

2010-07-24T09:26:00.000-04:00

Things are slow here in Norfolk and the Summer issue may be delayed until sometime in mid to late September due to the monstrous heat which is not only taking it's toll on your editor but which permeates our productive facility temporarily rendering it an unbearable oven. Thanks to the support we've received thus far, you can rest assured that the next issue's publication inevitable.

In the wider community of Progressive literature, the venerable Fred Whitehead of John Brown Press announces the publication of Emanuel ("Manny") Fried's memoir, MOST DANGEROUS MAN. Fred writes:

Emanuel(“Manny) Fried was born in 1913 and grew up in Buffalo, New York, where he worked in the grocery business, and as a bellhop, before deciding he wanted to be an actor. After formative experiences in New York City, he returned to Buffalo and for many years worked in factories.

He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, attaining the rank of Lieutenant. Following that, he became an organizer for various labor unions in Western New York State, representing 30,000 workers.

During the Great Depression, Manny joined the Communist Party, and continued to be a principled radical activist throughout the Cold War, defying the House Un-American Activities Committee, refusing outright to answer any questions whatsoever.

The dramatic experiences of those years supplied the raw materials for his plays, including The Dodo Bird, Drop Hammer, and Elegy for Stanley Gorski, as well as for his novels, including Big Ben Hood, and The Un-American.

The plays have been widely performed across the country, and most recently, Manny has produced a one-man play about his life, called Boilermakers and Martinis. This is now available on DVD.

Most Dangerous Man is a “personal memoir,” revealing details of Manny’s early years in a large, lively Jewish family; his period working as a bellhop when he first met prostitutes and other “non-respectable” people. Then it moves to his years in and around the world of theater, and its colorful personalities. Already much concerned for the stresses of conflict between social classes, he met, fell in love with, and married the daughter of a well-to-do Buffalo family, who own one of the swankiest hotels in town. The severe strain of trying to maintain a marriage and family during the height of the McCarthy years is powerfully related at length. The narrative thus becomes a story of survival, though not without a terrible personal cost.

Thus, in addition to being a chronicle of social life in mid-20th century show-business and industrial America, this book achieves a level of insight into how a person and his family could ride out political and personal repression. There are also numerous practical lessons of benefit to any citizen reader in our own time.

On Drop Hammer

“A fine play with something important to say about America. The continued failure of his own country to give Mr. Fried’s work the recognition it deserves is difficult for me to understand.” —Arnold Wesker, British playwright

“Manny Fried has caught much of the human drama of life inside the shop-level labor movement . . . A rarely-tapped source, both honest and entertaining.” —Len DeCaux, author of Labor Radical

“The most sensational book I have ever read. It will open your eyes as well as your ears. I consider it a classic.” —Patrick E. Gorman, Chairman of the Board, Almalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL-CIO

“Drop Hammer…exhibits the lives and problems of workingmen from their own level rather than from above. The talk of the workers, the presentation of their concerns and the disposal of their problems are represented in a solid and unfaked manner.” —Jack Conroy, Founding Editor, The Anvil, and Author, The Disinherited

MOST DANGEROUS MAN:
A PERSONAL MEMOIR

$16.00 per copy (Plus $3.00 postage) to

JOHN BROWN PRESS
P.O. BOX 5224
KANSAS CITY, KS 66119

Contest Winners

2010-06-29T08:37:00.000-04:00

We are pleased that this year's Working Peoples Poetry Contest had more entries than ever. Choosing a winner from among the many strong entries was difficult and many of the poems that didn't win the prize are sure to wind up published in the pages of the Blue Collar Review.

The winner for this year's contest is Gil Fagiani for his poem "A Clean Wound." This powerful poem shows not only the cost of war but the power of imperialism to press soldiers from poor countries into service for the interests of empire and the multi-nationals ultimately in power.

Our runner up is John P. Heckathorne for his beautiful poem, "Oil Creek, Pennsylvania." This poem describes the waste of land and lives left in industry's wake as it left Pennsylvania for other areas to exploit.

Both of these poems are posted on line for a year and both poets receive a subscription to our journal as well.

We are thankful for the participation of so many fine poets in this contest as it helps us fund our journal and press.

McGrath Reading his Poetry

2010-06-26T09:04:00.000-04:00

This Thanks to Lyle Daggett:

In the website of the Poetry Foundation (Poetry magazine in Chicago) is what purports to be an audio recording of poet Tom McGrath, reading several of his poems, recorded in 1960 at radio station KPFK in Los Angeles. The recording is one of a series selected by poet Donald Hall. The first two or three minutes are taken up by an introduction and short bio supplied by the Poetry Foundation; the rest is Tom reading. The entire recording is about 11 minutes.

Spring Issue Editorial

2010-06-17T06:21:00.000-04:00

The 30 million of us without jobs who have come to realize that there is no place for us in what's left of America thought we were already angry. Those of us who have lost much; who work ourselves to death on thin ice daily afraid of layoffs really didn't think we could be angrier. But we were wrong. We are over the top. We are seething. Outrage is pouring from us like the red-brown noxious muck spewing death in the Gulf of Mexico where the corruption of the filthy rotten system is no longer hideable.

We have known for a long time that the monstrosity of capitalism was killing us; that it had nothing left to offer but death and destruction. Now there is no room left for delusion. This latest catastrophe, and there are many more like it in places like Nigeria that we don't hear about in the corporate press, is as great a threat to life on earth as we have witnessed. Plugging the pipe, while necessary will not undo the damage or fix the problem. If we are to survive, this system of theft and exploitation must come to an end. If we are to have a future, this century will have to be dedicated to cleaning up the damage of the last.

As debt and calamity choke our class from Detroit to Athens to Lisbon leaving no place in the world untouched, our anger and desperation are building a movement of resistance that is our only hope. We must seize what time is left to save ourselves and build a better world from the ruins of the present.

Amid this nightmare of economic decline and ecological tragedy, we are fortunate to have gotten enough of your support to continue publication of your vital and timely writing. It is a source of hope. This collection speaks to the anger and seeming hopelessness we feel as well as to the humanity and vision we carry like a precious fragile inheritance. The sharing of that awareness and vision through the power of this literature lets others know they are not alone. It feeds and strengthens the class awareness upon which our future depends. We are deeply appreciative of your continued support, especially in these times when every cent must be stretched to its limit and the future is so uncertain.

Contest Deadline Extension

2010-05-01T08:26:00.000-04:00

May Day Greetings to our readers! I am extending the deadline of our working People's Poetry Contest to May 15th in order to give everyone a chance to participate if they have not already. This is not only a good chance for those who know what we like to $100.00 but it is also a way to support our ability to keep publishing the best poets of our working class. As our annual fundraiser has felt the pinch of a failing economy and we are seeing an increase in our expenses the contest as well as your tax-deductible donations of support are all the more vital and appreciated.

Working People's Poetry Contest

2010-04-03T09:46:00.000-04:00

Entries are lagging to our annual Poetry contest. Not only is this a way to support the Blue Collar Review but this is a good opportunity to win $100.00 and have your poem posted our website for a year. Entries are only $15.00 each and our May 1st deadline is approaching. If you have been a reader or have been published in our journal you know what we like and your odds of winning are pretty good.

Winter Editorial

2010-03-19T15:06:00.000-04:00

As our economy continues to implode, foreclosures, layoffs and precarious employment feed the anger and fear that seem define this moment. Our well-founded anger is being manipulated and exploited by major corporations in their own interest. While robbing the nation and world to the point of anguish Wall Street and major industries work overtime to turn anger away from themselves and to divide and confuse us with nationalism, phony populism and misguided blame.

Across our country we are seeing anger lead to activism, good and bad. The Teabaggers continue to echo their corporate handlers against their own class interests. More importantly there is the real activism of large marches demanding jobs, healthcare and an end to our needless wars. Demonstrations against cuts to education and vital services are happening around the country. There is also a rise in community organizing as people pull together. In our area a Worker's Justice Center is coming together as a resource for worker education and organizing with connections to labor and progressive community organizations.

Because corporations dominating our country define what solutions are "possible" within the present system, we are not getting real health care. We are not getting useful market reform. We are not honestly addressing climate change. From the realization of the contempt our bosses feel for us to our disgust with bad jobs, from the inability of our government to represent anything but the most reactionary interests, to our self-directed anger at our own failings and complicity - our rage and frustration permeate this collection.
As workers, our strength is in our unity. An inestimable aspect of building that unity is the reclamation of our culture and its inherent value of militant class solidarity.

The failing economy and a scarcity of funds affects us as well threatening our ability to continue the cultural work of this journal. You will find our annual fund drive slip in this issue. It is our hope that your support will continue even in these tough times. The contribution of the immeasurable treasure of your powerful writing rooted in our working class reality, along with your support and subscriptions make this journal possible.

Autumn Editorial

2010-01-04T13:41:00.000-05:00

For many this is a time of disillusionment as a new administration which arrived with great promise morphs into the grim reality of what we voted against, issue after issue. Some of us, though disheartened, are not surprised. "Change" for the common good cannot come from a corporate oligarchy which will not act against its own narrow class interests without the enormous public pressure that would threaten its hold on power.

From illness to institutionalization, from the insecurity of economic decline, to racism and war; from jobs to their increasing absence the poetry in this issue covers a great range of our working class experience. Present throughout is the theme of Community on which we must depend when all else fails.

In this Post Hope period, it is becoming more obvious to the worried and wearied workers, the permanently unemployed, and the old who've seen it all that this system has nothing left to offer us but further exploitation, destruction and death. All that remains for us is each other: we who actually build the houses banks and factories, who create and run the machines, who sew the clothes, grow the food, assemble the myriad commodities and fight their wars. We are the hands and brains that keep this society functioning day and night. Beyond disillusionment lies the possibility of our awakening to other real possibilities than the corrupt system we've been sold. What we know and can do will save us. Through the individual voices presented in these pages we see the commonality of our experience, our class values and our hopes. We still have a dream but it is not of conquest or superiority. It is a dream of our common sufficiency that grows from the security of real community. From the sharing of food to the offer of a palette on the floor; from the listening and exchanging of stories to the unity formed in our struggle for the common good are the unbreakable bonds of solidarity built that can shake loose the fear that enslaves us to this murderous and dying system. There and only there does authentic Hope reside.

Running Behind & Catching Up

2009-11-23T10:37:00.000-05:00

Many of you who've sent your poetry are probably wondering if we'll ever respond. I am running behind even my usual response time and I apologize. I have been ill through October and much of November. I am doing better and working hard to catch up on the mail and you should be seeing your responses soon.

I would normally be starting to put the next issue of the Blue Collar Review together but as such, I am running behind. With any luck I'll have it out soon after Xmas. Thanks for your patience.

A Markowitz
Editor

Will Inman -- Presente

2009-10-29T18:05:00.000-04:00

As the days darken, the dying time begins to take its toll. It is with sadness that I received the word that long-time working class poet, Will Inman has died. We had the honor of publishing his work in several issues of the Blue Collar Review including the most recent. May his words live on.

The Wilmington, NC born, Duke University educated (his papers are there), and Tucson, AZ beloved poet recently died after a long illness. Although it had been a long time since he lived in North Carolina, Carolinian's should acknowledge him as one of the most individual, socially conscious, and widely acknowledged poets to have come from our state.

The Arizona Star published an obituary that gives readers a sense of who Inman was and what he accomplished as a poet and activist:

"Over six decades, Inman committed to paper words both tender and nurturing, as well as thought-provoking and spiritual. Yet it was pragmatism more so than poetry that infused his final prose — the obituary he penned for himself earlier this year. Inman died Saturday Oct. 3 after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. He was 86.

Inman, born William Archibald McGirt Jr. in Wilmington, N.C., began writing and publishing in the mid-1950s, using his mother's maiden name. In his autobiography, "Memoirs of an Activist Poet," Inman reflected on his diverse experiences: growing up in the South, seeing racism firsthand; his activities as a union organizer and a member of the Communist Party; working as a writer, editor, publisher and teacher; and candid reminiscences of his college experiences and his bisexuality.

Inman earned a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University. He taught at Montgomery College in Maryland and at American University in Washington, D.C., where he was poet in residence.

The University of Arizona Poetry Center 1508 E. Helen St (Tucson) is planning a November 1 memorial to honor Will. More details will be available at poetry center.

An essential collection of Inman's poems can be read here

Poet Squatting in Vegas

2009-10-06T06:57:00.000-04:00

Many of us are taking hits, suffering unemployment and displacement due to the continuing collapse of the economy. The issue of foreclosures is far a more complicated nightmare as one of the poets we have published is finding out. In his blog Vegas Quixote Dahn Shaulis describes the ongoing struggle of squatting in his own condo after the owners were foreclosed on. He also gives us a picture of how the crumbling economy is affecting Las Vegas and how ineffectual and unprepared local government is in dealing with the escalating disaster.

Summer Editorial

2009-09-21T09:32:00.000-04:00

Hard times naturally breed anger and radicalism. From townhall meetings to angry rallies orchestrated by big business front organizations, we are seeing how the most reactionary sectors of the corporate elite manipulate that anger with anti-rational, fear-laden misinformation, turning working people against each other and against our own best interests. There is nothing wrong with anger and working class radicalism. In fact, it is the engine of progress yet it can also be cynically manipulated leading the uninformed to the barbarity of Fascism. We must guard ourselves against being misled: by knowing what our class interests are, by looking at where information originates, and most importantly, by having a consciousness based in solidarity and real working working class values.

This journal exists to support and present the voices of that conscious working class and to promote our progressive culture and values. These are the voices that emerge from our real class experience, not those manufactured in corporate think-tanks to support an agenda that enslaves us. We are not backed by "Freedomworks" or any other corporate front. This journal exists solely by the support of its readers and is authentically a working class product.

In this collection, the fear, anger and frustrations of our reality are voiced. Our summer issue has the inseparable sub-themes of environment and war and this issue is no exception. Revealed are both the arrogant squandering of life by imperialist wars and by the ongoing economic war declared on workers by those who live off our labor. In national and imperialist wars, working people are sacrificed for the goals of the wealthy. By contrast, in the class struggle, we fight for our very survival and to build a better world based on the common good. As the story, "The Monument Creamery Strike" recounts, that struggle is long a and difficult one with many casualties which must continue as long as workers are oppressed.

In the summer issue we are also proud to announce the winners of our annual Working People's Poetry Contest. This years winner is Luke Salazar for his powerful poem "Black Friday." Luke wins $100.00, a subscription and a one year online publication on our website. As ever, it was a tough decision and there is a runner up. That honor goes to Andrew Rihn for his gorgeously crafted poem, "The Canaries Go On Living." Andrew wins a one year subscription and online posting. Both of those poems appear in this issue as do others that were entered. We are especially grateful to frequent flyers and loyal supporters for participating and we look forward to more entrants next year.

As we complete our twelfth year of publishing this journal, it seems a more important effort than ever. Only a progressive working class social movement can counter the growth of fascism and get us through these extraordinarily difficult times by fighting for our own real needs -- the right not to sleep under overpasses, the right to clean food, doctors, schools which are not like jails and damned fewer jails. That movement requires an inclusive culture that inspires. We look forward to your participation, support and feedback in the continuing struggle.

Spring Issue Commentary

2009-06-22T11:39:00.000-04:00

Our new issue comes out bearing a painting of Marble Quarry Workers by Joseph Vorst which should remind us of the old, but still relevant song, The Banks are Made of Marble.

Spring is the season of renewal. It is with a sense of renewed vigor that this issue goes out, thanks to the support and commitment of you, our readers. Without your continuing generosity -- all the more gratifying in these difficult times, we could not continue. We are deeply grateful for your show of support that allows us to keep publishing this vital literature.

This collection is a product of the terrible economic times we find ourselves in. Expressed in poems by Kent Newkirk, Karl Koweski, and Justin Hyde is the prescient fear of job loss that enslaves us. Our anger at the abuses we suffer on the job and the attitude of resistance that keeps us sane is exposed in poems like T.K. O'Rourke's "I Know I'm the Lucky One." In this issue are poems of destitution, dark humor, and desperate insights reflecting our working class ethic; our hopes and the frustrations that grow from their stifling. There are also poems of militant commitment by Robert Edwards and Felicia R. Martinez.

The economy continues to worsen. More of us find ourselves falling into the badlands and mean streets of joblessness and the continuing deterioration of the economy promises more hard times to come. It is we, the working class, who inevitably bear the brunt, suffering for the crimes and avaricious mismanagement of the ruling class as work and vitally necessary services vanish.

Having now been unemployed for over a year, your editor has rediscovered a certain freedom in being unslaved. It is a desperately expensive and difficult freedom but it occurs to me that an "Army of the Unemployed" could be just that. If we are not each individually crushed and buried by the steam roller of history or a rising tide of Fascism, freed from the terror of the bosses wrath and ultimately from the prison of material ownership and debt we could rediscover ourselves and together, acting as a class for ourselves, be a mighty force for real change.

It is with the knowledge of that possibility that the most reactionary segments of the corporatocracy defend their interests by fomenting bigotry and division among us. They spend untold fortunes to fill the airwaves with hatred and scapegoating. They use every trick in their considerably large bag to exploit the anger of our already vulnerable fellow workers. They mislead with racism, nationalism, cultural prejudice, sexism, homophobia and twisted religious fundamentalism to create opposition to anything that might cut into their profiteering, from worker safety and better pay to national healthcare and addressing climate change. The results of the violent hatreds they foment and support are becoming evident with the assassination of Dr. Tiller, targeted for providing vital women's services; also with the brutal killing of a guard at the national Holocaust Museum by a known white supremacist. Mary Franke's poem, "The Lady With the Scales is no Mermaid" and "Township" by R.T. Castleberry speak to this growing danger.

Despite our commitment to freedom of expression, we must demand a crackdown on hate speech and the support of hate-based groups by the corporate shills. Ultimately, only our progressive class consciousness can begin to effectively counter the division and anti-progressive nationalism that threatens us all. This small journal is but one part of that larger struggle. In spite of their best efforts we are seeing the growth of support for working class issues like health care and the Employee Free Choice Act which will strengthen our ability to organize for workplace justice. With the new administration we are in a better position to see results to our demands for the change. The struggle for working class democracy and the defeat of corporate tyranny is a long one fraught with set-backs. The very real conditions they create fuel a commitment for progress far stronger than all the hate and lies that money can buy.

Work is Love Made Visible

2009-06-08T08:16:00.000-04:00

I was honored to receive a collection by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, a fine poet whose work we have published in the pages of the Blue Collar Review. This collection titled Work is Love Made Visible is as nitty-gritty as it gets. Mish writes primarily as a woman. These poem are rich in womanly perspective. She also writes as a Working Class Oklahoman. These are poems of family, of ancestors, brothers, sisters and relatives. This is a working class history up close and personal that we can all relate to devoid of nostalgia or sweet sentimentality yet filled with love and connection to the broader, yet personalized experience. The strong feminism evident in these poems is inseparable from the reality and consciousness of class.

This fine collection was published by West End Press through the University of New Mexico Press and at the low price of $12.95, it is well worth it.

Transparencies

2009-04-15T09:26:00.000-04:00

I recently purchased "Transparencies," the newest collection by Robert Edwards. I'm only a few pages into it and I can't breath, my heart is pounding and tears obscure my vision. With every line, Edwards confirms that he is among the best poets that every graced the English language -- lines like:

     I face the prairie -- or some kind of ocean --
     the rind of a question mark uneaten in my hand.

     Snide Madonnas total my mistakes,
     bleed me with thin forgiveness, which is to say:
     a dry inertia is tangled in the grass,
     and I smell a dream of the darker stuff

or from the poem, "Getting Drunk on Gravel Roads," --

     Take this to the bank, so say we all:
     every religion is a lie and every patriot a traitor.
     Trust your mother to hate you for being born
     and resent you for the guilt over the hate.
     Officer friendly is a rapist with a government gun,
     and the rich really think you're nothing
     but a dull horse fit for a plow or a hard saddle.
     Saddle by shadow, breath after breath, we
     feel the old certainties die and the new truths
     we wipe from our lips give answers none of us
     have the courage to want. We live in a country
     that was built yesterday not to outlast tomorrow.

Bob Edwards writes about from deep within where we know more that we want to and still have more questions than answers. He writes of working stiffs with bleak possibilities and those "trying to invent a past that held a future." These are powerfully packed verses filled with militancy devoid of dogma -- a deep understanding of who and where we are; the possibilities, the obstacles and the odds.
If you don't purchase another thing this year, Buy this book! It's only $12.00 and I guarantee you won't regret it.

Winter Issue Editorial

2009-04-04T07:34:00.000-04:00

Tough times. It is a strange and difficult time we find ourselves in as we go to press. Jobs are disappearing along with insurance and hard-earned retirements. Homes continue to be foreclosed and cars repossessed. Though the Obama administration has the potential to deal with the crisis resulting from decades of corrupt, corporate rule, they face much resistance even as we continue to slide into a depression of unknown depth.

Much of the writing in this issue speaks from the strange place we find ourselves at this moment where reasons for hope mingle with insecurity and fear. Your editor knows first hand the desperation many of us are experiencing after a year of unsuccessful job hunting. Also in this issue is a letter excerpt from fellow unemployed poet Edward Supranowicz - injured on a part-time gig and without insurance or income. The poem by Chris Butters illuminates the brutal reality and connections of the class war declared on us by big business and its government.

We as a class are not passive players. Our struggle has changed the course of history before, and when pressed we can and must do so again. In the hardest times, our security lies in community. As the myth of the "rugged individual" gives way to the reality of our dependence and vulnerability, we are struggling to rediscover the necessity of community in which our history is rooted. We will need it to get through the tougher times ahead. In some places, "Common Security Clubs" are being formed as a way of taking care of each other. This involves everything from sharing food and space to organizing in the larger struggle to fight for our rights and common interests.
As a small, particularly vulnerable working class press, we too face an uphill battle to continue publishing the best and strongest poets and writers of our class. There has never been a time when Progressive Working Class Literature was as important as it is now. The illusions of the market system are falling away and the working class consciousness with which this literature is imbued is vital to our survival and progress. We are stubborn, but we too must rely on community to cover costs.

