Vertical's currency : new and selected poems / Joel Lewis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lewis, Joel.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copies 1-3)

Physical Description:

134 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Jersey City, N.J. : Talisman House, Publishers, [1999]

Summary:

Poetry. "Got my clove cigarettes and a hunk/of challah smeared with ersatz butter. / My imagined Jew beanie is warming / my alleged brains / as monochromatic Clarkson Street / looms like an overstuffed burrito" (from "Leaving It up to You"). "Joel Lewis has written some of the best jazz poems I've ever read. In Verticals Currency he gives us all the humor and empathy an ethno-glossary of North Jersey can provide. Imagine Jim Brodey writing prescriptions on Dr. Williams' pad. RX: One "urine puck" with coffee every two hours for the blues, followed by a dip in the Lou Costello Pool. These poems come at you over the counter like an anodyne with eyes... Use as needed. And often" (Michael Gizzi). A well known anthologist and editor as well as a poet, Joel Lewis won the Ted Berrigan award for his most recent book, House Rent Boogie (Yellow Press) also available from SPD. Lewis is a New Jersey native, former social worker, and luftmensch, who has taught at Rutgers University, New School University and the College of Saint Elizabeth.

Contents:

Shine on Brightly

Tonto's Expanding Headband

Blue Comedy

Puddles of Wisdom

Winter Evening, Passaic

Hoboken Early Sunday Morning

when we go

Market Street, Newark

Route 3, Nutley (Mad)

At the Shrine of Lou Costello, Paterson

Bergenline Avenue, Union City

Minus Water

Been Here, Done That

Fringe Parking

In Paterson

Gravity Fails