This is our annual fund raising issue, and we are asking for the support necessary to keep us going. Like many artistic ventures, the Blue Collar Review has been affected by the decline in arts funding. A grant we depended on has ceased to fund poetry. In the last year it has been your subscriptions and generous donations which allowed us to continue publishing. We know that these are terrible times and that money is tight. We hope your commitment to this literature, our literature, will see us through. Together, we can continue to be heard; to inspire each other and our fellow workers in the struggle, to write, and to know that none of us are alone in this darkening time.

We are truly grateful to all whose poetry and prose have kept alive the powerful medicine of an alternative to the treacherous, alienating mirage of corporate culture; a visionary People's culture rooted in authenticity.

Review: Post-Katrina Blues

2009-02-13T18:39:00.000-05:00

As a Veteran, author Mac McKinney has seen more than his share of the world in crisis. As a poet, blogger and photographer, he has utilized various tools to re-construct a more cohesive picture of the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in POST-KATRINA BLUES (San Francisco Bay Press, 2009). The reader joins Mac, the blue-collar Everyman, for an informative journey as he fills in many of the gaps left out by American mainstream media. He has traveled along the Gulf Coast from Pascagoula and Biloxi, MS towards Waveland and New Orleans, deep into the Lower Ninth Ward, where one questions if the surreal landscape is part of America. It is more like a war zone.

A formally vibrant historic area has been so neglected by the toxic mix of “cynical politics and economics” that one can’t help but witness the extensive damage and suffering caused by governmental negligence as symbolic of the layers of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. Funding which should have been used to rebuild the levees and restore damaged wetlands against future catastrophe has been diverted to 2 major wars overseas. Over 1,800 American citizens have perished as a result of Katrina’s initial devastation; thousands have been brutally displaced from their homes in the vicinity of New Orleans since Aug. 29, 2005. Viable housing is being sacrificed daily by the political wrecking ball of bureaucracy.

Mac tells us of increasingly positive outcomes in the midst of the chaos and predatory contracting of New Orleans’s poorer sections beyond the tourist/ business areas of the French Quarter. Grass roots organizations such as churches, veteran’s groups and Common Ground Collective are continuing to work diligently to restore hope and vitality in revitalizing the forgotten areas of the Gulf Coast. Musicians such as Tab Benoit, “Voice of the Wetlands” have initiated fund-raisers to assist the displaced and educate the public on the urgency of restoring the wetlands and levees. And the residents who have chosen to return and rebuild in New Orleans have a unique collective spirit unparalleled in recent American memory.

Ann Williams

C/o Norfolk OffBase,

& member, Virginia Anti-War Network (VAWN)

& Tidewater Peace Alliance

Autumn Editorial

2008-12-23T07:25:00.000-05:00

America now has a Black President elect. This is truly a paradigm shift in the consciousness of our country and we celebrate a racial barrier as old as this nation being carried away. It is with mixed emotions that we wind up this tumultuous year. Our economy continues to slide into a period of depression made inevitable by the internal laws of capitalism and the criminal corruption of extreme-right ideology. Unemployment, and fear of it, are growing as food banks are inundated and tent cities once again appear in every corner of our country.

Anger and resistance to corporate tyranny are also growing as banks and businesses seek bailouts at the expense of a weary, debt ravaged population for years of greed-driven shortsightedness. Already resistance is turning to class conscious fightback as laid-off workers at Chicago's "Republic Windows and Doors" occupy that factory demanding their hard earned and hard won compensation and benefits. People who in the past would never have considered the possibility are demanding public ownership if companies like GM are to be subsidized at public expense.

At the same time, we are happy to have seen a massive repudiation of the right-wing with the election of Barack Obama. This gives us reason for cautious optimism even in these difficult times. We do not expect the Obama administration to be a progressive panacea for the all the ills that plague our working class in this system of corruption but we see it as a moment of potential opportunity. In describing American enterprise the old phrase, "business is our business" can now be replaced by, "bad business is our business." Can this country find its way back to paying workers for production? It's been a century since Bread & Roses, how now to fight? It is gratifying to have a new and hopefully more pragmatic, intelligent, and responsive leadership. At no time may we hesitate to tell our elected leaders exactly what we think of the decisions they make on our behalf. Those in political power have massive national wounds to heal. As history shows, the extreme nature of the times and the subsequent pressure from the streets can force this administration in a more progressive direction than it would otherwise go.

This issue is filled with poetry which emerges from and illuminates the reality of our lives in these times. As we read of each other's experiences; those of a Navy wife, a plastic factory worker, our consciousness grows in the sharing and we grow together as a class. It is this foundation in reality and the written commonality of our class experience that gives working class literature its power.

Also in this collection are poems that speak to the larger picture including the recent election; our hopes, our frustrations, and our well earned cynicism. The poem "5 Days in November I Counted" by Mary Franke tells of the frustration of working behind the scenes counting ballots. The poem, "A Note on the Late Election" by Thomas McGrath, though written in 1968, speaks to this moment as well.

As this year ends we have much to celebrate and much yet to do. We wish our family of poets, readers and contributors a safe season and look forward to the struggles and inspired works of the coming year.

A Moment To Savor

2008-11-05T12:11:00.000-05:00

Savoring the Moment
11/04/2008

This is a moment
for the blare of horns in the night
for fireworks and guns
shooting the sky
in poor neighborhoods long ignored
by everyone but the police
time for hosannas
and poetry time
for tears and laughter
time to breathe a little easier
with a hope not felt for years.

Let the first glimmer
of a new dawn
illuminate the faces, the
memory of those who didn't
make it here
as the long night recedes
at least a little bit --

Let the nightmare of
Patriot acts and torture cells
of "rendition" and war
be broken
Let Justice roll down
an unstoppable deluge
washing away the
murderers and liars,
the cynical imperialists and
all the parasitic hucksters of misery
leaving in its wake
a new topography on which to build
that tomorrow
we have all dreamt of

-- Al Markowitz

Summer Issue Editorial

2008-09-25T11:32:00.000-04:00

We are proud to mark 11 years of the Blue Collar Review. It has been a privilege to have been able to publish so many of the best and strongest poets and writers of our working class. It continues to be our mission to publish and promote the progressive working class literature and perspective that would otherwise not be seen.

We, your editors, are also plagued by the adversities of working class life. Poverty, unemployment, and work related disabilities, create obstacles to funding and publishing this kind of journal. The Blue Collar Review continues to exist due to the support of our readers and to our own militant determination to struggle onward.

Our summer issue has the inseparable themes of war and the destruction of our environment. These issues are of key relevance to our own survival and have never been as vital. In this election year these are the issues that matter most. It is questionable if legitimate elections are even possible as Republicans conspire at election tampering including purging voter rolls of mortgage crisis evictees, and others. In this election, the choices, while far from ideal, represent different possible futures. The Republicans offer escalating war without end, repression of labor including defeat of the Employee Free Choice Act, more attacks on our civil rights, further ecological devastation. They offer the collapse of economic markets and their restructure by scruple-less savior-profiteers, and a divisive, allegedly evangelically based suppression of science when it challenges corporate profits.

Though the Democrats are far from progressive, we look to them for a more rational alternative. Given the many crises our nation and ecosystem face at this crucial period of history, this could be our last chance to avoid utter calamity. The corruption and inanity of our electoral process as well as its consequences are themes which permeate this collection.

The winners and runners up of our Working People's Poetry Contest are also announced in this issue. This years entries were of astounding quality and choosing a winner was a real challenge! The winning poem is "Mona Lisa Works the Service Industry" by Kent Newkirk. This visceral poem fleshes out the angry degradation of work at the lower levels of our economy -- a place too many of us know. Runners up are: "Slag" by Kathleen Hellen and "Dedication: Campaign" by Benjamin Baltheser -- both excellent poems. While we can only offer, (and barely) one grand prize of $100.00, all win a year's subscription to this journal and a year's online posting on our website.

This is an especially gritty, collection of worker poetry and representative of where we find ourselves as a class at this historic moment on the precipice of economic disaster. We already know that our bank accounts and pensions, should we be lucky enough to have them, are not safe and that our government can not help us in time of natural disaster. We hope this undeniable reality will spur a rejection of corporatism and ignite massive demands for real change toward an economically rational, sustainable, working class democracy. Whoever is selected in November, our struggle as a class will continue.

We close this issue with a poem by Robert Edwards which condemns narrow anti-intellectualism in the guise of revolutionary zeal and casts down the gauntlet, "Write better poems." We as ordinary people are intellectuals, realists, pragmatists and visionaries. To do and do better is the life of the progressive person. At this pivotal time we cast down the gauntlet to our elected representatives.
We look forward to your comments, your support, and your great writing in our collective efforts for a better world in the months and years ahead.

Contest Winners!

2008-08-29T09:31:00.000-04:00

The winning poets in our annual Working People's Poetry Competition have been chosen. The winning poem is "Mona Lisa Works the Service Industry" by Kent Newkirk. He is the recipient of the $100.00 prize. Choosing a winner was especially arduous as the entries this year were of very high quality! We subsequently have two runners up. They are, "Slag" by Kathleen Hellen and "Dedication: Campaign" by Benjamin Balthaser. Winner and runners up win a one year subscription as well as online posting for one year.

These winning poems will appear in the next issue of the Blue Collar Review which is in progress. Though we are a couple of hundred dollars short of what it will take to get this issue out, we remain determined to do so and hope, with the support of our readers, to have it out by the third week of September.

New Collection by Jason Irwin

2008-07-27T08:29:00.000-04:00

A new collection, "Watering the Dead" by Jason Irwin is available from Pavement Saw Press. This strong collection is also the winner of the 2006/2007 Transcontinental Poetry Award.
Jason Irwin's first full length collection includes narrative working class poems. Some of these first appeared in Blue Collar Review, Confrontation, Living Forge, Lumina, Miller’s Pond, Pearl, Plainsongs, Slipstream, The Sycamore Review, and The Same.

The poetry in this collection is rooted unmistakably in the reality of Irwin's experience and shows the sensitivity and insight inherent in great poetry. It is, like the best working class literature, fine art wrought from the nitty-gritty.

Spring Issue Editorial

2008-07-02T06:57:00.000-04:00

As seeds sown in early spring bloom into nourishing gardens, your continuing support has allowed the blossoming of a new crop of powerful working class literature.

Spring marks both International Women's Day and Worker's Memorial Day. In our corrupt system of alienation and competitive exploitation, work takes a heavy toll on all of us and the lack of it even more so. As poems by Marge Piercy, our co-editor Mary Franke, and Cherise Wyneken and others reveal, women more often than not, still bear the brunt of this with lower pay, worse jobs, and the added burdens of unappreciated and unpaid domestic labor and sexism.

Working class life both on and off the job takes a toll on our health as well. While writers Andy Vogel and Ryan Black vividly describe the dangers of work, we also see throughout this collection the longer term, more subtle, but no less deadly effects of stress. The poem "Unnatural Causes" was inspired by a documentary of the same name. I would encourage our readers to find this documentary and pass it around. This excellent documentary scientifically affirms what working class activists and writers have been saying for many years -- the physical cost of stress based on powerlessness is a root cause of poor health, disease and early death. It clearly shows that our health ultimately depends on our empowerment not only over our own lives but, by extension, in society at large. In other words -- Power to the People!

Another theme that comes through in this issue, particularly in the poems of Glenn Sheldon, is time and the effects of any one moment on the whole of our lives.
The lasting effect of the moment can be a good thing as well as a haunting nightmare. In the case of the written word, it repeatedly occurs to me that this journal, unlike most others, is an intimate record of our moment in history; a record of the conditions of our lives as working people in the present. This is something that is usually omitted from official history and while we write and publish for the present, it is also a message in a bottle reaching out to those in the future and saying -- this is our reality, these are our varied lives, this is how we lived and how we saw our world. Amazingly, we see and comprehend each others very different working class lives even as we are living them. This is working class consciousness.

We are especially grateful for your collective support that makes publishing this journal a possibility. We welcome your comments and anticipate reading more of your work.

You Work Tomorrow

2008-06-05T06:01:00.000-04:00

Lyle Daggett writes:

This week I got my hands on You Work Tomorrow: An Anthology of American Labor Poetry, 1929-1941 edited by John Marsh, published in 2007 by University of Michigan Press. The collection gathers poems from labor union newspapers and similar publications during the period, written by workers most of whom didn't necessarily write full-time or long-term, possibly didn't think of themselves as poets, though a few clearly did and a few published widely. The work in the anthology represents a wide range of labor unions, including Sleeping Car Porters, Hotel and Restaurant Employees, Carpenters and Joiners, American Federation of Teachers, United Textile Workers, International Association of Machinists; International Ladies Garment Workers Union, United Auto Workers, United Steel Workers, United Mine Workers, International Sailors Union, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers; the Industrial Workers of the World, the Sailors Union of the Pacific, the Southern Tenant Farmers Union; this isn't a complete list.

Much of the poetry in the collection would likely meet with disapproval, or light condescension, from the calcified gatekeepers of the literary-industrial complex. Many of the poems are not well-mannered or well-polished in a conventional academic literary sense (though many are highly literate and speak with great clarity). The work gathered in this anthology is essential and beautiful and priceless. Includes an introduction by editor John Marsh, giving useful historical background; biographical notes when they were available (a number of the poems are anonymous); and a well-selected bibliography of related works.

The publisher's webpage for the book is here: http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=286532

I'm including below a couple of poems from the anthology You Work Tomorrow, mentioned above.

Rose Elizabeth Smith
(poem originally published in The Machinist Monthly Journal, November 1931)

The Ninety and Nine

There are ninety and nine that work and die,
In hunger and want and cold,
That one may revel in luxury,
And be lapped in the silken fold;
And ninety and nine in the hovels bare,
And one in a palace of riches rare.

From the sweat of their brow the desert blooms
And the forest before them falls;
Their labor has builded humble homes,
And the cities with lofty halls;
And the one owns the cities and houses and lands,
And the ninety and nine have empty hands.

But the night so dreary and dark and long
At last shall the morning bring;
And over the land the victor's song
Of the ninety and nine shall ring,
And echo far, from zone to zone:
"Rejoice, for labor shall have its own."

*

Miriam Tane
(poem originally published in Justice, newspaper
of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, October 1, 1939)

Evacuations

I must evacuate my mind
of the sand-bagged city
waiting with arched back
for the bomb boom,
in black.

I must mute the magpie city
screaming bullet headlines
on wires strung through clouds
down open mouths
of crowds.

I must gouge out the neon eye
of the city from the
mind's marquee, for
in the city there
is war -- in the city where
peace is a bread crumb on
the viscous ancient waters.

I must stop my ears with country
side, graft it to my ear
like soft woman breast
to muffle all
the rest.

I must find music intimate as
a hand, and know again the
moist manner of rain,
birdfleet on the
terrain.

I must sit in shadowed space, wear-
ing soft-mittens of non-
remembrance, cool as glass
through which, non-heating,
suns pass -- in the country where
the color of silence is green,
and not the color of death!

Review -- Iowa Terror

2008-05-19T06:30:00.000-04:00

A good review of Mike Palaceks' newest book, Iowa Terror by Seth Sandronsky. Good progressive writing and as Sandrosky writes, a key virtue of Palecek’s book is to give readers, notably youth, a fictional entry into critical thinking on peace and war. And to do this with little pedantry is no small feat in a nation fed a 24/7 capitalist storm of business and war claptrap.

The Importance of Your Support of Progressive Culture

2008-03-30T16:33:00.000-04:00

For those that subscribe, have been published, or otherwise receive the Blue Collar Review, you should be seeing it in your mailbox within the next few days. The mailing went out on Friday. We are usually fairly prompt about getting the journal out before the change of season. This issue was delayed by financial difficulties. Partisan Press is a small, hands-on worker run press, as such, we are subject to the vagaries that plague our class. In this case, your editor who underwrites shortfalls in funding has been layed-off. Certainly this is not the first or last time this has happened and we have stubbornly survived but we can not do it without your support. Unity and solidarity are the strength of our class, so too with this collective effort to publish the best and most powerful poets and writers of our working class. This issue comes out thanks to the combined efforts of loyal supporters to whom we are thankful. Those supporters include John Crawford, Robert Edwards, Maggie Jaffe, Lyle Daggett, and Chris Butters.

Our journal remains unique in its focus and presentation of Progressive Working Class Literature and plays an important vanguard role in ensuring that this vital truth-speaking literary work is seen by others. If you are inspired by what you read on our site and in our pages and realize the important role culture has on our social consciousness, join these Partisans of Working Class culture in supporting this effort. This can be done online via our website our though our mailing address. Thanks again for the solidarity that keeps us going!

Winter Issue Commentary

2008-03-23T13:55:00.000-04:00

All aboard! Let's take a ride. Fasten yourself to the words and let the images be your guide on this rattle-trap roller-coaster tour of the nitty-gritty underbelly of our decaying empire where we toil our lives away for others just to get by.
This train ride tour of our working class reality travels the travails of workplace tyranny, the terror of economic destitution, the alienation that keeps us enslaved, the inevitable losses, the humor that pulls us through, and the moments of epiphany when we glimpse the solidarity that can free us.

When we began this project, it was to fill a void. There were magazines that existed to preach "the role of the writer in the worker's movement" and journals specializing in diatribes without much literary value. We strive to present great poetry and prose that speak for themselves and for all of us, to demonstrate the possibilities of strong working class literature; to show "how it's done." Our hope continues to be that this journal would be a shining example that would inspire other journals as well as our fellow workers and the poets among us; that it would spark a rebirth of this powerful, reality-based genre setting ablaze the larger culture with our vision.

Admittedly, we may be unrealistically optimistic in our goals as financially challenged workers with a minuscule hands-on press but we have seen an awakening and growth of working class literature over the past decade and our journal has been cited as an influence on more than one occasion. You other publishers, pay attention! Poetry that speaks from the reality of our lives has the power to hold the reader, to inspire beyond words -- to change lives.

Though this journal is our heart and soul, Partisan Press also publishes collections of poetry we feel are vital and need to be seen. Our latest chapbook is "Jesus' War" by John R. Guthrie. This timely and powerful collection is an indictment of the criminality of a cynical misleadership that twists religion to justify mass murder.

Many writers are quick to send poetry and even full manuscripts hoping to be published; to have our words echoing in heads and hearts everywhere, our names whispered in awe. Too few -- a holy few, support the presses that they hope to ride to stardom. For those of you who are able, you have the unending appreciation and gratitude of those of us dedicated and crazy enough to take on the publisher's yoke.

This is our annual fundraising issue. We would like to be able to cover the costs of publishing this journal but your editors are struggling just to make ends meet. We would also like to publish more of your work in collections but that too requires funding. In returning to the railroad metaphor, this is our collective train and we do our best to carry as many as possible including those who can't afford to subscribe. If you want to ride this train to glory, or at least notoriety, and you feel our focus on Progressive Working Class literature is important, then we hope you'll toss what fuel you can in our furnace so we can keep this project on track. Your much appreciated support and the burning embers of your words will keep this train a-going.

New from Partisan Press

2008-02-15T11:35:00.000-05:00

We are proud to present a new collection in our chapbook series. "Jesus' War" war by John R. Guthrie is a strong collection dealing with the cynical manipulation of Christianity to justify the crime against humanity that is the Iraq invasion. It is also an attack on the ludicrous insanity of the Cheney/Bush administration. This is an important historical statement of the reality of our era and a must have for those who find nourishment and inspiration in progressive literature. Order it now, you won't regret it.

Vincent Ferrini, Presente!

2008-01-17T06:06:00.000-05:00

It is a loss for all of us when any of us dies. Here is an article about the passing of Vincent Ferrini, a fine poet of the Working Class. His words live on.

Autumn Editorial

2008-01-03T08:12:00.000-05:00

As we begin our eleventh year of publication, this journal continues to be a People's record of our times. This has been a bleak year as the consequences of eight years of criminal misleadership accrue.

As I write this, well over a million Iraqis and close to four thousand of our soldiers have died needlessly. Many times more live the ruined, broken lives of a crime whose toll will be measured in generations.

Here at home, most of us are feeling the pinch of a failing economy as the value of our paychecks fall and prices rise. Religious extremism, nationalism and fear are used to divide us and to bludgeon any attempt at progress or resistance to the insanity of our ruling class -- yet resistance grows.

These are the realities that permeate the poetry in this issue. Though we, as hired hands, are expected to "stay in our place" and believe what management tells us, what these poems reveal is that we see through their lies. Most of us are not fooled by the fearmongering. Most of us are not buying the racism or the justifications for torture and war and, for a growing number, the hypocrisy of manipulated religious fervor is wearing thin.

Some of us are taking it to the streets and even to the gates of the perpetrators. The final poem in this issue is by our coeditor, Mary Franke who took part in a demonstration at the headquarters of Blackwater, Inc. This is also where the notorious mercenaries are trained. Seven activists were arrested and subsequently found guilty in a closed court opening the door to further resistance.

As this collection formed, an emphasis on veterans developed -- not the "hero" worship so prevalent in corporate culture where militarism is promoted along with consumerism as sacred, but a theme of anger and sadness at the terrible cost of a needless criminal policy and fear for our still vulnerable youth.

As a new year approaches, there are signs of hope on the horizon. There is a growing awareness an politicization among our working class. There are articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney which, in spite of efforts to kill them, seem to be taking on a life their own. There is the intelligence report undermining the administration's lies about Iran. And though the possibility of a legitimate national election is questionable, there is the hope of saner leadership on the horizon.

We are grateful for the positive response to our last issue and for our ability to continue to publish this journal. As a working class effort, this is always a challenge given the time and expense necessary to do it. With your support we hope to be able to continue to present the most powerful writing of our working class in the coming year.

Journal Update

2008-01-03T08:07:00.000-05:00

The Autumn issue was mailed yesterday, January 2nd. I apologize for the lateness as I strive to get it out on time. Technical issues aside, I am caring for a dying mother and as there are no funds for nursing care, it is taking up a great deal of my time. I am also on unpaid leave to do this as our corporate dictatorship makes real family values a sham which penalizes poverty in the most brutal ways.

Obstacle & Progress: The Publisher's Struggle

2007-12-21T15:47:00.000-05:00

Usually this is the final date at which an issue goes out. I am presently printing the fall issue. I am running behind due to technical and economic difficulties as our printer seems to be demanding parts . . . Also, your editor is having time issues between working his inane low wage job and the family demands of a terminally ill mother. As for those who wonder when their poem will appear, I have to point out that even being as picky as possible and adding pages to the journal, I have enough poetry left over to do 2 more issues. More will no doubt arrive before the next issue. If we only got half as much support as we get poetry we could either publish more often or publish a larger mag but this is a truly working class project that operates on less than a shoestring of a budget and is accruing debt in order to get out the best writing of our working class. If you think that is as important as we do, consider pitching in a few bucks.

I hope to have the new issue out before the new year. Thanks for your patience and your support.

Summer Issue Commentary

2007-09-13T14:03:00.000-04:00

Another hot summer, but apparently not hot enough. Those who profit from the denial of climate change remain as defiant in the face of overwhelming evidence as the shills for empire who desperately try to spin "victory" in Iraq from the raw, bloody, quivering reality of catastrophe. As working people we recognize that this society is built on layers of lies and rob-us-blind deceit. We know that the so-called "free" market is based on brutal exploitation and obscene duplicity. Whenever stock values dip, the lies start flowing to create "consumer confidence." Just like the news -- never mind the facts.
We who toil have words of our own. Our words, unlike those of our employers and their representatives in government and media, ring with the power of truth. We must hone them as weapons in our struggle against the madness that threatens our lives and our future.
This issue emerges at a time when the American Empire is a failing delusion of a bankrupt ruling class. Its broken military is held responsible for innumerable atrocities while soldiers are being over extended, abused, poisoned and abandoned upon discharge. Long neglected, U.S. infrastructure is crumbling and what's left of our looted and squandered economy is being kept afloat by our main creditor -- China.
Our summer issue has the underlying inseparable themes of ecology and war. In this issue we are proud to announce the stalwart winners of the Working People's Poetry Contest. This year's winner is Erika Meyers for her poem "Response Abilities." She receives the prize of $100.00, a year's subscription to this journal, and an online posting of her poem for the year. The high quality of entries in this year's contest made choosing a winner a difficult decision, so we have two runners up: "At the Checkpoint" by Stephen Fuller, and "Truth Is . . ." by Diane LeBlanc. They each receive a year's subscription and online posting of their poems. These winning poems appear in this issue.
Times are grim but we hope this journal inspires and awakens a consciousness of class, of solidarity, and of our potential. Our real working class values and unity are the hope of the world.

Oklahoma Book Award

2007-07-19T12:40:00.000-04:00

We are pleased to announce that Cosmic Rainbow by Mary McAnally, is a finalist in the 2007 Oklahoma Book Awards. And to think, you still haven't purchased a copy! We are proud to have published this excellent collection.

Spring Issue Editorial

2007-06-22T07:18:00.000-04:00

In spite of everything we do to wreak havoc on our world, spring arrives in all its glory. In spite of the best efforts of our embedded corporate media with its steady drumbeat of anti- immigrant xenophobia and terrorism-driven fear, popular resistance to war, racism and environmental degradation is blossoming.

As our ruling elites desperately struggle to hold on to what they cannot have in Iraq at the cost of so many lives, their criminal insanity, moral bankruptcy and powerlessness become increasingly obvious to all. Their inane and lawless actions create and feed what they most fear.

This issue reflects our American reality, not the Disneyland illusion fed to us; not the vengeance laden, racist, sexist entertainment designed to keep us an army of reactionary consumers and complacent team players. What is presented here is the nitty-gritty reality of bad jobs with terrible schedules, the tyranny of the workplace, the economic insecurity and human solidarity that define our working class lives. This is not the introspective, lovelorn abstract verse of the ivory tower but the word from the shop floor, the cubicle, the restaurant kitchen the fields, the prisons and streets. What is exposed is the commonality of our experience as we struggle to survive this Culture of Death and the inherent contradictions at the heart of that struggle. Robert Edwards sums it up in the final poem in this collection: Amerika vs. America.

We have added four extra pages to our journal in order to include more of the work we have accepted. We thank you for your poetry, patience and continuing support in making it possible for us to continue providing a home for the literature of our working class.

More From Mike Palacek

2007-05-25T15:38:00.000-04:00

Excuse me, aren't you all just hired killers? ... Go wait in that foxhole. We'll tell you when we need you to kill somebody."
--Bill Hicks

Is This Heaven?
by Mike Palecek

No.

It's Iowa.

This column is being brought to you today by Left Behind adult diapers.

Are you a questionable conservative Christian? Is there a chance the Rapture might not include you after all? Has your hand been where it should not have been? Then maybe you had better get yourself a twenty-four pack of Left Behind, available in red, white and blue, in all sizes.

Left Behind … cuz you're not really sure, are you?

Well, you might have heard that my recent American Dream Book Tour Across The USA only made it as far as Boston.

Or, more likely, you have no idea who the fuck I am.

Well, see, I was on this book tour ... and I wrote a column along the way ... and someone asked if I would continue the column.

If you go to my website you can find some links that will explain how I could not get into Canada and am trapped in this hell hole called America until I can find a retired Episcopal priest to smuggle me into Winnipeg in a gym bag; and you can see how I did not make it to my "event" in Providence because I was too busy puking beer onto the front lawn of the First Congregational Church in Madison, Connecticut; and how in my big debut in New York City — nunca, nuncio, nuance, nuns, nadir, Nader, no one, nonce, nix, nadia,
no-effing-body came to my reading.

And other stuff.

And so instead of shunning the John Denver songs on my iPod because they made me homesick, I cranked "Christmas For Cowboys," did a U-Turn in the Crowded Fucking Food Store parking lot in Brockton, Massachusetts, and headed the Honda for home, hugs and handshakes.

And so I am.

Writing this column again.

Well, it's Memorial Day weekend.

You think we have enough military holidays? Flag Day, Armed Forces Day, Loyalty Day, Love It Or Leave It To Beaver Day, Siddown, Kid Day, Dead Guatamalans Day, Dead Lakota Day, Dead Phillipino Day.

I do.

Think we have enough. One is too many. The military sucks. It takes money from the poor, from people who should get it, and goes to people who are slaughtering in the name of American business.

Eff the military.

I can see some people joining the military, thinking they are helping people, helping save the world. That's because they are stupid. They are not stupid on purpose, but because others have made them that way on purpose. The stupid ones have believed the lies of others. I was once the poster boy for stupid. I would have gone to Vietnam, for sure, if someone had told me to. I would have done anything to make people
like me, run wind sprints at six in the morning, mow the lawn at midnight, barbecue old women and babies.

Probably.

I wouldn't go now, if I had to. I'm not that much smarter now, but a little. It doesn't take much to get from where I was to where I am now, or to get smart enough to say no to the United States of America.

In this column I'm going to include pieces from my books.

That’s the plan.

And then people will go to my website and buy my books and there will be people at my “events” on my Spring '08 Tour, and then I will be popular enough not to have to write a column.

I will be able to sit in my living room, on my sofa, with a yellow and red afghan pulled over my head, a famous author.

That is true. That is the plan.

This is from "Looking For Bigfoot." LFB is published by Howling Dog Press of Berthoud, Colorado. The publisher is Michael Annis. I have exchanged hundreds of emails with Michael over the past few years. I have never talked to him on the phone, or in person.

Bigfoot is the story of Jack Robert King, an Internet radio host who broadcasts from the farm house on The Field of Dreams movie site in eastern Iowa. Jack wants to know the truth about America. He's tired of Frosted Flakes and he's tired of lies.

This is Jack, talking from the microphone in front of his computer, looking out at a corn field through the window in his junky broadcast room or studio. I hate the word study, but maybe that’s what it is.

Here’s Jack.

________________________

"Nope. Iowa.

It's Iowa, where everything good is bad.
All the good stuff about this state is sour, bitter, spoiled.
Because this state is for the war. They support the troops, the war.

They kill children and anyone else who gets in their way as they drive to Hy-Vee for the special on iceberg lettuce.

And so all the ice cream and lollipops and hayrack rides and painted ponies are for shit.

Somebody needs to bomb Iowa.

Somebody needs to send fighter planes and cruise missiles down main street — put giant craters in the outfield grass — down the perfect streets and avenues where all is faux sweetness and light. Children bouncing to and fro.

Wiener dogs yipping in rhyme.

While on the other side of the world the streets are ripped apart, as well as the children and the dogs.

We think those ripped apart children are fine.

We think we have torn the hearts and stomachs from those children for their own good.

The electronic time and temperature sign at the Iowa State Bank says ‘We Support Our Troops.”

Every other car has a yellow sticker on the back that says we support those darn troops fighting over there for our daggone freedom.

Don't you hate those message signs in front of Iowa churches?

So trite, so patriotic.

These people are not Christians.

They have about as much awareness of who they are or where they are going as ants to a picnic.

They march to church each Sunday thinking the feast is meant for them, when they are merely pests.

Folks in Iowa will grumble all day long about a two-penny hike in the price of gas, but a $40 billion bill for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq don't even get a mention at coffee.

The stupidity of Iowans cannot be accurately measured with today's technology.

If we did not use that $40 billion to kill children in Iraq and Afghanistan we could have great schools, hospitals, railroads, health insurance, candy for supper — whatever we want.

But instead we bomb kids.

Pro-life fanatical parents bombing kids so that their own children can't have a new school ... “

_________________________________

Join me next week on “Is This Heaven,” when our sponsor will be Depends, battleground undergarments for real men.

Are you going to have it blown out of you? Or you are going to blow it out of someone else?

It just depends.

It's a crap shoot.

You can rely on Depends.

Available in camo and hunter's orange.

Okay, then, seeya next week.

This is Iowa.

Where our only complaint is that at the end of the day our mouths hurt from smiling.

And ... where all the lawns are mowed, the bank accounts are balanced, and the cars are shining brightly.

Adios, amigos.

— Mike

Working Class Music

2007-05-08T18:04:00.000-04:00

Lyrics and poetry are closely related -- this piece speaks to me.

The American Dream Book Tour & Protest #11

2007-05-04T07:49:00.000-04:00

"There are things we don't or can't understand. A reasonable man, a healthy man ... a sane man ... when he encounters the inexplicable ... forgets about it."

— Maurice Minnifield, Northern Exposure

Buffalo University, Buffalo, New York — Nancy Pelosi is hot.
I have noticed I am surging toward old-guy status. Women who used to be the principal or someone's nice grandmother on the porch in the blue flower dress down to her ankles now kind of get me going.

Oh, God.

Nancy is on C-Span right now, talking about stuff.So was the woman running for president in France just a minute ago. Lots of stuff.
You should have seen this debate between the two candidates for president of France or whatever they call it, premier, general secretary, bunga-bunga-something-something.

They were really going at it, discussing, arguing. It was not controlled. There were no microphones in their ears or packs on their backs where smarter people told them what to say.

They say America is a model for democracy for the world.

Not.

I used to think Hillary was hot. I don't anymore. I don't know why. Things just kind of cooled. Nancy has just said we need to rebuild our military.

She still looks pretty good to me.

Hey.

Dude.

I am staying in this effing guest house on the campus of the University of Buffalo, The Center For Inquiry, in Buffa-effing-lo. Not bad for a guy who graduated 283 out of 289 from Norfolk High School in 1973. Well, it's not a chauffeur and caviar on Ritz crackers, but definitely I'll take it.

I drove this morning [Wednesday] from Pittsburgh. I am from Norfolk and I have not travelled all that much, so please excuse me.

THERE WERE TREES AND HILLS AND A BIG-EFFING LAKE AND IT WAS WAAAY COOL.
I don't know, it's just exciting to see some things. I was traveling today on the Blue Star Memorial Highway.

"Dedicated to those who fought for ... blah, blah, blah" ...

Oh, God, did I fall asleep for a moment there?

How many of these effing things do we have around?

A whole effing-bunch.

Methinks we protest too much.

_________________________________________

"Anyone STUPID enough to join the military ... ought to be able to."

— Bill Hicks
_________________________________________

I think we know the military is bunch of hired thugs, paid killers, that do not protect us, but rob and rape and kill in order to secure markets for American business, and we build all these memorials — like someone who has just committed some crime just keeps on talking and talking, because he knows as soon as he shuts up, he is going to be found out.

I don't know. Or else they are effing heroes for killing millions of people and making sure that we are able to gamble in the casino of our choice.

Well, for those who didn't know — everybody but me — western Pennsylvania is hilly and there are vineyards and shit.

And Niagara Falls billboards.

I am on Interstate 90, which goes all the way back to Sioux Falls, which is near my home. When I was in prison in Texas in 1986 I used to look out over the prison yard at night and see the full moon and reassure myself by thinking that Ruth was seeing the same moon, even though it seemed we were not even inhabiting the same world, we were so far apart.

Well, Interstate 90 runs all the way back home and so maybe I'm not so far away.

"Correctional Facility. Don't Pick Up Hitchhikers."

I pass that sign somewhere headed toward Buffalo and I cross myself.

I used to cross myself when I passed a Catholic Church. My mother did that and so I did it. But it was pretty stupid.

However, crossing yourself when you pass a prison makes a little more sense.
There is so much evil and suffering inside a prison that it makes more sense than doing it when you pass in front of Sacred Heart Church.
The prison is more holy. Not because of it being a prison. But because of the suffering.

I find my way into Buffalo, Main Street, Talking Leaves Books. I shake hands with Jonathon, the owner, with whom I have exchanged emails for the past one hundred years trying to set this up.

I read and then go over to Buffalo University.

David Mussella directs me to The Center For Inquiry.

He parks at the edge of the lot.

Why?

If they bomb us, at least I'll be able to get to my car.

Bomb? Who? Why? While I'm here? Big bombs?

Maybe little, teeny-weeny bombs?

David says the center is about secular humanism, which pisses some people off.
I don't really know what secular humanism is, but I don't mention it, because I have heard they have this private guest house I get to stay in. And there's more to it than that, but I kind of lose interest.

David shows me inside and introduces me to Joe Nickell.

Joe takes me to his office as I listen for bombs. He immediately begins to tell me that he is a paranormal investigator.

"I'm not a believer," he says.

In what?

His small office is packed with green blow-up alien dolls, voodoo figure things with things sticking into them, bigfoot foot plaster casts, leprechaun posters. There are caps from "Unsolved Mysteries."

"We have a laboratory."

There it is.

Joe tells me right off that he does not believe in ghosts because, "where does the brain go."

I'm like, I dunno.

He says that Hilary Swank is starring in a new movie based on his work.

"It's a terrible movie, though," he says.

I tell Joe that I've probably seen him on TV. He says that could very well be true — and he has written twenty-one books.

There they are.

On the desk is a magazine: Fatima Mysteries.

What about Roswell? I ask.

Military balloons.

No alien bodies. Hoax.

He also implies that those who believe the Bush people were involved in 9-11 are also quite delusional.

I shift my feet, stand up straight.

That makes me feel a bit unsettled. I don't want to be wrong, a fool.

I believe in Bigfoot, UFOs. I believe Bush did it.

But ... you know ... it's not about that, is it?

What it is, it is.

I really believe that.

The truth is what is important.

It is not important that certain beliefs be sustained, regardless.

The truth.

In debates, UFOs, Bigfoot, starting wars.

I am in favor. I vote yes.

Show me where it shows that Dick Cheney did not kill all those people in the Twin Towers and I'm heading home this morning, back to Iowa, to sit on the patio and pet my cat and sip beer from a quart bottle staring at my lovely wife mowing the lawn.

That night [Wednesday] I was part of the Literary Cafe at the University of Buffalo. It's a regular thing where people get together to read their poems and stuff. Mostly it's writers reading to each other is what I figure.

It is damn hard to get anyone else to listen.

But still, it's good. For one thing, it's good to know these people are out there, writing their poems. They are like the monks in a monastery, praying, and having that praying somehow help us all.

I really enjoy the chance to read. There are about twenty people there. I have developed the habit of counting people so that I can report to Ruth how many were there. I'll find myself in a men's restroom on the Interstate thinking, one, two, three-four, five-six-seven — this would make a pretty good crowd.

The podium has a lamp on it. There is [are?] cheese and crackers in the hall.

Before I read I was nervous because there were so many people and Joe Nickell, the debunker guy — who is also a good poet — was in the audience and practically everything I talk about is about ghosts and spirits and little green leprechauns flying big white planes into buildings.

But just before I walk up there I realize, I like this shit.

I like doing this. I still get nervous. I am still maybe not real great at it, but I think I have good material and maybe I'm learning how to deliver it.

I think we have a history of being lied to by our government. I think we have too many war memorial highways for no good-goddamn reason.

And I can't make myself forget about it.

— Mike

Next stops on The American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across the USA

May 3, Rochester, NY, Drinking Liberally. Monty's Korner, 8 pm.
May 4, New York City, Bluestockings book store, 7 pm. [172 Allen
Street, Lower East Side]
May 5, Staten Island, ETG Cafe, 3 pm.
May 6, Providence, Rhode island, AS220 Performance Space, 8 pm.

The American Dream Book Tour & Protest #10

2007-05-04T07:38:00.000-04:00

"I opened up my eyes, took a look around. I saw it written across the sky. The Revolution Starts Now."
— Steve Earle

SWALESVILLE, PA — "I don't like today's world."
"There's going to be two kinds of people — rich people and poor people."
I was sitting in the Joseph-Beth bookstore in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, scanning through John Updike's book "The Terrorist," cozied up in a soft chair, kind of listening to these three older people. Older than me? I'd sure like to think so.

I then went and put some more quarters into the meter so the Pittsburgh police don't hide my car.

Then I walk over and sit next to the fountain out in the little plaza outside The Cheesecake Factory in this square on Cinema Drive. I watch some kids get wet and then walk over to Claddagh Irish pub. It's not like the Irish pub in Kansas City, more like the one in Cleveland, trendy, lots of shiny wood, brass. I'd rather be in the K.C. bar, which was a dive, maybe the ultimate dive bar. You could picture Irish revolutionaries, fighters, drinking in that bar. Not here.

That's just me.

At Claddagh's I meet with Dave and John and Halley.

Dave is from Boston. He says caah and baah. I have never heard anyone say caah and baah in person. I have never been anywhere. I think it is pretty cool. I try to get him to say more things.

What's in the sky at night? Peanut butter comes in a ...?

He tires of my game.

Halley drove One Hundred Miles to see me. I shake her hand, maybe three or four times before the night is over. She is a carpenter. She has Band Aids on at least four of her fingers, robins-egg blue maybe.

Dave and John talk about politics, presidential candidates. Dave went to CMU, Carnegie Melon University, studied engineering. He admits to being a geek.

They — we — talk about the various Democratic candidates. I don't have much to offer. The subject doesn't excite me.

I would be for any candidate who would get us out of Iraq yesterday, initiate a brand new investigation of 9-11, and investigate the present administration as regards to possible war crimes: lying to start a war, torture, secret prisons.

Investigate the death of Paul Wellstone. Point me toward the candidate who will do that.

Otherwise, the whole thing is pretty boring, more interesting to watch the Cubs and Pirates on the TV above the expensive bar counter. 5-2, Cubs.

Hey.

On the way to Pittsburgh from Indianapolis, I came through Wheeling, West Virginia.

Tell me if you know — wasn't Wheeling the hometown of Chris Stevens of Chris in the Morning on KBHR radio of Cicily, Alaska on "Northern Exposure."

Well, there was a detour on I-70 that took us right through downtown.

Wheeling is a Wow-Town, at least for me — the old buildings, the trees, the hills, the history that I can only imagine quickly in my mind as I try to keep up with the maroon car that I think knows where we are going.

It reminds me of Lead and Deadwood, South Dakota, built into the hills.

Well, I did make it to Pittsburgh and that is another Wow-Town.

Maybe it's because I just haven't been anywhere, but I think you would also agree, that coming out of the Fortt Pitt Tunnel and then boom! there is a big bridge, a big river and boom! the skyline of Pittsburgh, all right there. Like plowing into an I-Max Theatre.

You want to come back and do it again and again, just to see that view, but you can't, there are one million maroon cars behind you that don't care about your Iowa license to drive slow. You have to keep going.

Or die.

And so I keep going and, of course, I miss my MapQuest directions by one turn, but that is enough to put me smack-dab into rush hour traffic, then try to find a place to turn around in Monroeville [the shocks?], then I go past the immigrants' rights rally, and then I pass it again and again ... and again, and I am starting to get to know these people ... and finally pull over and ask this British guy and this Hispanic-looking woman for help who are very intent on finding a parking place and get to the rally, but they do find time to tell me where to go.

I find Hot Metal Street.

Turn right, miss my next turn, and I go up and up and up.

Pittsburgh is hilly. Did you know that? And the streets where I am are very tight.

I am panicking, as I do when I think I am lost in rush hour in a big city that I have never been in and I might die soon because I cannot find a fancy Irish bar.

My brakes feel squishy. Does that mean my brakes are going out? My clutch? Pittsburgh is the end of the line. I am dead. Oh, geezuz-god, my brakes are squishy. I will die.

I am again in the black neighborhood. In almost every city I visit I either miss my turn and go to the black neighborhood, or my reading is in the black neighborhood.

I like it here. I calm down. I wish I had some excuse to walk up to someone and listen to them talk about their day.

I ask directions once, from a guy walking down a hill.

... I almost make it.

I seek directions again, from a woman in front of what I would guess is a project. She is very kind, she turns and points, tells me to go to Josephine Street, then to 26th, down the hill, "you can't miss ..."

No, no, don't say that!

"It."

I later try to ask directions from a white young man walking intently down the narrow sidewalk.

"Fuck you."

From the truck turning the corner: "Wake up, buddy!"

Dude. I'm doing the best I ... fuck you, too!

I find the rich Irish bar and a parking spot and put in dozens of quarters even though the police don't check meters this late in the day. If I don't put dozens of quarters in, I will die.

And so now I can relax. I know where I need to be. I have time. I go to the bookstore to look around, relax, find a restroom. Rest.

There are escalators in Joseph-Beth, just like in the Rochester, Minnesota Barnes & Noble, very cool.

I look around. I can't really afford any of the books, but I look.

And it seems like they don't mind, so I grab "The Terrorist," and go find a nice place to rest for just awhile. There is a restroom up the escalator. I'm good.

I know it's just me, and I'm not well-read enough, but I don't see whatis so special about Updike's book.

And I read one called "Absurdistan" somewhere else and on the back cover they have blurbs from the Washington Post Book World and ten other newspapers that I could not get to look at my books if I included a staah in a jaah.

"The Terrorist" is okay, but it's not one of my books.

Sorry. I really believe that.

My books should be in these places.

They are just as good, better.

Why they aren't here, I can only say has to do with the structure of the book industry, which I probably don't fully understand.

I'm as good as Updike, as anyone, but no agent or major publishing company would give me directions out of town. Of course I would say that, right? What it really has to do with is story and characters and pacing and lots of stuff, right?

Okay, if it does, fine. But I really don't get it. Maybe smart guys get it. I do not.

Okay, I don't die.

I park. I live. I put hundreds of quarters into the meter.

And I go talk to the Democrats.

They are gracious. They have allowed me to meet with them.

Of course I am grateful.

But I don't see any hope in the Democratic Party.

I ran for Congress in Iowa in 2000 as a Democrat. I won the primary and received 67,000 votes in the general election on an anti-military, anti-prison, pro-Hispanic immigration, in a very conservative district.

But that's not what Democrats generally do.

Usually they stick their finger into the air, judge the wind, and run thataway.
Rather than looking into their hearts and then walking confidently out the front door, no matter which way the wind is blowing.

...

And then they die.

— Mike

Next stops on The American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across the USA

May 3, Rochester, NY, Drinking Liberally. Monty's Korner, 8 pm.
May 4, New York City, Bluestockings book store, 7 pm. [172 Allen
Street, Lower East Side]
May 5, Staten Island, ETG Cafe, 3 pm.
May 6, Providence, Rhode island, AS220 Performance Space, 8 pm.

May Day 2007 around the world

2007-05-03T00:20:00.000-04:00

The website LabourStart contains links to many new stories, in various media sources, about May Day demonstrations and related labor actions yesterday, from all over the world, here.

I found the above linked page by going to the LabourStart main page, then in the website's search engine (upper left on the main page) I typed "may day" and selected Current News.

As I'm always reminded this time of year, when I read the May Day news reports from around the world, we are not alone.

Salud.

May Day

2007-05-02T08:50:00.000-04:00

In honor of our Worker's Holiday --

the pennywhistler's tune

follow me down
         the green road
the day is rising
        a field of song
the high round ring
        of silver bells
where the stream falls
        by the broken wall
the gray road rises
        the high round field
to the rim of the earth
        we carry our feet
the shadowed trees
        that whisper your name
a dance and a game
        and the wind flows low

the stars are rising
        a moon of song
on the red hills
        in the silver light
the child's name
        is the hope of the earth
come follow me down
        by the silent mill

through the silent night
        we carry our song
a whistle a dance
        with the ghost of hope
our feet on the road
        the wind in our hands
the voice of the leaves
        is a river of dreams

together we circle
        by hand by round
by heart by truth
        our children sleep
in the bright red dawn
        let our song rise free
now sleepers awake
        now sleepers awake

-- Lyle Daggett

The American Dream Book Tour #9

2007-05-01T08:39:00.000-04:00

"Is it too much to ask?
I want a comfortable bed that won't hurt my back.
Food to fill me up.
And warm clothes and all that stuff.
Shouldn't I have this?
Shouldn't I have this?"

— Mary-Chapin Carpenter

SUPER 8, INDIANA, USA — KGB.

A fantasy football team.

Killer Giant Ballerinas.

I am in Indiana, drove today from Cleveland to Bloomington's Boxcar Books, now headed toward Pittsburgh.

Yesterday I was a guest of the Cleveland Drinking Liberally group at Sullivan's Irish Pub on Madison Avenue. I met Frederica and Dan, parents of Leonardo, eleven months old today [Monday]. Leonardo was born in Italy and has been in this country for two weeks. She is a doctor, he a "computer geek."

As we slowly make our way out of the bar, on the fancy wood flooring, past the cheering staff of Sullivan's Pub, Frederica and Dan point out to me things about Italy and the United States and democracy and stuff that make me think.

How do I find I-70? Is that east? That west? Is this my nose? My ass?

Yeah-yeah, says Dan.

I love that yeah-yeah. I started hearing it out this way. I'm going to keep listening for it.

The day before, I met with a Drinking Liberally group in a very northern suburb of Detroit, Ortonville. I stayed with Ron and Nancy Wasczenski.

Well, I pulled up, into the long drive, the woods, the very nice house, with equestrian barn things around, affluence. I did not feel like this was my place. Remember, my comfort zone is sitting on the sofa with a yellow and red afghan pulled over my head.

Well, I got settled and the guests filtered in, sampling the horse douvers.

I was nervous, wondering how this would ever work. But when it came time for me to speak I stood in front of the hundred-foot-wide TV in the downstairs recreation room with the bar and did my thing.

I talked about how Bush did 9-11 and the troops are just serving the empire and about sending a crossed-out tax form to the IRS before I left home.

Thank you for your time. Shuffle the papers.

Any questions? Comments?

Pause. Silence. Thousand one, thousand two.

"Have you seen the video Loose Change?" someone said.

I breathed.

And we were off, talking about conspiracy this and controlled demolition that and had a great time.

Whew.

Marianna, who is a native of Montreal, and used to teach at the Flint performing arts high school, and now is a liturgical music planner for a local Lutheran church, said one of her students was a brother of Osama bin Laden.

Marianna would like to be a freeway blogger, she scoots over toward me on the sofa and confides, but she is afraid of being deported. I had mentioned during my talk my previous difficulties in getting into Canada. I wonder if I put up a sign against Bush I could get deported to Canada.

No. That's not how it works. You are a dumbshit.

Yes. That's true. I'm sorry.

Doug, of Marianna and Doug, used to work for GM. He is now an antique dealer and does not miss GM.

He talks about how when you close a certain foreign car door, when it gets close to being closed, the car kind of takes it from there.

With a GM product, Doug says, it's "bam-bam-bam", okay, that fits now.

We all laugh. Doug makes us laugh a lot. He is a good guy. These are all good people now that I don't have to talk and can just sit and listen.

Doug knows Michael Moore, went to school with him, they were in chess club together.

Doug and Marianna have funny stories to tell about traveling in Europe, boating in Prague, shit like that.

Doug also works each week at a soup kitchen in downtown Detroit. He mentions the meth addicts that stop by.

"At least we're doing everything we can do."

Before they leave for the night Marianna takes my email address and says they might be able to give it to MM in L.A. sometime.

Awesome.

The Killer Giant Ballerinas are Ron's fantasy football league team.

KGB took the league championship last year.

Ron — Waz — is a modern renaissance man. He has a nice house, family, property. He is an accountant. Hockey referee. He is also an artist, a liberal, maybe bordering on radical. On his wall are original charcoal works of art: Mark Fidrych, the Big Red Machine, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart.

He is compassionate, passionate, connected.

Someone who could run for office, network with the local Democratic Party big whigs, and also hoot and holler and get home late from a Black Oak Arkansas concert.
He is a Michigan boy, played hockey, football, eats McDonald's by the bucket full, can drink beer with either hand. Knows all the eff about Chomsky and Zinn and whatever else liberal crap you got.

He lets me into his home to talk about my books, talk bad about George Bush, drink his beer, eat his shrimp. He cares. He's trying. He's doing good things. He's going to do lots more good things.

He says that he met Joe Wilson of Valerie Plame Wilson at some function.

Joe said: "There are no tinfoil hats. These guys can do anything."

Do-do. Do-do. Do-do. Do-do.

I am impressed, but I'm glad to be gone.

I'm always glad to be gone.

Remember my comfort zone? I always feel lucky to talk to the people I meet. I don't know what they think about me, but I am happy to be able to say what's on my mind.

And I'm also always very happy to get back into the rusty, brown Honda and put on the headphones and dial up the Dixie Chicks or Steve Earle to celebrate the freedom of the road, being alone, on the way, going somewhere, else.

Well, I took I-75 Sunday through the heart of Detroit, past Comerica Stadium.
I was able to get the Twins-Tigers for a short time on my headphones.

I can't help but stare right and left at the city, at the neighborhoods.

Poverty is interesting. Affluence is boring.

I wonder about what goes on in that house, down that street, in that park. I drove around Kansas City in the black neighborhood I was going to read in, Milwaukee, Minneapolis. I just don't understand why we allow poverty. I just don't get it. Some people live in these types of neighborhoods and we all just accept it. I remember doing a story on Mexicans in Minnesota who lived in a goddamn compound, like a prison camp, for a portion of the year, just to work for one of the canning companies. Geezuz-eff! What is wrong with us?

Look out for the big-effing truck.

And I want to write something that saves all the poor people.

Sure.

I know they don't need me.

I still want to write that novel.

A good book could bring George W. Bush to his knees.

A novel has the potential power to save the world.

It does.

Maybe not my novel.

But maybe yours.

Think about it.

Today I drove from Cleveland to Bloomington and got skunked at Boxcar Books. I was headed to Pittsburgh this evening, stopped on the Interstate somewhere. I can only hope I'm out of Indiana.

Geezuz.

It was one million degrees in Bloomington this afternoon.

The drive from Martinsville down to Bloomington on 37 South is really pretty cool. The trees are beginning to bud. I used to rely on Ruth to tell me things like that. Now I have to notice that shit for myself.

I spotted a Big Red Liquor store. Reminded me of Nebraska.

Oh, God.

I think all the fervor spikes the temperature a bit.

There was this billboard promoting the upcoming National Day of Prayer, May something-or-other.

"Americans Unite In Prayer."

Nah. Eff that.

Unite toward what? More war? A longer wall along the Mexican border?

Big Red Boo-ya?

Instead. Put George W. Bush in D Unit behind the walls in Terre Haute Penitentiary for lying to us about WMDs and getting 3,500 Americans killed, for murdering Paul Wellstone, and for attacking his own country on 9-11-01. And give him a fourth count for just being a dumb-eff.

Praise the Lord. Pass the red T-shirts.

I went walking around Bloomington before my sucky gig at Boxcar Books.

It was another funky area, like in Madison, Ann Arbor, Lawrence.

In all these towns I like to take a little walk if I can, because I will never-ever see any of these places again. Ruth has assured me.

And so I wore my "Worst President Ever" T-shirt over to the Universityof Indiana campus and walked around.

Revolutionary.

Nah, just some old guy with no job walking around where he doesn't belong in a black T-shirt on a scorching hot day.

But, back here in the hotel zone on the interstate, wherever I am, the woman who took my money for gas said her boyfriend would like my T-shirt and where did I get it. Then the woman who checked me into the motel said, "I like your T-shirt."

God Bless Indiana, I think.

— Mike

The American Dream Book Tour #8

2007-04-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

SWEETWATERS COFFEE SHOP THING, ANN ARBOR, MI —Indiana license plates have American flags and "In God We Trust."
Indiana also has more war memorials per square foot than any other state in the union. There is also Purple Heart Highway and Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway and probably twelve other war highways.In downtown Indianapolis there is this huge statue memorial: The Soldiers & SailorsStatue in The Circle.

I know because I was there, driving nine times around the circle trying to find my way north on West Street to find Spencer's Bar to meet with the Indianapolis Drinking Liberally group.

Meridian - Right
Right on South
Left on West
McCarty to Delaware, left
Left on East
Right on Washington.

You can't miss it.
I always miss it.

Some Indianans most likely believe that their license plates and the war memorials and church on Sunday and Jesus are somehow connected. Just like some folks believe we landed on the moon and Osama bin Laden made money on put options prior to 9-11, like the guy in Spencer's who gave me directions back to my hotel.

After leaving Spencer's and heading straight on McCarty I stopped at a red light and could see the construction zone for the new stadium for the Indianapolis Colts. There were lights all over and cranes and partial walls. It looked like a set from Waterworld.

It's supposed to bring a lot of business to Spencer's after it's completed.

Well, I have been to Indianapolis and Saginaw, now waiting to go over to The Planet bookstore on North Main Street in Ann Arbor, then it's over to Detroit [Oakland County] for another round of Drinking Liberally.

Ruth called me just as I arrived in Indianapolis, worried after hearing about an accident near South Bend that killed eight people.
"You're not mad about the Days Inn?"
No.
I've been spending a lot of money on motels and gas. About half my stash is already gone.

Anyway. I had a bad time in Indianapolis. My own fault. I drank almost all of Mike Stanek's Czech dark beer gift in one night in Hillsdale, Michigan.

I don't really need to go back to Indianapolis again. Not in this lifetime. Is there a next lifetime? Sometimes I wonder. You wonder about that?

The sun is out. It's been rainy lately.

I peed forty-nine times yesterday. Ruth thinks maybe there's something wrong. You think?

But not once in the car. It was a good day.

In fact yesterday was a great day. I found Saginaw, found The Dawn of a New Day coffee shop and met Ellen, Dawn and Clif.

Clif pulled his Michigan map out of his pocket and showed me exactly where I was, where Bay City is, Ann Arbor and the UP. He showed me where Traverse City is, where he went looking for Bigfoot in the 1970s and found a print.

I also talked about Bigfoot with someone at my signing that evening at Barnes & Noble. I must be getting close to my people.

I really got to sit near the front door of a B&N, at a table, with my books, and a poster saying the author was in the store signing copies of "The American Dream."

I was sitting there for a while when this little girl walks right up to me, looks me in the eyes and says, "I'm a published author, too."

Awesome. What is your name?

"Delaney."

What is your book about?

"My cat."

Are you writing another book?

"Yes, about my other cat."

Very cool person this Delaney.

After that I read at the 303 Collective, a progressive visual and performing arts space in Old Town, Saginaw. I walked in and it was kind of dark, candles every-effing-where, and somebody up on stage reading poetry — and there were people in the seats.

Afterward I met lots of great people, some fellow 9-11 Truthers, lots of young people. They shook my hand and smiled and that means a lot, just like meeting Delaney.

The 303 Collective — and particularly this talented guy named Marc Beaudin — is a bunch of people doing original, creative, timely art. It is great. Marc says there are groups doing this kind of work in Minneapolis and elsewhere, but I'm just really impressed. I guess the main thing is that it is original; these people really are putting themselves into this work, shaping their lives around their art, trying to make a difference, and actually doing it. Check out Marc's novel: "A Handful of Dust."

Hey. Did you hear that the Catholic Church took back Limbo. I guess it's a "never mind." I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a whole lot about the Catholic Church, about all organized religion that might turn out to be a "never mind."

And E. Howard Hunt says it was Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover who organized the murder of John F. Kennedy.

This whole "land of the free" with killer jets flying over the stadium and everyone standing there with their hands over their hearts, tears in their eyes?

Never mind.

I stayed last night at the Jeannine Coallier Catholic Worker in Saginaw. Thanks to Ellen Garrett for organizing my stay. I met Tao this morning at the breakfast table. He took a break from watching his new robots movie to have some "crunch" toast. Another bright-eyed wonderful little kid.

Last night we had beers at Ewoldt's a block from the 303. Marc showed me the table where he sits and writes poetry. He's good. Must be a great spot.

The back of Ellen's black Saturn is plastered with bumper stickers: War Is Not The Answer, Save The Farmland—No Wal-Mart, Thou Shall Not Kill, Bob Marley. A few of them were recently keyed by someone, perhaps a disgruntled Wal-Mart greeter.

The Jeannine house has chickens in the yard.

Dawn of Dawn's coffee shop let us spend the afternoon drinking free coffee and peeing. She had to leave about five to go to a community event. She said she opened the coffee shop a couple of years ago, in an area of Saginaw not popular for businesses, "because of crime."

She came down here because ...?

"To save the world."

She checked her bank account before going out, fifty dollars. "Next week I'll make money. I think, someday it will come back to me. Which it will."

The sun is out.

George W. Bush is on the run, hiding from the truth, headed for a debacle that will put him in his historical prison cell for the rest of eternity.

You gotta love that.

It is indeed the dawn of a new day.

PTTPRO.

— Mike

The American Dream Book Tour #7

2007-04-26T09:11:00.000-04:00

" So fuck the FCC. Fuck the FBI. Fuck the CIA.
I'm livin' in the motherfucking U.S.A."
     — Steve Earle, "The Revolution Starts Now"

HILLSDALE, MICHIGAN, U.S.A — "I was either going to fucking move or fucking change this town."
That is Richard Wunsch, the owner of Volume One Books of Hillsdale, Michigan. "And I haven't done either."
But he keeps trying.
Geezuz, that means ... everything.
Wunsch has been a first and second grade teacher in Chicago. He has been a block layer, factory worker. He is a radical, a member of the intelligentsia of the United States. There definitely is such a thing. I am finding that out.

Wunsch is wearing a union jacket while he sits in his bookstore and visits with me and Aimee England — who "runs everything" at the store -- as well as visitors strolling in and out of the busy place in downtown Hillsdale, in southern Michigan.

Wunsch talks Steven into sticking around and hearing the rest of my talk. Steven is a young comic, musician, writer. He works at a grocery store right now. He is an "Army brat", raised in Hawaii, Germany, etc.He has a wife. He is concerned about the world, aware. He bought a book.

And there was this young man over in Chicago, who stopped by to listen to me at Revolution Books. He is from Florida, graduated from high school eight months ago, came to Chicago, by himself, to be an actor. He asked me what I think about global warming.

These guys have guts, creativity, heart. I'm not shitting you, it is my absolute pleasure to be able to meet people like this. Wow.

I have met a lot of people like this in the month I have been on the road.
Anthony Rayson, also in Chicago, Lou Downey, Michael Stanek, and on and on. "Chicago Jim" from Bartcop.com stopped by at Barbara's Books and gave me a care package for my journey. How great was that? That gesture is going to take me about four states just on its own. I probably won't even use any gas.

Many folks are concerned about what is going on in this country. Sometimes they are in the city, some are in the smaller towns.

They are smart, passionate, good people.

And when this war ends, when George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are run out of the White House with a switch, it will be these people who will have done a good share of the workload. Most of us won't never-ever know them, but they are there, they dare, and they care.

I spent Monday and Tuesday in Chicago with Mike & Audrey Stanek. Mike took me out bike riding around town. I have not been on a bicycle since, well ... a long time. We took the Blue Line downtown, too.

Mike accompanied me at my readings at New World Resource Center, the Unitarian Church in Park Forest, Revolution Books, Barbara's Books. Thank you, Mike.

When Mike and I were walking around downtown I could not help but look for Gwen. She lives in Chicago, I think. She was my first girlfriend in ninth grade in Norfolk. We would walk home together and talk and really, the rest of the world did not exist. And now you don't even know where the other one is. How does that happen?

Oh, well, that's kind of how it goes.

Kind of how it's supposed to go.    I understand.

Of course I love my wife — Ruth. She is my life.

But still I think it is not extraordinary to walk around and wonder where Gwen from 1968 is, and how she is doing.

If that's wrong, I'm sorry. No I'm not.

After the reading Tuesday night at Barbara's, Mike and a friend of his, Carey, from the housing co-op, went for beers and fries and Gouda [it's cheese!] at the Handlebar on North Avenue, an extremist biker bar.

Carey used to work for Greenpeace.

Get this, once during a Chicago peace rally, he was watching a local television station reporter, well, reporting, on the peace protest. Behind the reporter were some "drunk obnoxious protesters." After the shot, the reporter turned to "the protesters" and said, "thanks,
guys." And the "protesters" walked away, drunk no longer.

Welcome to America, let me try to explain.

Carey has met Julia Hill Butterfly person woman and also Bonnie Raitt, and that's pretty much hugetime in my book.

He had a great suggestion when the inevitable "well what do we do then" question came up at Barbara's.

Carey said we should write to Rep. John Conyers and demand that these thugs — Bush, Cheney, Rove — be prosecuted before the clock runs out. These men should be in the super-max prisons we have prepared so judiciously.

Most of the people we have in those tombs do not belong there, because this country is insane — but Bush, Cheney and Rove ... well, it was for these boys that thumb screws were ever even thunk of.

They are murderers.

Mike Stanek, who once spent six months at Indiana's hideous Terre Haute prison for protesting against the U.S. military, also let me download about two hundred new songs onto my iPod and sent me on my way with a brown bag full of Czech beer, from the home country.

What's the word for awesome in Czech?

Nope, I don't know either.

______________________________________________________________
"Piss and moan about the immigrants, but don't say nothing 'bout the
president. But democracy don't work that way. I can say anything I want
to say." — Steve Earle, "The Revolution Starts Now"

______________________________________________________________

As we all sat inside Chicago's Revolution Books waiting to get started, someone came in and said that local law enforcement had just conducted a raid in the heart of the Hispanic community, and that local residents had responded immediately with a march in protest.

A front-page photo appeared the next morning in the Sun-Times.

And so I guess that tells us a little about why and how.

Why don't people get too excited about the war in Iraq?

And how do we mobilize people, get them in the streets, bring about a non-violent revolution, as someone in Madison, Wisconsin suggested?
I think it happens when we feel it affects us. When the city council tries to make us put in a sidewalk in front of our house, then we attend the meeting that night.

The folks in Chicago came out, into the street, immediately, without a mailing list, no matter what was on TV, no matter what plans they had for the evening.

Because the robo cops with the machine guns and the face shields were coming after them.

They had to fight. They did not have a choice to make as to whether their time was better spent going out to eat or working in the garden, or whether to fight the brown shirts on their doorstep.    There was no decision to make.

From what I have seen I think that's the only way it happens.

Hey.    I just saw that Rosie O'Donnell is off The View.

Wow. That tell you anything? It tells me that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney attacked their own country in order to start the war in Iraq and steal the oil.

Dick Gregory once said in Omaha, somewhere in the mid-1980s, that if you challenge them, "they will bring tanks on your ass." When I first heard that, in about 1984, I didn't really understand what he was saying, or believe it was that bad in the United States.

It is that bad. In fact, it's probably worse.

Hey. You ever try to find a public restroom in Chicago while you are trying to get out of the city to make it to a book reading in Michigan, and you really, really have to go?

Do you know what happens, eventually?

No, I don't want to talk about it. Would you? If you were a big-time anti-war novelist on a nationwide book tour?

Well, what should we do?

Piss our pants or piss all over the floorboard in fear of the thugs in the police uniforms and government offices? Or get out in the streets with our signs and our fists in the air?

I know what Lou Downey, Aimee England, Anthony Rayson, Chicago Jim, and Richard Wunsch would do, are doing.

— Mike

Next stops:
April 26, Indianapolis Drinking Liberally, 7 pm.;
April 27, Saginaw, MI, The Coffee Shop, 2 pm.; Barnes & Noble, 6 pm;
303 Collective, 8 pm.
April 28, Ann Arbor, The Planet Bookstore, 2 pm.;
April 28, Detroit [Oakland County] Drinking Liberally, Bo's, 6 pm.

The American Dream Book Tour #6

2007-04-23T10:41:00.000-04:00

THE GRANDVIEW INN — The Boston Red Sox hit four home runs in one inning tonight against the New York Yankees. Ho hum.

George Bush Sr. was involved in the murder of John F. Kennedy, the Iran-Contra scandal, stealing two elections for his son, planning the attacks of 9-11, and on, and on.

[http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/bush.htm/
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/
George_H.W._Bush_JFK_assassination_letter]

Ho hum. I guess it just all depends.

Well, I'm sitting in the GrandView Inn somewhere on I-94 with my car headed toward Chicago. The sign says I am in Racine. I think they mean "racing".

All I see is The Ramada, Holiday Inn, a truck parking lot and well, cars, roads, gas pumps, big signs, people trying with all their heart and soul to get from wherever they are to somewhere else.

I got stood up tonight in Milwaukee.
I had a date at the Cream City Collective, supposed to read there, and nobody, not even somebody to open the door, shows up.

Being a big-shot author, well, it's not that. I mean, I'm this anti-war novelist author guy and here is this anti-war bookstore, with a vegetarian co-op food natural grind, pick and haul your own beans with your own donkey coffee thing across the street, and still I can't get somebody to come open the door.

I drove over here from Madison this afternoon.
I read in Madison yesterday afternoon at a bookstore near the University of Wisconsin.

Beforehand, I was lost, of course, and as an absolute last resort decided to ask for directions. I pulled into this big lot and drove up to this guy wearing an orange vest.

"Mulch?" he asked.

No, no effing mulch.

Where in the eff is Gilman Street?

He gave me directions, expertly, politely, as only a Madison resident could do.

After my reading, no, before, I go out walking around the "Designated Funk Area."

And it's EarthFest Day Thing, of course.

Every day is earth day in Madison.

There is a band up on this stage and, well, they all look like me, like they've been standing up there a long time.

I walk around and there are tables set up for fair trade coffee.

"You like solar energy?" someone asks.

Love it, just love it.

Fair trade coffee, sustainable agriculture, homemade shit of every phylum and fauna, and breasts. Every-effing-where.
The whole thing was put on, evidently, by WISPIRG. I know what that is, do you?

And, I'm walking around and people are laughing at me, gut laughs, some smiles.
It's my all-time best T-shirt ever that Bartcop.com sent to me for this tour.
It has an image of a scowling George W. Bush: Worst President Ever.
It is the best T-shirt ever. I can tell that. I know what is a winner and what isn't. This T-shirt is a winner.

Well, I read to eight people. That's not a bad crowd for me. I thought I was going to get skunked because at 2 p.m., when it was supposed to start, there were a bunch of chairs, but nobody to sit in them.

The way my "events" go is that I do my thing, my speech, which lasts about thirty minutes, then somebody asks me a question and I don't know the answer, so the people start discussing among themselves, which is fine with me. The people who come to hear me, even though there are not millions of them, are very smart. I've noticed that.

And after I speak, they often want the author to be The Author.

They might ask me, where do you think our country is, as far as on the path toward fascism?

And I laugh silently to myself because I know that I have no effing idea, and then I try to get them to talk about it amongst themselves, because I also know that's what they really want to do anyway.

See, if they came to see a real smart guy author man person like Ralph Nader, well, he would have shit to say, about every-effing-thing, and they could sit there and just listen.

With me, at my "author events," after I give my prepared speech, that's kind of it, show's over, anywhere a guy can find a quart of Old Style around here?

I'm okay with that.

I know what I know, and I know there is a definite limit to that, and so I stand in front of the group and let them talk about paradigms and para nickles and para pennies as much as they want, and I pay attention as long as I can, until my mind starts wandering, wondering if that was a Kwik Trip I saw over on Einstein Circle.

After my talk at Rainbow Books in Madison at 2:10 pm., I got directions from Allen Ruff, the events coordinator, raced to find a place to stay, made four [four] trips to the ice machine to cool down the remainder of my twelve pack from Grand Forks in the sink, rode the exercise bike, took a shower, then got directions from the person at the front desk who said she loved my T-shirt [Dude, I told you], back to the
university area, cursed the low sun, and sweated myself into finding a parking garage with some room, then walked with my head down and my chunky legs just a churnin' over to hear William Rodgriguez in the Humanities Building.

Rodgriguez was a janitor in the World Trade Center when 9-11 happened. He was pulled from the effing rubble. He is a very good speaker. And he admits that he looks and sounds like Ricky Ricardo, which he does.

He helped to save a bunch of people and he says he heard explosions in the basement before the planes hit, saw the vending machine guy walking out of that area with his skin hanging off his arms from the explosions — before the plans hit.

He conjectures that the planners didn't quite coordinate everything — the charges planted in the buildings and the planes hitting — exactly together.

He recently visited Venezuela, and was approached by an FBI agent in the hotel. The Venezuelan government then assigned five men to protect Rodriguez because they thought it just might be possible that the USA would kill Rodriguez in order to silence him, while in the meantime blaming it on Venezuela and giving the land of the free an excuse to invade and silence Chavez, who thinks Bush is the devil, which he is.

Anyway, Rodriguez had no visible protection in Madison on Saturday. He was headed to Peoria for another talk on Sunday. We owe him a lot. It is possible that the future of our democracy rides on his shoulders. No, not on his. He is doing what he needs to do. It depends on our response.

He is a hero. He is putting his life on the line by rolling his eyes when he hears the Bush government's conspiracy theory about what happened on 9-11.

As I was driving around trying to find a parking spot I saw all these people wearing red T-shirts. I thought maybe it had to do with the Rodriguez event.
As I got closer I saw that they were University of Wisconsin T-shirts.
There was some kind of sporting event in some kind of humongous building, where most of the people on the sidewalk were headed. Oh, I thought, dumb guys. Not great T-shirts either.

It just depends.

— Mike

Chicago: April 23, New World Resource Center, 1300 N. Western Ave., 5
pm.; 8 pm. Unitarian Church, Park Forest.
April 24, Revolution Books, 530 pm.; Barbara's Books, Halsted St., 730
pm.

The American Dream Book Tour #5

2007-04-20T06:39:00.000-04:00

"Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?"
I went over to the sargeant, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."
— Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant

PEMBINA PORT OF ENTRY — Oh, Canada.
I'm back.
Did you even notice I was gone?
I was in Canada from about 3:30 p.m. to about 5:15 p.m. this afternoon.I was trying to get into Canada to go to my book reading in Winnipeg tonight at Mondragon Books. They asked me at the window who I was, what I was doing, where I was going, what kind of books did I write, what I was thinking.

Umm, political fiction. Why?

Then they sent me inside. Park under the ramp.

Talk to the customs people, no, go over there instead, to the immigration folks.

I can do that. How you doing, eh? How about that Red Green Show, huh? I mean, eh? You know him? I love that show. I want to move to Canada sometime. You folks seem like nice people. You count your votes, here, right? How do you feel about anthrax?

Do you have a passport?

Umm, know, I didn't think you had ...
I thought that was next yea ...

Birth certificate? How do I know you are really an American citizen if all you have is an Iowa driver's license.

Hey. How about those Maple Leafs, huh? You skate? I can't skate. I wish I could skate ...

Have you ever been arrested?

... But I never learned.

... Yeah, I guess. Hey, lots of ducks around here, eh? I used to hunt. I don't hunt anymore. Bet it gets cold up here.

Sit down. There.

Here?

Well, I guess you guys are stuck with me now. I always thought Canada was kind of an option. You know, go up there and sit in the park, feed bread crumbs to the moose.

But now it looks like this is kind of it.

Canada kicked me out because I have been to prison for protesting against the United States military at Offutt Air Force Base.

I thought they would appreciate something like that. I thought Canadians were different.

Hmmm.

Well, the young woman immigration officer, agent, takes my papers, Iowa driver's license, back to some room down the immigration hall and disappears for about half an hour, while Mom & Pop Back To Winnipeg From The Winter In Miama get high-fives from the immigration and customs staff, and I'm sitting over in the corner on the Group W bench.

The young woman Canadian person came back and told me to come through the swinging doors with her and please step into the second open door on the right.

One, two.

We sit down and she explains that I can pay $200 to make an application to get considered to enter Canada. Then the application will be studied and a determination will be made as to whether I have been "rehabilitated" enough to sit in a borrowed rowboat and drink Moosehead Beer.

Then I am escorted out of the building — young immigration woman keeps my dissolute Iowa driver's license in her hand and tells me where I need to turn around to head back to wherever the hell I came from.

She will only hand me back my license as I pass by her on the sidewalk.

I then drive back the quarter mile or so to the United States immigration complex, a crew whose acquaintance I cannot wait to make.

The American immigration window woman asks me why Canada won't take me.

She directs me to Garage Number Two, where I wait until the door opens and American immigration man motions me inside.

He asks me why Canada won't take me.

Mrs. American Immigration Woman stands close by. They both have on fresh protective gloves, kind of a robins-egg-blue.

He asks what air force base I protested at that got me sent to prison. I tell him.

He asks if I have ever been to Fort Benning, the School of the Americas.

I say no, but I would like to go there sometime. Mr. American immigration man, young fat blond boy with crewcut, does not smile.

He is fingering, smelling, the money in my billfold.

He directs me to "the waiting room." I know that's what it is because it says "The Waiting Room" on the door. I can see the chairs inside.

I go sit down in one of the chairs and look toward where Mr. & Mrs. American Immigration Persons are ruffling through my undies and political fiction books.

I can't see them.

Because of the one-way window.

You can't watch them as they search your vehicle.

I can hear slamming and clanking and something like dirty socks being sniffed by a drug-smelling Mrs. Immigration American Woman, and I try not to imagine her walking into The Waiting Room with a smile on her face holding a bag of marijuana.

And then they have me. They can put me in Leavenworth or Butterworth or whatever new below-ground federal prison they have these days, and they never have to hear me talking about how Bush did 9-11 and killed Wellstone, ever again.

The door opens.

Mr. New Immigration Man, the other one must have gone home for the day, says that I'm set to go.

Turn right and head back to wherever the hell you came from.

Can I have the paper from The Country Of Canada that says why I can't come in?

No, we keep that.

I turn right, head back to Grand Forks.

I look at the sheet on my passenger seat that Miss Immigration Canadian Person Woman gave me.

It's a list of Canadian Consulates in the United States.

That is where I need to send the $200 to get them to study me to see if I am rehabilitated enough to fish in a decent lake.

I wonder how they would make their determination.

Are you glad you broke the law? Yes.

Do you support the United States. No, not really. We suck. Our military is a bunch of thugs, paid killers. No money should go to them. In fact, I sent in a crossed-out tax form to the IRS in Kansas City before I left home on this book tour.

Well, son, looks like you will never see Thunder Bay — ever, in your lifetime. I think we are through here. We'll take those flapjacks with us, and the flannel shirt, the cedar logs.

I told the woman with a smile that I was not rehabilitated, while we were sitting inside the second open door on the right. I thought, being Canadian and all, she would understand what I meant. I wouldn't even try that line down the road with the Americans.

They'd be like, what? Go Packers.

I really thought Canada would be different.

You know, like another country.

Go Maple Leafs.

— Mike

The American Dream Book Tour #4

2007-04-18T09:11:00.000-04:00

"But Tonto he was smarter, and one day said Kemo Sabe, kiss my ass, I bought a boat, I'm going out to sea." — Lyle Lovett, If I Had A Boat

SITTING IN THE MAY DAY CAFE, SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS — I got a hug from a black lesbian in Iowa City. She was wearing a black stocking cap and heavy coat and dreadlocks.

It was great. A hug. Wow.
It probably says a lot about me, the way I describe that event. Sorry. Or not.

I am from Norfolk, Nebraska. When I lived in Norfolk the only blacks were the basketball players for Norfolk Junior College, and the only housing they could find in town was in the locker rooms of the Catholic elementary. I guess nobody else would rent to them. I remember seeing them in there, coming in and out, when we went to the gym for P.E., didn't think anything of it.

Oh, well.

Cherry, "as in the tree", made a comment during my presentation that she didn't come to a point in her life where she had to "break up with America" because of finding out the truth. She never trusted America. She always knew what it was about. She did not have to go to prison. She did not have to wonder after 9-11 whether her government could have done it themselves.

"I totally believe the conspiracy stuff," she said. So do I, and I'm from Norfolk. I didn't always know about America. I had to learn it, along the road, from people like Cherry, like Dan Berrigan, like Kevin McGuire, Darrell Rupiper, Jean Petersen.

Yesterday I pulled over at a rest stop 40 miles out of Saint Paul to be a guest on a radio show with Kevin Barrett, in Wisconsin. It was a nice break to a long drive from Iowa City to Minneapolis, during which I played and re-played Lyle Lovett's song If I Had A Boat about twelve times because I like the line from Tonto. That line makes that song, gives it heart, gave me some strength for the road, same as the hug from Cherry.

I read at Magers & Quinn Books in Minneapolis last night, and tonight it will be Magus Books, then tomorrow morning on to Duluth and Winnipeg. The College of St. Scholastica booked me at the Holiday Inn in Duluth for tomorrow, so I'm hoping to put my feet up at some point and locate a quart of beer and the Twins game. That'shigh living to my point of view. I'm from Norfolk.

Well, I'll take this chance to tell you something about my book, since it has turned into a sunny afternoon, and I have a while until I have to try to find my way over to Dinky Town for my 7 p.m. reading.

"The American Dream", is a satirical novel which I wrote last summer each day in my head as I drove from my home in Sheldon, Iowa to my work at a group home in Hull, Iowa, about twenty minutes away. Then I wrote it down on paper when I was supposed to be working, then typed it into the computer when I got home, when I was supposed to be mowing the lawn.

The focal character is Michael M.

M also works at a group home. He wants with all his being to get on the Home Helper Show to get his little house fixed up and make his wife happy — while the world burns.

By accident, M rams his moped into the war memorial in city park and breaks the World War II monument. He is whisked away by helicopter to the local concentration camp and called a terrorist. He is dubbed The Big Evil One.

And other stuff happens. I'll tell you more later, if you want.

My thanks to Holly Hart in Iowa City for organizing the event at the public library. Thanks to Marta Carson for the place to stay. It's this refurbished old church out in Amish country outside of Iowa City. Remember that old Arlo Guthrie song, Alice's Restaurant? Isn't there a church in there somewhere? And Marta was playing an Arlo Guthrie song in the morning. Far out.

Thanks to Jeff Sarmstrom and his family for coming to Magers & Quinn last night. They really made my day.

I'm staying these couple of days with Ed & Carol Felien in south Minneapolis. Carol teaches women's studies at a local college and Ed runs an alternative Twin Cities newspaper, The Pulse. He has a Che Guevara mousepad. Now, why couldn't I find a paper like that to work for when I was running around in a fever to be a real reporter?

Ed doesn't know me, but when I emailed him to ask him for a place to stay, he said yes. Last night after my reading he had wine and cheese and crackers ready and the three of us watched Amy Goodman interview Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn — on the TV. Howard Zinn talking sense on the television. That is something I have never-ever before seen in my life. I am from Norfolk.

I had lunch up in The Pulse offices today with Ed and his staff: wonderful, rebellious, talented journalists. Put these people on the TV, on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Washington Post, and we won't have to put up with the likes of George W. Bush and Karl Rove. [My dislike for Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings seems to have not yet found bottom.]

And somebody—some great, wonderful body — gave me a hug after one of my talks.

The sun is out, there are kids running around this shop. It smells like exotic coffee that I do not yet know how to order. There are two guys next to me playing their daily card game, loving every minute of it.

And now it's time to try to find Magus Books.

You take care. Enjoy the day.

seeya

— Mike

The American Dream Book Tour #3

2007-04-14T16:31:00.000-04:00

"You open up their hearts, and here's what you'll find ... some humans ain't human, some people ain't kind."
— John Prine

DRIVING TO DES MOINES — It's sixty-three songs from Sheldon, Iowa to Rochester, Minnesota.
I got my iPod back up and running. I won't be alone anymore.
Got the Dixie Chicks, John Prine, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, Mary-ChapinCarpenter, John Denver, The Clash, Bill Hicks, Cat Stevens, The Soggy Bottom Boys,Alison Krause, The Eagles, Green Day, Greg Brown, Woody Guthrie, Steve Forbert, Harry McClintock, all squeezed into the brown Honda.

Austin, Minnesota is thirty-four songs from Rochester.

It is the home of the Spam Museum. I'm probably in there somewhere, maybe in the hall of fame with all my emails over the past ten years trying to hawk my books.

In the early 1990s, Ruth, Sam, Emily and I lived in Byron, eight miles west of Rochester. We owned the tiny Byron Review, ran it out of the north side of our home on Byron Avenue. We scrimped and saved and hustled and fought with the city council, school board, lumber yard, elevator, fire department, and won the newspaper of the year award from the MNA in 1994. We went out of business later in the year.

Sitting in traffic in Rochester was the first time I felt kind of vulnerable with my bumper stickers: 9-11 Was An Inside Job, Jail Bush, Impeach Bush. Rochester is a conservative island in Minnesota. But it wasn't really that. I think I was just tired, depressed a little from having to leave home and think of three months ahead of me on the road, and so maybe I was poking along a little and getting some looks from my fellow Americans.

But I've got a license to drive slow — Iowa plates.

And now I remember how fast people in southeast Minnesota drive. They are busy people, getting things done, going places. I try not to get in the way.

Sitting in heavy traffic on Broadway Avenue in Rochester I kept an eye on the fat blonde woman behind me with no neck driving the forest green Dodge Caravan. Had my hand on the auto-lock in case she opened her door.

Once when I was a seminarian at the College of St. Thomas in Saint Paul in 1979 I flipped a trucker the bird as I drove past him in my 1959 brown and white Chevy. Just because I thought I could, and get away with it

As I sang along with an Eagles song I could see a familiar truck getting bigger in the rearview mirror.

I had to stop and the trucker pulled up next to me, got out of his truck, came around to my door and pounded on the door and the window, saying somebody should teach me a lesson.

I did learn a lesson.
Don't stop.

Or if you have to stop, keep one eye on the lady in the fur-lined jacket in the side mirror.

When we were in Byron in the early '90s I did a story on the Leonard Peltier case, and interviewed an FBI agent in the Rochester office.

One of them, David Price, was mentioned in the book In The Spirit of Crazy Horse, and had been accused by some in the American Indian Movement of having murdered Anna Mae Aquash. He wasn't in the office the day I was there, so I did not get to meet him.

The other, Don Dealing, did visit with me. He talked about Peltier, Jack Coler, Ronald Williams, Wounded Knee. He had been at Wounded Knee as a member of some sort of FBI special forces team.

By searching Google for Don Dealing tonight I found that he testified in 2004 in a trial regarding the death of Anna Mae Aquash. He says he was the first FBI agent on the scene. I don't recall talking to him about that. In the 2004 testimony he also says that his only knowledge of COINTELPRO is through what he has seen "through media and that sort of a thing."

Have you ever met an FBI agent? I have talked to a few, while in custody, as a reporter, watching a friend be arrested by a boatload of them once in Omaha. They don't seem human. They have a non-terrestrial aura. Stay away from them if you can. Your life will be richer for it.

Anyway, I spoke last night to the southeast Minnesota peacemakers group in Rochester, perhaps the most organized peace group in the continental USA. They have name tags and agendas and motions and seconds, and non-acidic tea.

In my talk I raise the question of whether Senator Paul Wellstone was assassinated by the Bush government. I really didn't know what to expect in giving the talk in Minnesota. But during and afterwards some said they agreed, and some thanked me for saying out loud what was on people's minds. They were not aware of Jim Fetzer's book, American Assassination

And so when someone asked what additional information I had about the Wellstone affair, I told them about the book. And I said that an electro-magnetic weapon was a possibility, and told how the FBI was on the scene too soon not to have left Minneapolis before the plane crashed. And the fire burned blue-white, which is how an electrical fire burns.

These are things I found out from reading Fetzer's book.

I have to admit, out loud, that a lot of what I say comes not from knowing, but from feeling. I don't apologize for that.

I don't think there is anything wrong with saying what you feel. I would actually like to have someone show me, to my satisfaction, that I am wrong about Bush and 9-11, Bush and Wellstone. That would be fine with me.

To have to imagine the alternative, that persons within our own government did these things, is not particularly easy to live with. I would be glad to let it go.

I first found out about Wellstone's death when I turned on my computer that day and went to Common Dreams and there was Wellstone's photo. I then went over to run on the treadmill at nearby Dordt College, and the Wellstone news was on the TV in the corner. A couple of college girls were snickering, implying that he got what he deserved. Gotta love those pro-lifers.

The timing of the death of Wellstone was perfect for the Bush administration. They needed that seat to control the Senate. Wellstone stood in the way of a lot of things.

Think how excited they would be at about that time, after pulling off 9-11, and set up perfectly to run the table, to take over the world. Would people like this let one guy stand in their way after all the work and struggle they had committed to become rich and powerful?

Not likely.

There was an investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that pilot error was responsible for the plane not maintaining adequate air speed, which led to a stall from which they could not recover.

And so we can be certain Wellstone was not murdered, because a commission said he was not.

Well, I don't agree.

I think these things can be rigged: the Warren Commission and the 9-11 commission come to mind.

I just think someone like Wellstone, who had heart, who was twice the man, twice the human being, that George W. Bush is, deserved better. He deserves justice. He deserves a real investigation.

He deserves to not be forgotten.

See you in Des Moines [The Ritual Cafe, April 14, 3 pm], Iowa City
[Public Library,330 pm.].

- Mike

The American Dream Book Tour #2

2007-04-10T16:32:00.000-04:00

SHELDON, IOWA — Hello all.

I am home this weekend for Easter, watching the Red Sox and Rangers on Sunday Night baseball.
I was in Lincoln, Omaha, Wayne, Sioux Falls since writing last.

Lots of memories in Omaha. Ruth and I lived there during much of the 1980s in a resistance community in north Omaha called Greenfields, named after the anti-war song The Greenfields of France.

"Oh how do ya do young Willie McBride. Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside." I think I carved that into my cell in Terre Haute Penitentiary while I was there for three weeks waiting transfer to El Reno, Leavenworth and La Tuna.

Terre Haute. "Dog-ass Terre Haute" somebody on the prison bus said as we pulled within sight. We had come from Chicago and stopped at Marion earlier in the day to pick up a couple of guys bound for Leavenworth after years in lockdown at Marion. Or maybe Marion came after Terre Haute. Not sure that I remember anymore. 'Scuse me.

You get out of the prison bus and you walk up toward the big brick penitentiary, through the guard towers and the shotguns and rifles. And you know that none of it has to do with right and wrong. It has to do with we are bigger than you and we could give a shit about thou shall not kill and the poor and any of that shit and we will kill you if you get out of line and run toward home and your son and your wife.

And 'scuse me, but that walk up from the prison bus to the big brick walls of Terre Haute Penitentiary is where I formed a good deal of my opinion of America. Even days and weeks and years spent in hot and cold classrooms, wooden desks and Formica desks, listening to Sister Anita and, Lucy, Monique and Luellan, studying American History and religion and English and hygiene, from impressive, hard cover textbooks made in Texas could not compare.

The guns were pointed at me. My son was sitting at home in Nebraska looking out the window wondering when I was coming home.

America. It is big and it will kill you. It is mean. It is rich. It is obnoxious. It is beautiful. It has people capable of stopping their car in rush hour traffic to move a baby bird to the grass, or of looking the other way for forty years while people suffer and suffer and finally die.

America. A big, red brick walled country.

But, shit, the people who will stop in traffic for the little bird are far and few between, while the ones who will take money to build big, red brick walls are lined up from here to the hardware store.

Anyway ... Omaha.

Dog-ass Omaha.

I went to jail for the first time in Omaha, along with the second, third, fourth and fifth times.

I went to seminary from Omaha, too.

Took the bus, Greyhound, from Norfolk, to meet the bishop. Then up to Saint Paul where I met Fr. Daniel Berrigan, a priest who said there were better things than becoming a priest, such as working for peace and for justice and the poor, and I believed him. I still do.

During the summer I got my teeth cleaned back home in Norfolk, and I guess I liked clean teeth, so I ended up marrying the dental hygienist. We moved to Omaha and moved into Greenfields.

I wrote a letter to Archbishop Daniel Sheehan asking him what he thought of Offutt Air Force Base, home of the Strategic Air Command, which was responsible for the targeting of all of America's nuclear weapons. Sheehan said the targeting was cool with him and the Catholic Church. Threatening all those people with murder was cool, spending all those billions of dollars on weapons and not on the poor people of
north Omaha was cool with the bishop and the Catholic Church.

So I made up my own little sign.

It said "The Omaha Catholic Church Supports SAC — Why?"

I picketed outside the bishop's offices on Dodge Street, inside his offices, outside the Masses of the jillion Catholic churches in Omaha. I went on a hunger strike once inside Douglas County Correctional Center to try to get the bishop to say "thou shall not kill." I once stood in front of the congregation at St. Cecilia's Cathedral while the bishop gave his Easter homily, holding my sign.

I once took sanctuary inside the Cathedral, went there instead of going to federal court for an Offutt protest, again asking, demanding that the bishop say "thou shall not kill." He raised a strong chin, firmly placed his red bishop's cap on his head and smoothed his gold-laced, ankle-length robes and said, of course, he would not.

I decided not to let the FBI take me — they were all around the church — one was posing as a stations-of-the-cross sayer inside the church.

While a friend held a diversionary press conference on the front steps I pulled a sweatshirt hood over my head and threw a black garbage sack over my back and walked out a side door, took out the Cathedral garbage, and hopped into the car my wife had left for me in the parking lot.

Ruth and I and our young son were on the run from the FBI for about two nerve-wracking weeks, staying in the cabin of a sympathetic priest, at the mother house of a local religious order, in a friend's apartment, out at her family's farm in South Dakota.

Then I ended up giving myself up at a press conference, again at the Chancery, the bishop's office, after which my wife and son went home alone. I went to Douglas County Correctional Center, where I went crazy, insane, clinically depressed, from missing my young son ... and the bishop ... he went golfing.

Dog-ass Catholic Church.

It is big and it will kill you.

Palecek On the Road 1

2007-04-10T16:28:00.000-04:00

Mike Palecek is on the road for a book tour to read from his newest book "The American Dream" and others. I will be printing his missives here Mike Palecek is an activist who has spent time in prison for his work against US Imperialism and the Iraq war. He is the author of books including, Joe Coffee’s Revolution,
KGB, Twins, The Truth, The Last Liberal Outlaw, Looking for Bigfoot, and Terror Nation.

March 27, 2007

Hello.

Tomorrow I give Ruth a hug and drive away to Kansas City for the first stop on my book tour, a meeting of the K.C. Drinking Liberally group.

It’s been one hundred years since I really went out and socialized. I think this trip will be a learning experience for me.

Just finished updating the itinerary. There are seventy-eight stops between drinking with the liberals in Kansas City to drinking with the liberals in Colorado Springs on July 3.

Got my car worked on, tune-up, oil, two new tires. Cost about fifteen hundred or so. And so, of course, this afternoon I’m going back to the shop because the windshield wiper fluid still doesn’t spray. And maybe I should have got that driver’s side window and the radio to work, I don’t know, maybe.

I did figure out the iPod, with the help of my kids, Sam and Emily. Ruth bought me a map and Lisa Casey at All Hat No Cattle and Bart at Bartcop.com sent me T-shirts. Awesome.

At 51, it’s been awhile, almost thirty years, since I took my last road trip in my dad’s 1959 Chevy with the wings, and my dog, and cowboy hat I bought in Fort Collins after visiting my sister. I always called her derisively “my rich sister.” I shouldn't have done that. That’s maybe not fair, but her husband, once the manager of KCOL radio in Fort Collins, was up on the dais when President Gerald Ford visited Fort Collins in the 1970s. I don’t like Gerald Ford. He’s dead and I don't like him any better. He was supposed to be a man’s president, football player and all. If he was half a man he wouldn’t have lied to us all with the rest of the Warren Commission. Oh, well, what you gonna do with rich bastards? About all you can do is holler. They’re still gonna do whatever it is they do.

Anyway, dad’s brown and white Chevy, my dog, Nicki, sitting in the front seat, ears flapping in the breeze, looking around at me, out the window with Buddhist detachment. Headed out west, to Oregon, to find the sun, the truth, the girl of my dreams, my ass with both hands, I really don’t know. Dad died in 1981 in an Omaha hospital, of kidney failure, the day before Ruth and I got married. That has been awhile, too. Wish I still had the white plastic Jesus we used to have on the
dashboard of the Chevy. It might come in handy.

I never did want to do this, take a book tour. In my mind, that’s the reason you write books, because you don’t or won’t talk. But my books are good, really, trust me, and they deserve a chance to live. So I’m going to give about eighty speeches more than I have ever given in my life — and I think it will be a blast. When it’s all over, after you get back and sit with a quart of beer in both hands on the back porch, that kind of a blast, not necessarily while, oh, well, that’s enough.

I need to just go do it. Right. I hear you.

First, I need to put this letter to the IRS in the mail.

seeya

Mike

March 27, 2007

Internal Revenue Service
Kansas City, MO 64999-002

Hello,

Enclosed is a crossed-out tax form.

I will not cooperate with the murderous regime of George W. Bush.

President Bush and his administration planned and carried out the attacks on the United States on 9-11-01, in order to attack Iraq and steal their oil.

In the eyes of Bush and Cheney and Rove, the war is going according to plan. They and their friends are making millions, billions, from the oil, from the defense industry, while the poor go without, while social services are cut in order to pay for more war and killing.

As a Christian, I cannot go along with this.

I must protest.

Sincerely,

Mike Palecek

Winter Commentary

2007-03-23T09:47:00.000-04:00

Winter can be a dark and brutal time. The cold and the shortness of days take its toll on all, especially the poor, the old and the ill. I have come to think of it as the dying time. This winter has claimed one of the most important writers of our class. In this issue we mourn the loss of Tillie Olsen whose vital writing opened doors for women's literature and enriched the working class with a feminist awareness. We honor her memory by continuing to publish working class literature that includes and values the experience and perspective of the largest and most exploited population of all; working class women.

As the monstrosity of the brutal occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan enters its fifth year, public awareness and anger at the needless loss of life and liberties as well as of economic and physical security is growing. Increasing numbers of people are demanding an end to the criminally insane policies of corruption and war and justice for its perpetrators. The poets in this issue reflect the spectrum of where we are as a nation. Some, like J.P. Creighton are veterans. Others like Jesse Kiefer are the family of those caught up in the nightmare of war through the poverty draft. In a real sense, all of us are veterans of the day to day struggle to survive under fire in a system in which everything and everyone are disposable commodities for the enrichment of the very few. Our working class values of community, ingenuity, and mutual responsibility are the foundations of a better kind of society -- a better world.

This issue is comes in our annual fundraising season. In it you will find an insert asking for your support so that we can continue of mission of publishing the finest voices of our working class. In these bleak times of escalating war and impending ecological disaster, the voices of sanity and struggle that we are proud to be able to publish are a beacon of hope assuring us that we are notWinter can be a dark and brutal time. The cold and the shortness of days take its toll on all, especially the poor, the old and the ill. I have come to think of it as the dying time. This winter has claimed one of the most important writers of our class. In this issue we mourn the loss of Tillie Olsen whose vital writing opened doors for women's literature and enriched the working class with a feminist awareness. We honor her memory by continuing to publish working class literature that includes and values the experience and perspective of the largest and most exploited population of all; working class women.

As the monstrosity of the brutal occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan enters its fifth year, public awareness and anger at the needless loss of life and liberties as well as of economic and physical security is growing. Increasing numbers of people are demanding an end to the criminally insane policies of corruption and war and justice for its perpetrators. The poets in this issue reflect the spectrum of where we are as a nation. Some, like J.P. Creighton are veterans. Others like Jesse Kiefer are the family of those caught up in the nightmare of war through the poverty draft. In a real sense, all of us are veterans of the day to day struggle to survive under fire in a system in which everything and everyone are disposable commodities for the enrichment of the very few. Our working class values of community, ingenuity, and mutual responsibility are the foundations of a better kind of society -- a better world.

This issue is comes in our annual fundraising season. In it you will find an insert asking for your support so that we can continue of mission of publishing the finest voices of our working class. In these bleak times of escalating war and impending ecological disaster, the voices of sanity and struggle that we are proud to be able to publish are a beacon of hope assuring us that we are not
alone and inspiring us in the struggle for a better future. We thank you in advance for your support as well as for your poetry and comments and the hope they engender. We look forward to a year of inspiration and progress.

British working class poetry, early 1800's

2007-03-21T19:28:00.000-04:00

Found an interesting short article in the U.K. Guardian, about a large number of recently unearthed political protest poems written by workers in Britain during the early 1800's. The article, which includes a couple of the poems, is here.

Thanks to Jilly Dybka's Poetry Hut Blog, where I originally found the link to the article.

Fortune

2007-02-24T15:35:00.000-05:00

We get many review copies of poetry collections and most are never reviewed for lack of time, energy or quality. I recently recieved a rather ostentatious looking collection -- hard bound and decorated with a Düreresque woodcut by what appeared at first glance to be an academic poet. Well, first impressions aside I try to view every collection with an open mind. It's good thing because despite the uppity presentation this is one monstrously great collection of poetry. The collection is called Fortune by Joseph Millar and I feel very fortunate to have recieved it. It's even inspired me to write a few poems and that is the best thing any poetry can do. Millar has been around the block a few times. Before his present job teaching at Oregon State University, he worked many jobs from commercial fisherman to telephone repairman. A life fully lived shows in this rich collection but rather than shower this collection with a heap of high sounding accolades, I prefer to post a sample and let the work speak for itself:

Sockeye Delivery
You never knew the price we'd be paid
when we pulled along side to deliver,
the tide smoking past us at seven knots
jerking the tie-up lines tight,
and Aretha chanting Chain of Fools
from the gurry-streaked deck speakers
under the wheelhouse.
You had so much to think about:
boat payments, fish cops, feul costs, time,
while the canvas brailers swung across deck
trailing thick strands of wild salmon blood
and the washdown hose blasted into our fish holds
knocking loose broken-off gill plates and scales.

How many times you lifted us into the tender's
floating stage of diesel and tar and ice.
We drifted the western edge of the continent,
a mile offshore, invisible in the shadows,
while somewhere beyond the pocked skin
of the tundra, you knew the aqua-farmed salmon
were swimming in circles through their own waste,
swallowing dog food and anti-biotics.
Overhead the Dow Jones computers
sang through the frozen latitudes
and we listened to the hydraulics groan in the wind
passing the bloodstained bags of new silver
from one rusted hull to the next
over the slate-colored waves.

This collection is published by the Eastern Washington University Press and priced at $22.95. Though the hard-bind has made it more costly, it is well worth the price and we highly recommend it.

Tillie Olsen - Presenté!

2007-01-03T14:15:00.000-05:00

It is with sadness that we reprint the following article. The world of Working Class Literature has lost one of our giants:
Author and activist Tillie Olsen, whose landmark book of short stories, "Tell Me a Riddle," depicted the lives of working-class women, died of complications of Alzheimer's disease Monday in Oakland. She was 94.

Though she wrote just two other books, "Yonnondio" and "Silences," her influence was great.

"She was indispensable -- in her spirit and in her influence on young women writers," said Joyce Jenkins, editor of Poetry Flash magazine.

Ms. Olsen was born Jan. 14, 1912, on a tenant farm in Nebraska, the second of six children of Jewish Russian immigrants who had fled the failed Russian revolution of 1905.

"In 1929, she embarked on what would be a lifetime odyssey of working-class jobs," her daughter, Julie Olsen, said Tuesday.

She worked in a factory, in a laundry, as a hotel maid, as a waitress and as a pork trimmer in a meat packinghouse.

During the Depression, she became active in labor, social and political causes and joined the Young Communist League.

After moving to San Francisco, she and her lifelong companion, Jack Olsen, were among the protesters jailed on "Bloody Thursday" during the general strike of 1934.

The couple raised four daughters -- Karla, Julie, Kathie and Laurie -- in San Francisco's Mission District. Jack Olsen died in 1989.

"Our home became a refuge and gathering place for people who shared their commitment to build a more just world," Julie Olsen said.

During World War II, Ms. Olsen was head of the Congress of Industrial Organizations War Relief and was also president of the California CIO state auxiliary.

After the war, during the fiercely anti-Communist McCarthy era, Olsen was accused of being an "agent of Stalin working to infiltrate the city's schools through the PTA," her daughter said. She was never formally charged.

Between work, activism and raising a family, she found scraps of time to write, and finally, after receiving a Wallace Stegner fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University, published her first short story, "I Stand Here Ironing," in 1955. She was 43.

"In that story, she demonstrated that a woman doing mundane domestic things could be inspiring and enspiriting," Frances Howe, director of the Feminist Press at City University of New York, said Tuesday.

"She told women writers that it's OK to write about how you live and what you do," Howe said.

"There is something epic about her work," said San Francisco poet Brenda Hillman. "But I don't think the subject matter alone would have made her a great writer. Her style was so plain, dispassionate, spare and heartful."

Ms. Olsen's perfectionism was well known.

"She writes almost totally in dialogue, and if you cut a line, you're lost," said Howe, who is just now preparing a new edition of "Tell Me a Riddle" -- paired with Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich" -- to be published by the Feminist Press in March.

"She had such energy," said Malcolm Margolin, publisher of Heyday Books in Berkeley.

"Something about that activist background energized people to believe that they were part of a cause bigger than themselves," Margolin said. "She had a kind of generosity, because she wasn't self-seeking. She was in service of social justice."

Despite the bloody conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries, Ms. Olsen never succumbed to despair.

"I have a lot of faith in the American people if they have access to truth," she said in an interview published on the Web site of Modern American Poetry. "I buy 100 copies at a time of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was Eleanor Roosevelt's great work. And it happened in San Francisco, at the first meeting of the United Nations."

Among her many honors, Ms. Olsen received the 2001 Fred Cody Award. Named for the founder of Cody's Books, the award is given each year to a literary figure who has contributed greatly to the community.

Ms. Olsen is survived by four daughters and eight grandchildren. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Tillie Olsen Memorial Fund for Human Rights, Public Libraries and Working Class Literature, c/o the San Francisco Foundation, 225 Bush St., No. 500, San Francisco, CA 94104. The date and time of a public memorial will be announced.

Autumn Commentary

2006-12-22T07:46:00.000-05:00

We begin our 10th year of publishing in a post-election time of hope. A hope balanced by the healthy skepticism borne of experience. As we go to press, we as a society are living on the precipice of disaster -- something we as a class are used to. The dangers of ecological and economic collapse, and the threats to our basic freedoms cannot be ignored. Though this criminal administration has suffered a serious blow, it may prove more dangerous than ever. It is up to us as active citizens to put a stop to the destructive madness of our ruling class.
In the insanity of our corporate culture that surrounds us like an angry sea, the resistance and the human solidarity we feel may sometimes seem like insanity on our part -- especially given the odds, but it is in fact true sanity and our only hope of surviving the maniacally destructive wake of the capitalist juggernaut.
Our working class culture is one of militant empathy and class solidarity tempered by our shared conditions: our struggle to survive the tyranny of the workplace and the terror of economic insecurity. It is a culture of mutual faith that together we can build a better world free from bosses, war, and poverty.
It is the mission of this journal and press to revitalize and promote our true culture as opposed to the cynical, destructive, and anti-human culture invented for the purpose of selling us commodities and propping up the dictatorship of business. We are not alone in this effort. There are some great new collections of poetry being published that we highly recommend. "Crow Call" by Michael Henson, published by West End Press is an especially strong collection of poetry dealing with homelessness, our struggle against the forces of "real estate" and our own fragility. Several of the poems in this collection have appeared in the pages of this journal. Two new exceptional collections by the poet Lyle Daggett have also come to our attention. "What is Buried Here" published by Red Dragonfly Press and "The Idea of Legacy" published by Musical Comedy Editions of Minneapolis. Both of these are great collections, though I believe the latter to be the strongest. The last poem in this issue is from that work and ads for both are published in this issue as well.
We at Partisan Press also have some recently, and not-so-recently published books which are advertised in this issue. While we feel it is vital to our mission of promoting the best poets of our working class -- those ignored and sidelined by mainstream and academic presses, we have observed that after the difficulty, stress and expense of publishing these books, they often languish collecting dust. It seems that, aside from live readings, people tend to buy books from poets they know and miss reading the poets they should know. All the collections I have mentioned, and many I haven't, are vital works that are guaranteed to move, inspire and influence readers. They are also relatively cheap -- less than a meal out and sure to feed the reader for much longer.
We all feel insecure ordering books by writers we are unfamiliar with but we also know that presses like ours, West End, Pigmy Forrest, Red Dragonfly, Curbstone and a few others specialize in the publication of strong progressive work. Anything published by these presses are a safe bet and it is vital for us all, and especially those of us who hope to get published, to support them.
Culture is a powerful force that shapes our attitudes and defines our identity. Progressive working class culture is our collective possession and we are glad to be able to do our part to nurture it. The poets we publish and those who support our efforts should be proud to be a part of it and we are grateful for your continuing support and participation. We look forward to a new year of productive struggle and the inspiration of our creative sanity, together forging a future worthy of life.

Theater Review: My Name is Rachel Corrie

2006-11-16T12:09:00.000-05:00

My Name is Rachel Corrie, from the writings of Rachel Corrie,
edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner

Minetta Lane Theater, New York City, opening date October 15, 2006 runs through December 30.

Quiet and immovable, the battered concrete walls that define the set sit like an ancient Greek chorus. They judge the humans whose lives play out before them. We know when we walk into the theater that Rachel Corrie died while attempting to protect a cement home from the heavy and unforgiving blade of an Israeli bulldozer. The monoliths evoke both that house and the wall that Israel is building through Palestine.

Rachel Corrie joined the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) January 25, 2003 and died 50 days later on March 16th in Rafah, a town in the West Bank that borders Egypt. The ISM is a group that organizes volunteers from all over the world to take an active, but non-violent role in defense of the Palestinian people, their homes, farms, water sources, and to act as witnesses and media conduits to the daily struggle to survive under Israeli occupation.

On one side of the stage concrete rubble litters the perimeter and on the other sits Rachel's warm bedroom in Olympia, Washington. It's the series of warm bright tones, red wall covered with photos and clippings from magazines, and a comfortable bed with a flowered quilt, that contrast with the stark coldness of her future.

Rachel, played wonderfully by Megan Dodds, talks about her life while she proceeds to pack away all of the symbols of girlhood: fashion magazines, books, a tumble of clothing (including some silly, silver, sparkling boots), family photos, a radio, and the lamp that looks like any bought in the local five and dime store. She pulls her bed offstage and shoves the red wall aside fully revealing the stark reality for many people in the occupied territories of Palestine. Rachel has just moved from the land of safety to the war zone.

The play isn't just a coming of age story; it is one person's transformation from idealist to realist. Rachel finds the facts of life seriously challenging her long-held beliefs about human nature. She writes a long email to her mother explaining her shifting ideas.

For a long time I've been operating from a certain core assumption that we are all essentially the same inside, and that our differences are by and large situational. That goes for everybody — Bush, Bin Laden, Tony Blair, me, you, Sarah, Chris, Dad, Gram, Palestinians, everybody of any particular religion. I know there is a good chance that this assumption actually is false. But it's convenient, because it always leads to questions about the way privilege shelters people from the consequences of their actions. It's also convenient because it leads to some level of forgiveness, whether justified or not.

The play, a series of journal entries and emails from was edited together by actor Alan Rickman and Katharine

Viner, a long-time editor for The Guardian newspaper of London. After two successful runs in London the production prepared to move to New York City to appear Off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop (NYTW) when it was suddenly canceled.

So why is the moving story of one person who died in an area that has seen so many deaths controversial? Artistic Director James Nicola of the NYTW "postponed" a scheduled production of the play (It was going to open March 22, 2006) when he "discovered how deeply ingrained the attitudes were on all sides and what a marketing and contextualizing challenge this posed." (Playgoer) Katharine Viner characterized Nicola's move this way, "The political climate, we were told, had changed dramatically since the play was booked. As James Nicola, the theater's 's artistic director, said Monday, 'Listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections, we had a very edgy situation.' Three years after being silenced for good, Rachel was to be censored for political reasons. …We always felt passionately that it was a piece of work that needed to be seen in the United States." (LA Times 3/1/06 Opinion section)

Luckily when Pam Pariseau and Dena Hammerstein of the Minetta Lane Theater saw the show in London they "thought, God, it would be so amazing to present that Off-Broadway so that New York theatergoers would have

that same experience." (NY Times 6/22/06) The show opened on October 15, 2006 to favorable reviews.

But the issue is bigger than the self-censorship practiced by NYTW. It's the same issue that Rachel Corrie died for, Palestinian self-determination. The issue of the Middle East, especially regarding Israel and Palestine, is subject of much argument world-wide. However the thing that motivated Rachel Corrie was the fact that the United States supports Israel with billions of dollars every year. Rachel said that she wanted to join the ISM in Gaza "…to meet the people who are on the receiving end of our [U.S.] tax dollars." The U.S. government has always had various reasons for supporting Israel, many of which have nothing to do with "supporting democracy" or fighting anti-Semitism. Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig reportedly said that "Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security."

The reason why the region is so critical is oil. Oil is not simply an extremely valuable commodity; it is a strategic resource and one that the U.S. has struggled to control for most of the last century. By having a client and dependent state in the Middle East, the U.S. has been able to project its considerable interests there. While some claim that powerful lobbies control U.S. policy toward Israel, it is actually the other way around. If the billions of U.S. dollars that pour into Israel each year were withdrawn the government there might collapse. That fact makes the U.S.

complicit in Israeli actions, be they bombing civilian targets in Lebanon or bulldozing Palestinian homes in Gaza. Rachel Corrie felt that complicity deep in her heart when she stood before the American-made bulldozer and tried to stop it from destroying a friend's home.

Some argue that the ISM is a pawn of the Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Brigades. However the founders of the ISM see themselves as a non-violent activists carrying out civil disobedience. Their mission statement reads: "As enshrined in international law and UN resolutions, we recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle. However, we believe that nonviolence can be a powerful weapon in fighting oppression and we are committed to the principles of nonviolent resistance." (ISM) The group is by no means monolithic, various activists from all over the world bring their own views, experiences, and analysis to the actions that they take. Rachel Corrie was both distinctly North American and an emerging internationalist. Several ISM volunteers have been injured by Israeli Defense Forces including Tom Hurndall who died after being shot in the head.

Most cable television viewers who have taken the time to watch the BBC news or news shows from other European countries notice a stark difference in the way the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is presented. The European stations talk about the devastating effect of attacks and incursions by the vastly superior Israeli military on civilian

populations in Palestine. Any such new coverage in the U.S. is muted in a false attempt to put an equal sign between the violence of the oppressor and the resistance of the oppressed.

The question we in the United States must ask is: how can we stop the use of our taxes to oppress people in Palestine, Iraq, Latin America, Africa, Asia or any where else, including here at home?

In a final email Rachel Corrie said to her mother:
What we are paying for here is truly evil. Maybe the general growing class imbalance in the world and consequent devastation of working people's lives is a bigger evil. Being here should make me more aware of what it means to be a farmer in Columbia, for example. …This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for all of us to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do any more. …Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not what they are asking for now. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I was two and looked at Capitol Lake and said, "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it."

Rachel's life and determination have been preserved by her words and the generosity of her family for sharing them with the world. Rachel's death was not more or less important than any person's who has died in the conflict, but luckily she was a passionate and prolific writer. She filled her life with the struggle for justice and My Name is Rachel Corrie fills the stage with vitality and meaning.

Copyright © Deirdre Sinnott, 10/19/06.

Culture and Struggle

2006-10-06T08:11:00.000-04:00

Australian poet Bryn Griffith wins national recognition for his work as a progressive working class poet.

Summer Editorial

2006-09-09T08:07:00.000-04:00

As the long days of summer draw to an end, this issue comes bearing witness to an escalating environmental crisis and to the needless slaughter that serves to fuel more of the same. As many are learning and some refuse to learn, military aggression enflames resistance to injustice. Only diplomacy and a willingness to redress grievances can bring peace and security.

This issue marks the completion of 10 years of publication -- no small feat given the constant struggle of rising expenses and an almost nonexistent budget! Though we consistently operate in the red, we are continually astounded at the power of the working class writing we have been fortunate to publish. Our readers tell us every issue is worth keeping, and fortunately for you, we have many back issues available. We remain committed to continuing and expanding our efforts.

In addition to this journal, Partisan Press also publishes exceptional collections of working class literature. Our newest book, A Possible Explanation, is by lyrical revolutionary Peggy Sapphire. A poem from this collection, "The Presence of Justice" appears in this issue. This handsome flat-spined book (see ad below) is an electrifying must have for lovers of progressive poetry and is available for only $14.00 (shipping included).

Our summer issue also announces the winners of the Working People's Poetry Contest. We had a number of excellent submissions. The first prize and winner of the $100.00 and one year's subscription is Bobbi Dykema Katsanis for "Potato Suicides," this moving poem is dedicated to one of many farmers driven to suicide during the US farm crisis of the 1980's. The greed of multinational agribusiness continues to drive farmers to suicide globally as well as in the US. Also included in this issue are two poems which won honorable mentions (and a one year subscription) -- "Last Tour" by Gerald R. Wheeler and "Post Supervisor Scars" by Susan Simonds. All three winning poems are posted on our website for one year.

As ever, we are grateful for your support and comments in this our collective effort to give voice to you who are creating a progressing working class culture.

Guerilla Poetics

2006-09-03T06:48:00.000-04:00

Most of us know the that the likelihood of our poetry being published by a big press (like Norton, Knoph or Bantam Books) is nill. If you aren't already a big name -- forget it. Most of also know the difficulty of getting big store distribution for a small press. There are many obstacles that keep the best poets from ever being read. Though there are excellent poets that are fortunate to get the breaks that bring major publication, most of the best poets will only be found in the small press.

Some poets are fighting back. They are lurking in booksores, firing off missives and planting literary mines within the heart of the big press projects. Should you want to enlist as an operative, the Guerilla Poetics Project needs your efforts but they have rules. Check them out. Join the Struggle.

New from Partisan Press

2006-07-12T07:19:00.000-04:00

We are proud to be able to publish A Possible Explanation by Peggy Sapphire. This is a powerful collection, as Myra Shapiro says; "In Peggy Sapphire's poems the personal becomes political, a circle turning from home beyond to the world and back "I'm part of history now/that's my job." These poems never let us forget injustice; they insist on our caring, on what was once called the good fight. Yet the intellect is not without the power of the senses just as world events are not without the importance of where we came from read "The Art of Making an Omelette" to catch the ever-present activist, watcher, listener, taster, lover at her delicious best: "take big bites," You will be nourished, fed seasoned love and cultural history at a generous table." This attractive flat-spined collection is a bargain at $12.00 --

Into the Desperate Country by Jeff Vande Zande

2006-06-27T07:24:00.000-04:00

Jaff Vande Zande is a long time supporter and contributor to the Blue Collar Review. He has used it in his classes at Delta College.

March Street Press announces the publication of Jeff Vande Zande’s debut novel . . . Into the Desperate Country.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats.”

--Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Into the Desperate Country . . .

Having abandoned his life after the deaths of his wife and daughter, Stan Carter begins accidentally to live “deliberately” in his cabin near Gaylord, MI. Soon, though, he feels the very insistent pull of society calling him back to the path: Find love. Find a job. Have kids. Own a house. And then die -- having, perhaps, never lived. It's the siren call of conformity and status quo. It's the call Stan must fight. And, in some way, it's the fight we all have as we make our way.

Signed copies of the novel can be ordered by sending a check payable to Jeff Vande Zande for $18.00 (includes shipping) to:

Jeff Vande Zande
P.O. Box 2042
Bay City, MI 48707

Spring Editorial

2006-06-10T14:20:00.000-04:00

As this season of new life winds to a close, we are grateful for the life-giving support of our readers to be able to publish another issue. Your support makes continuing this project possible in hard times. We are far from financially secure and your tax-deductable support of our press is always needed.

We hands that push brooms, buffers and shovels, that drive cabs and trucks, that tend the sick; We extensions of machinery; We office slaves, counter clerks, builders, plumbers and programers -- We are expected to show up to work on time, work hard, be loyal team players, buy ourselves into debt, pay our bills on time and die quietly when we are no longer of use. We are not supposed to have our own opinions, think, or speak when not spoken to, and we are not supposed to write.

They do their best to keep tabs on us. They drug test us and monitor our conversations at work. They tap our phones and our computers at home. But still we speak the forbidden. We talk about the boss. We agitate against their wars and global destruction. We organize to demand better conditions and basic rights and we dare, in spite of the risks and the barriers of cultural elitism, to write poetry that matters.

Poetry publication on a large scale is reserved for the literati, where an academic poetry devoid of content is preferred and politics, avoided and condemned. This magazine is an exception. We have seen a few sprouts of progressive literature. But, with very few exceptions, they lack the vital working class connection. This issue, like many others, is an example of the strength of poetry as an authentic expression rooted in the nitty-gritty working class experience: a reality that includes nationality, gender and race. In communicating our common experience what is revealed is the transcendancy of class.

As our world tumbles toward environmental catastrophe, spreading war and the tyrannies of fundamentalism and corporate dictatorship, our only hope for the future is in the unified class-consciousness of our international working class. Without our participation they are powerless.

At a time when our corporate ruling class is promoting nationalist xenophobia and scapegoating immigrant workers forced here by NAFTA's destruction of their country's economy, our class unity is even more vital. We believe that a literature that inspires that unity is a must and we are dedicated to publishing and promoting it.

Reader Alert!

2006-05-18T16:37:00.000-04:00

There is a good commentary on political poetry and the frustration/necessity of writing it here.

Review - 100 Words Per Minute

2006-05-16T06:56:00.000-04:00

100 Words Per Minute: Tales from Behind Law Office Doors
a collection of essays and poems by Adina Sara
2006: Regent Press

There are some who believe that the best way to ennoble the people who do the real work is to render them heroic. There is nothing heroic about the portrayal of workers behind the desks in 100 Words Per Minute: Tales from Behind Law Office Doors, a collection of essays and poetry by Adina Sara (Regent Press, 2006). Rather, the author's strategy is to individualize, humanize and illuminate.

As we accompany the author through her unintentional thirty-year stint as a legal worker bee, we are introduced with equanimity to gentle souls, brilliant minds, abusive monsters, and lone wolves. There are no easy paradigms here, no Boss = Bad/Worker = Good, no Temps = Slackers/Administrators = Sell Outs. There are only people -- individuals -- depicted in deft, memorable, portraits. You won't find recognizable affinities either, no office romances or coup d`états; the subject here is work. Sometimes it involves supporting the honest efforts of people seeking to better the world, and sometimes it means assisting those who seek to enrich themselves through exploitation and chicanery. And sometimes it's just about putting in the time and moving on.

Like so many clerical workers, Sara never stops wondering how she got there. As a successful singer-songwriter and gardening columnist, her passions always lay elsewhere. Yet these passions were never acknowledged or even noticed by the people with whom she spent most of her daylight hours. She, along with a veritable army of support workers, are not just overlooked by the attorneys or administrators, but by each other. In one essay, Sara describes the sad little lunch celebration of one "Secretaries Day," an uncomfortable gathering of people who had never taken the time to get to know one another seated about a perfectly round table. In another essay, she finds herself stunned to be receiving make-up tips from a flamboyant litigation assistant. The humor of these encounters underscores the isolation, lack of community, and repression inherent in the label "clerical worker".

Interspersed between the essays are poems which testify to Sara's skill as a songwriter. These accessible ballads are reminiscent of the work of Jim Daniels -- immediate, honest, and affecting. As someone unfamiliar with the milieu of attorneys, I found myself astonished by the shear variety of backgrounds and backdrops. Sara shows us everything from literal fly-by-night operations to antiseptic aisles of corporate cubicles.

Yet for all of it, Sara in no way becomes cynical. Though she never does invest emotionally in her work, she remains curious about those around her and ever hopeful that she will be treated with dignity, paid reasonably, and dealt with fairly. And, in time, she grows into acceptance and the satisfaction of a job well done.

This touching, unpretentious examination of a lifetime of work would make a meaningful gift to anyone doing clerical work, whether from their supervisor or from a peer. It would open the eyes of management as well. Paced appropriately for the coffee break, denizens of cubicles everywhere will recognize themselves and know that they are not alone in their isolation. Readers who are contemplating a life in any aspect of the legal profession can consider this a Baedeker. And finally, readers who are indefatigable in their belief that every individual deserves to be encountered without preconception, will find in Adina Sara a kindred spirit.

Tracy Koretsky

Review: Looking For Bigfoot by Mike Palecek

2006-05-10T18:51:00.000-04:00

This is a review from The Briar Cliff Review of Looking For Bigfoot by Mike Palecek. the book is now available from Howling Dog Press

This is not reading for the faint of heart. If Jeremiah were alive in Iowa, his name would be Mike Palecek, a writer/activist who's done time for antiwar civil disobedience and written six powerful books before this one. You remember, Jeremiah showed up with some nasty comments when King Solomon was telling the citizens that everything was fine. Here's a taste of our own critic, then:

Is this Heaven?? Nope, Iowa. It's Iowa, where everything good is bad. All the good stuff about this state is sour, bitter, spoiled. Because this state is for the war. These people are for the war. They support the troops, the war. They kill children and anyone else who gets in their way as they drive to Hy-Vee for the special on iceberg lettuce.

But you may be asking, isn't this a novel? Yes, a fine one, and those are the words of Jack Robert King, who has left his home -- the Field of Dreams farmhouse -- in search of Bigfoot and his old baseball coach Larry Moore. In the meantime, he also broadcasts Bigfoot Radio through the internet (free speech indeed, to whomever is listening). The bus ride is full of little adventures and fascinating characters,
and the energetic style definitely makes this one a page-turner. Here I feel obliged to try to place Palecek among his literary forbears. His dedication page has a list of authors ranging from Sinclair Lewis to Hunter Thompson to George Orwell, good company. A few more who came to my mind are Franz Kafka, Jack Kerouac (On the Road) and even late Tolstoy. Jack Robert King is the kind of character we love to follow
even if we might not want to spend days next to him on the bus. He's full of a delicious combination of ethical and political outrage, love for his country's ideals, a keen detective's nose, appreciation for ordinary (read: powerless) people, and of course the mythic quest drawing him across the country. And unlike Hunter Thompson, if Jack Robert King is insane, he is so unaided by any drugs unless you count American hypocrisy. If we can believe that America is a peace-loving
people and that George Dubya Bush is always truthful, then why can't we believe in Bigfoot or the aliens who crashed near Roswell, or that there were conspiracies to kill the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. "Eternal vigilance," said abolitionist Wendell Phillips, "is the price of liberty." So, who do you believe if you can't believe our own government?

But, you're thinking, but what about the mythic quest? Does he find Bigfoot and his old coach? Well, that would be telling. You'll just have to get on the bus and spend a few compellingly enjoyable days reading to find out. I will say this, though, he returns home to the Field of Dreams and his beloved wife and kids and the novel's not quite over even then.

Highly recommended.

Winter Editorial

2006-03-16T15:41:00.000-05:00

It was amusing recently to hear Hillary Clinton compare our country to a plantation. She was criticized heavily in the corporate media as a pandering opportunist. True as that accusation is of her, she was right to make the comparison. This country is a plantation and the entire globe is treated as its fields; Our oil in the Middle East and elsewhere, Our minerals in Africa and Asia, Our cheap labor in sweatshops that ring the globe like a noose. The Our in this equation is our narrow ruling class and most of us are no more than field hands in the operation of Plantation America.

Here in the work shops, streets, and fields, winter is a hardscrabble season as we struggle through the darkness to ward off illness, higher living costs and the chilling insecurity of our lot. Taunted daily with fear of destitution and violence, we are expected to quietly participate in our own destruction and show up to work on time.

Our working class is used to hard times and we take pride in having survived them but there are limits. As our nation tumbles toward a police state, and as the insanity and incompetent criminality of this administration's policies, from the Gulf Coast to Iraq become too much to bear, this has come to be called, "The Winter of our Discontent." People are coming together across our nation to stand up against the premeditated mass-murder and torture being perpetrated in our name. We field hands are tired of the lies and abuse, tired of the killing and scare tactics, tired of being spied on by an increasingly oppressive and secretive government. We are massing at the Big House asking the dangerous questions and demanding real answers.

The poems in this issue are the winter voices of those who tend the fields. These poems speak of our class pride of survival, they speak of the despair of degrading dead end jobs, they are the voices of anger at the criminal insanity of our Moloch driven system and the voices of militant faith in the possibility of a better world.

Hard times are not a new experience for our small press either, and we take pride in having persevered and survived this long. We have much to be proud of. We are proud to have been able to support the work of many fine working class poets over the last nine years, publishing powerful and relevant work that might otherwise have gone unseen. We also work to inspire new poets through exposure to this journal and by conducting workshops. These efforts are not without costs, some of which are financial. To meet the challenge of those costs we rely primarily on your support to cover the rising price of postage, paper, supplies and to keep this press running, as this is a small worker run effort. This is our fundraising season and you will find an insert to that effect in this issue. Consider making a tax-deductible contribution to ensure our ability to continue publishing this kind of work and even to expand our efforts. If you are not a subscriber and you like what you see, consider supporting it. If you are a frequent contributor, consider including a subscription with your next submission. Someday we would like to be able to pay our contributing poets.

We are especially proud to have, since our last issue, published a flat-spined collection of poetry by Mary McAnally called, "Cosmic Rainbow." Mary McAnally is an activist who has been intimately involved on the ground in many struggles from South Africa to Central America. She has been active in the struggle of women for equality and self-determination as well as in the fight against racism and for economic justice. She is also a minister and her poetry is both spiritual and militantly progressive. The last poem in this issue is from that collection.

As spring approaches, so too the deadline for the Working People's Poetry Competition. The prize is $100.00 and a year-long on-line posting. The deadline is May 1st.

As always we are grateful for the continuing support and participation of our readers and contributors and welcome all comments and suggestions in these, our collective efforts.

Hot off the Press

2006-02-04T15:35:00.000-05:00

This is a collection of astounding depth and power and we are honored to have had the opportunity to publish it.

Recommendations and Reviews

2006-01-29T09:16:00.000-05:00

Though this is site is generally limited to literary themes, few are more literate and entertaining than Gore Vidal and This Article is worth reading. It could qualify as a review of the new book, “Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire” by Morris Berman.

As for new books, the collection "Cosmic Rainbow" by Mary McAnally will be out in a matter of days. This is a vital collection that will reach many people in ways that other means cannot. "Cosmic Rainbow" is not only great poetry but manages to "connect the dots" of culture, spirituality, feminism, anti-racism and the progressive values inherent in the struggle for a better world in a way that is seldom if ever seen. This is a life altering collection to have and to pass on to others. Order NOW! You won't regret it.

Commentary on the Debate

2006-01-13T09:09:00.000-05:00

I hope all getting here will consider reading the linked debate between Erich Racher and Lyle Daggett regarding politics and poetry. My own response follows here:

Only in the real world with its endless change and growth, can be found fresh and inspiring material for art.
-- Mike Gold

Reading this exchange between Eric Racher and Lyle Daggett is valuable in that basic questions about art and its role in society are addressed. So too are class perspectives. It is true, as Racher points out, that there is a certain degree of autonomy to the inherent quality of a poem or a piece of art, music . . . and I can attest that there are many bad poems with good content. However, Racher takes on a bourgoise perspective in exaggerating the autonomy of art to a level completely seperate from politics. Daggett is correct that everything in life occurs in the real conditions of our lives and is thus defined by our historic and class conditions and therefore reflects our class perspective. So too this debate.

Daggett asserts that "Left-wing political poetry is, on the whole, better poetry . . ." and he is right but not because it adheres dogmatically to ideology. It has more power because it speaks from the reality of our class experience. It is better poetry because it, as Brecht notes and Racher quotes, "enriches our capacity for experience" and "enriches our capacity for expression" by making us aware of that shared class experience. That realization undermines the isolation and alienation of bourgoise individualism that we are inundated with via corporate culture re-awakeing our social nature -- a truly powerful force that powers the engine of social progress and that threatens the power structure of capital that enslaves us.

The essense of this debate comes down to the disparate class definitions of art's place in our lives: The bourgoise view of art as an autonomus reflection of the individual above the mundane and, free from the demands of "political correctness," or the working class definition of art as rooted in the reality of our experience and having something to say about it.

Both Racher and Daggett reveal their class perspectives in the course of this exchange; Racher in misreading of Leninism as authoritarian and in his general condemnation of the role of Communists in Spain and in the USSR as well as in his view of poetry. He shows himself to be a bourgoise liberal or, as he states, a "Libertarian Socialist." Daggett clearly lays out his own position saying, "To act in a manner consciously guided by left-wing, working-class, populist political principles is to act toward the greatest possible realization of one's humanity and the humanity of other people." He then goes on to state that in the real world of class struggle, we have no choice but to takes sides consciously or unconsciously.

Can poetry escape that choice? Daggett says no and I have to agree. A poet conscious of that choice and guided by left-wing, progressive working class principles is going to write, "on the whole, better poetry" and the evidence confirms this. Not only can one cite the historic poets and writers from the Greeks through Shakespear, McGrath, Brecht, Neruda. . . but one can plainly see the difference in overall quality and power in the work published in Pemmican and the Blue Collar Review compared to the vast majority of contemporaty journals.

Daggett, in the end says, "As poets and as human beings, our only choice is which side to take." Again, he is right.

Debate on Political Poetry

2006-01-12T23:33:00.000-05:00

Some time back I published an essay, "On Political Poetry," in the online poetry magazine Pemmican. A while after that, Pemmican published a response by Eric Racher, in which Racher expressed disagreements with some of the points in my essay. At the encouragement of Pemmican editor Bob Edwards, I wrote a response to Eric Racher's essay; my response is now also published online in Pemmican.

In case you care to check out the debate (of sorts) --

My original essay on political poetry is here.

Eric Racher's response is here.

My response to Eric Racher is here.

Salud.

New Collection from Partisan Press

2005-12-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

In a week or two, a new and powerful collection of poetry called "Cosmic Rainbow" by Mary McAnally will be available from Partisan Press. This flat-spined publication is priced at for $14.00 (including shipping). The Poet Christopher Butters says about this collection:

"The publication of Cosmic Rainbow by Partisan Press is an event for those who have followed the growth of Mary McAnally's poetry in the small press over the last thirty years. Present are poems many of us have loved like "We Will Make a River ", "Pain Teaches Us" , "The Great Beggs, Oklahoma Bank Robbery", as well as poems in solidarity with the African revolution, poems about her beloved cardinals and swallows, poems about the forgotten street people of New York .
Side by side with these are later poems occasioned by her return to Oklahoma, her spiritual awakening and later ministership in Tulsa. Unlike the Moral Majority, however – and very much like the poets Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan and Ernesto Cardenal – her tango with organized religion seems to have broadened rather than narrowed her world outlook, and only deepened her wrath against the philistines and money changers of our time.
Part memoir, part selected poems, Cosmic Rainbow gives witness to one extraordinary woman's search for truth, meaning and solidarity amid an American landscape ravaged by institutionalized exploitation, sexism and racism. Part conversation with the dead, part conversation with future generations, the later poems encourage us all to explore the " thin places" -- that unitary reality that McAnally's beloved Irish seers, magicians and prophets have long claimed lies within each of us -- even as we rededicate ourselves to the struggle for social justice in our time."

This book is an inspiring "must have" for those of us struggling daily against the odds for a just society and a life changing read for those new to the idea that a better world is possible.

Book by a BCR contributor

2005-12-29T19:14:00.000-05:00

Greetings. On my blog I've written a short review of The Keepsake Storm, book of poems by Gina Franco (published by University of Arizona Press), who has a poem in the Autumn 2005 Blue Collar Review. I recommend the book. The review is here if you care to take a look.

And, while I'm here, check out the article Covered in Oil in the November 16, 2005 issue of Pulse of the Twin Cities (weekly paper published in Minneapolis). The article, by the paper's publisher Ed Felien, gives an insightful history of the Bush family oil business, and takes a close-up look at the family's business dealings with the Nazi government of Germany during the 1930's and 1940's. See also the brief sidebar item to the article, a short personal recollection of Prescott Bush (G.W.'s grandpa) by a man who once worked at an elite club P. Bush belonged to.

Thanks. -- Salud.

Autumn Issue Editorial

2005-12-18T20:28:00.000-05:00

The poets in this collection have had it with the superficial mass culture that decorates the juggernaut of empire. The poets in this issue are tired of living with degrading work and the dread of layoffs, bad leases, crushing debt, and the erosion of any illusions of security.

These are the well honed words of the overtime slaves and the out of work, the fixed-income poor and those falling through the canyon-like cracks left in the wake of decades of crooked politics and cynical cutbacks in social spending.
These are the voices on the periphery. Those of us desperately clinging to the crumbling edges of destitution, of sanity; forced from job to job, from house to apartment to street in the trail of tears on which or class is driven for the enrichment or others.

These are the voices of horror and rage at the lies and murderous crimes of torture and needless war perpetuated in our name.

These are the trenchant words of a society at the breaking point. Just as the dying glory of Autumn marks the end of one season and the beginning of another, the rising rage reflected in this issue is indicative of the collapse of a misguided and criminal power which can be even more dangerous in its dying throes.

This is a perilous and historically significant time as our politcal system and our ecology reach a tipping point. The poetry in this issue does not occur in a vacuum. Even here in the conservative bastion of Virginia there is a marked increase in political activism as mainstream citizens look for answers and for a rational alternative to the insanity of a corporate dictatorship out of control.

We believe that people act out of our culture and its vision. It has never been as important to support progressive culture and to bring our vision to fruition through active participation in organizing and working for progress in our communities.

As we begin our ninth year of publishing this journal, we are continually grateful for the input and support of you, our readers and look forward to your comments, poetry, and much needed support in the future.

Review and Editorial Rant

2005-12-02T11:08:00.000-05:00

We get a lot of requests of book review and very few make it to the journal. I will be using this blog to post reviews and links to appropriate working class literature. Today's review is for the new book by Mike Palecek, called Looking for Bigfoot.

I am in the process of constructing the new Autumn issue of the journal and, having run into difficulties feel it's time to unload some frustration with an editorial rant. I had to pull 2 very fine poems from the issue due to the fact that the poet did not follow our simple guidelines by putting his or her name on their poetry. I usually catch this early on but at this point the poems may never be published because I don't know whose they are. I have added our Submission Guidelines to the journal web page. If you want to submit poetry, please follow the guidelines! Also, if you are published and like our journal enough to send more work, consider subscribing to support our efforts. This is a working class operation and funds to do it are always needed. 'Nuff said. Barring unforseen circumstances the next issue should be out in 2-3 weeks.

Political Poetry

2005-10-24T09:10:00.000-04:00

Our "sister journal", Pemmican presents in it's commentary an excellent statement regarding "political poetry" by Robert Edwards, editor of Pemmican and, in my opinion, one of the finest poets in North America.

Talking Points for Political Poetry

Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,For poetry makes nothing happen: it survivesIn the valley of its making where executivesWould never want to tamper…
In Memory of W. B. Yeats, by W. H. Auden
*
POINT #1
There is no point in writing political poems because political poetry changes nothing in the world.
The idea behind this gem seems to be that if you can't work some voodoo through your poem at the ballot box, then why put pen to paper at all? Those who pull this venerable chestnut out of their pocket love to quote Auden's poem for Yeats, apparently forgetting (as Auden did) Auden's own radical past.
Everyone "knows", for instance, that poetry, political or otherwise, doesn't change anything. The invisible equal sign here says, in effect: because political poetry doesn't change anything, "therefore" it shouldn't be written. Never, however, would this same argument be seriously considered if the same standards were applied to a poem about a poet's unreconciled relationship with their father, or love lost, or an autumn's walk along a river while reflecting on the wheel of birth and death.
For all the lads made wild by desire who've written poems to lassies, it's unlikely the lass will be persuaded into your arms by wonderments and glamours of language--unless she is already so inclined. Did Shakespeare's sonnets "change" his situation? The speculation of such may fill library shelves but the proof wouldn't fill a thimble. If I write a poem about a race horse, does it run faster? If I write a poem about boats on the sea, am I trying to change the speed of waves or wind, or the color of the day in the water?
Pick any poem anywhere and tell me what it changes, objectively, in the world. Yes, our critic might say, but these poems are not expected to change anything. They rise from a deep place in the poet's psyche and are something the poet needs to say. And this is so different from political poetry? Is it possible that I might write a political poem, not because I have a calculated desire to change your mind about the President's foreign and domestic policies, but because it is something I need to say. If you want to come along for the ride, I saved you a seat. Today I might write a poem about my Grandmother, or my neighbor, or the way autumn leaves fall into a river. Because it is something I need to say. Tomorrow I might write a poem about the latest war. I don't see these poems necessarily coming from separate places. But what we do see is a split inside the generalized consciousness of American poetry. There is Poetry, over here, and over there, on the other side of the tracks, is political poetry, which isn't real poetry because--why? Because it is about political matters, which are transitory and not eternal to the human condition. Really. What do we know for certain is that political matters and their accompanying wars are as old as anything resembling civilization. What possibly could be more eternal to the human condition than the ancient struggle for freedom, justice and a decent world in the face of the grinding greed and murder machines of men who keep "politics" as a family business? But I digress.
As can be demonstrated with example after example, applying this same standard of logic to other kinds of poetry rapidly leads us into nonsense and exposes the hollowness at the core of this imitation of an argument. As stated above, the only way this argument can be sustained in the mouths of those meat puppets for ruling class values is to insist that political poetry is subject to different rules from that of "normal" poetry.
This view of Capital "P" Poetry sits in its rocking chair on ol' Massa's plantation porch and sips its mint julep. It wags its finger at the poets of the world and tells them: "You can't change anything, you've never changed anything, and you never will change anything. Don't even try." Apparently we're to leave change to the professionals, and we all know what a good job they've done of it.
But let's continue a little further, two steps forward and one step back. What if the same argument about change and political content in art were applied to painters and photographers? Those who documented poverty, abuse, injustice, and the realities of war should not have clicked their shutters or picked up a brush? Van Gogh should not have painted "The Potato Eaters", then, or Picasso painted "Guernica"? But, since those and many other paintings have now become commodity fetish objects worth large sums of money, the subject matter of visual art is rarely discussed, except in terms of critic-speak, a rarefied and specialized jabber designed to obfuscate more than illuminate.
In any case, what was Dylan Thomas trying to change when he wrote "Fern Hill"? Or what was Van Gogh trying to change when he painted "Starry Night"? Nothing, you say. They were trying to "feel" the world at a particular moment, to evoke, to summon, to render experience through the intensity of their medium. But political poetry is not permitted to do that? We are not permitted to have strong feelings about the world of human affairs we all share and to put those strong feelings into poetry? Poets write poems, and they are brought to them by powerful emotions: sometimes love, sometimes grief, sometimes outrage at injustice. Any artist, who longs to be a complete artist and a complete human being, wants to explore without restriction all those things in the world that engage their feelings. The political, a bitter salt though it may be, is still a part of our daily bread.
Again, the only way political poetry can be barred from participation in the cultural gestalt is to deny it equal status by assigning it different rules based solely on its content..
Finally, one is tempted to ask: if poetry changes nothing, what does? And what level of change would be acceptable?
And if not the words of poetry, what kinds of words? Journalism? Essays? Prayers? Letters? Books of political science, economic analysis, recent history? How quickly do words of any kind change anything? How many words have been tossed into the wind exposing the Bush Administration and yet it remains in power, unprosecuted? But should none of those words have been said? How many photographs, how many paintings, how much graffiti does it take to shake a sleeper awake? And is one outraged citizen enough, or is a beginning only made with a million?
Should we sign no petitions, then? Not stand up and speak at town meetings? What about throwing rocks at tanks or giving the finger to fighter jets? How about marches, and if so, how many marches does it take to bring down a corrupt government or bring equal rights to all? Do we need a number before we take the first step? Should we not hold up signs on the sidewalk outside a recruitment office or stand with strikers when the odds are against them? How about any act of defiance, personal or collective, against the grinding machinery of empire and privilege? Perhaps something like chaining oneself to an old growth tree or the chain link gate of a nuclear installation? What about burning a draft card or going to jail as a conscientious objector? What change does that cause? Perhaps detecting the effects of change is not something its detractors are equipped to measure. Perhaps all these things--even poems--could be a butterfly effect: a small wind on a leaf…that grows into a hurricane.
What's really being objected to in statements concerning political art and poetry's inability to—presto!—change the world is that attention is being called to something that certain people would rather not see. Light always offends those who would rather remain in the dark about what is done in their name, and they must find ways to dismiss its impact and its implications for themselves.
The term, "political poetry", is two words to describe a continent. Nothing accurately portrays every single possible gradation of feeling, tone, structure and language that so many excellent poets worldwide have brought to this wholly inadequate term over the last 150 years.
Having said that, some political poetry is about change: the demand for it, the hope for it, the longing for it. It could be seen as an act similar to magical conjuration, an attempt by the poet to will something into being through the alchemy of language, completely on the basis of their desire.
And so what? To call into power the names of change is a poet's right and needs justification to no one.
Can poetry change anything?
You might be surprised.

--Robert Edwards

Greetings

2005-10-17T20:09:00.000-04:00

First, my thanks to Al for the invitation to join the blog.

Since this is my first post here, I'll offer a few links to some of the better websites I've run across related to poetry, literature, art and culture, especially those with strong left-wing and/or working-class leanings.

Pemmican -- one of my favorite poetry magazines, a print annual for a number of years, now online. Great poetry (in the current issue section and in the archive), essays and articles, book reviews, and bits of news that might be of interest. Edited by poet Bob Edwards.

The November 3rd Club -- another online poetry magazine featuring and seeking politically progressive poetry. This one just started up within the past few months, and they're off to a good start so far.

Graphic Witness -- an excellent website of (mostly 20th century) politically progressive visual art. Includes work from various places around the world, and links to other great art websites.

Labor Arts -- another good website of working-class visual art, including historical material and exhibits of featured artwork.

The Marxist Internet Archive -- great online resource of general information and links on Communist, Socialist, and generally left-wing politics, ideas, history, literature and art. Though there's no such thing as true neutrality in the real and political world, this website doesn't push any one political slant too heavily within the overall range of left-wing politics, they cover a pretty wide spectrum.

The Modern American Poetry website at the U. of Illinois -- though at times a little on the dry academic side -- is in my opinion the best overall website for 20th century American poetry in general. It includes the best webpage devoted to the life and work of poet Tom McGrath, and is the only online source I've found for any substantial information on many of the Proletarian poets of the 30's and '40's. Each poet page in the site includes links to related material, and usually some sample poems.

Finally here, maybe I could be permitted to include a link to my own blog website, A Burning Patience. As I noted in the first post in the blog last spring, I'm using it to talk about poetry and related things. ("Related things" can obviously cover quite a range.) The blog also has a large number of links to other websites I've found: poetry, art, literature, politics, whatever I've found on the web that I think might be of interest to people.

That's all at the moment. Salud --

Updates

2005-10-16T08:30:00.000-04:00

From time to time, I or a few others may add to our commentary between issues. The hard drive on our computer recently ground to it's death and a new one has been installed. While much was lost, fortunatley much was saved. Meanwhile we are rebuilding.

Along with writing, our staff and writers are activists. I was pleased to meet up with Chris Butters, one of our longstanding supporters and contributors, at the anti-war rally in Washington D.C.. It was upon his suggestion that this section was added to our website. As for the rally, though ignored or played down by the corporate/state media, it was immense. I believe that it was close to 300,000 strong with people from every part of our country represented. It is gratifying to see so much sanity in our society. Even here, in Norfolk Virginia -- a conservative area, we had two busloads for the trip. We have since had a visit from Amy Goodman of Democracy Now and a packed theater to hear her followed by workshops on media activism. It appears that progressive activism is on the rise and that gives us hope for a way out of our present morass.

Along with commentary, we also hope to post book reviews and links. Recently I came across Swan's Commentary and thought I'd share that valuable resource. They provide reviews of progressive literature, though not poetry specifically. Other links to working class literature are welcome and some can already found on the main page of our website.

Summer Issue Editorial

2005-09-25T12:21:00.000-04:00

Our summer issue rises from the sweltering streets and shop floors of America; a cry of anguish, hope and determination from the homeless, the disenfranchised and those barely making it, imprisoned in the monotony of jobs that kill body and soul.

This issue also presents the winners of the "Working People's Poetry Competition." Choosing a winner was particularly difficult this year do to the high quality of the entries. After much consideration we chose "Mule Driver Chronicles" by Jerry W. Sears as the poem winning the $100.00, the one year subscription and the year long on-line posting. We also chose two poems as "runners up:" "The Tree Climber's Husband" by Eric Wayne Dickey and "The Names of the Dead" by Gerald W. Wheeler. Both of them win a year's subscription and on-line posting. All of these poems appear in this issue and we are grateful for their entries. I hope to see more entries next year.

Since our last issue we learned that a poem we published, "It Is Difficult To Sing" by Mary McAnally was a collaborative work with the poet Lyle Daggett and we hereby acknowledge his contribution. Lyle Daggett is not only one of the finest poets of our working class but has a blog, http://aburningpatience.blogspot.com/ that contains a plethora of information about working class literature.

As the long hot days of August give way to September's promise of relief, so to is a change in the weather being felt in the struggle against the illegal war and occupation in Iraq, as the vital questions posed by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed by Bush's war are striking a chord and getting support that the corporate press and the opportunist politicians can not ignore. It seems the wind is changing and it is up to all of us to take advantage of the moment demanding not only answers but an end to this crime of murderous aggression and justice for its perpetrators.

While the Bush junta will continue to talk about "staying the course" and fighting Terrorism in Iraq rather then here, (despite that most Iraqi insurgents are just Iraqis drawn to the fight by our continued presence), we experience terrorism daily on the home front. "Terrorism" for us is not people fighting off foreign invaders on the other side of the world. Terrorism is what threatens our very ability to survive -- what hold us hostage by threatening our access to shelter, to food and drinkable water, to medical care. Most of us live daily with the terror of unemployment, lack of insurance, lack of money for food hanging over our heads. Many are terrorized by the poisoning of our food supply by meat producers and agribusiness. Most of us fear the results of environmental devastation.In essence we deal with and are subservient to terrorists every day right here: Your landlord is a terrorist, your boss is a terrorist, the bill collector on the phone, your business friemdly representative, the politicians who see us and our children as disposable in wars to boost profits. The system of corporate rule is a terrorism and we must come together as a class to defeat it for our own freedom and survival.

As we complete our eighth year of publication we are grateful for the chance to make available the work of the finest poets of our working class and for your continuing support in making our efforts possible. As always, we welcome your comments as well as your poetry and support.

Blue Collar Holler

Fall Editorial

A Note about Paypal Subscriptions

Supporting Occupy Together

Summer Editorial

Saving the Small Press

New From Partisan Press

Working People's Contest Winners

Spring Issue Editorial

Flyin' Harleys in Purple Haze

Winter Issue Editorial

The Triangle fire

180 years ago today in France

Adrienne Rich on ‘Tonight No Poetry Will Serve’

Fundraising

Autumn Issue Commentary

New Pages Review of our Spring Issue

Summer Editorial

Summer Issue Near Release

Updates and Announcement from Fred Whitehead

Contest Winners

McGrath Reading his Poetry

Spring Issue Editorial

Contest Deadline Extension

Working People's Poetry Contest

Winter Editorial

Autumn Editorial

Running Behind & Catching Up

Will Inman -- Presente

Poet Squatting in Vegas

Summer Editorial

Spring Issue Commentary

Work is Love Made Visible

Transparencies

Winter Issue Editorial

Review: Post-Katrina Blues

Autumn Editorial

A Moment To Savor

Summer Issue Editorial

Contest Winners!

New Collection by Jason Irwin

Spring Issue Editorial

You Work Tomorrow

Review -- Iowa Terror

The Importance of Your Support of Progressive Culture

Winter Issue Commentary

New from Partisan Press

Vincent Ferrini, Presente!

Autumn Editorial

Journal Update

Obstacle & Progress: The Publisher's Struggle

Summer Issue Commentary

Oklahoma Book Award

Spring Issue Editorial

More From Mike Palacek

Working Class Music

The American Dream Book Tour & Protest #11

The American Dream Book Tour & Protest #10

May Day 2007 around the world

May Day

The American Dream Book Tour #9

The American Dream Book Tour #8

The American Dream Book Tour #7

The American Dream Book Tour #6

The American Dream Book Tour #5

The American Dream Book Tour #4

The American Dream Book Tour #3

The American Dream Book Tour #2

Palecek On the Road 1

Winter Commentary

British working class poetry, early 1800's

Fortune

Tillie Olsen - Presenté!

Autumn Commentary

Theater Review: My Name is Rachel Corrie

Recommended Reading

Culture and Struggle

Recommended Reading

Summer Editorial

Guerilla Poetics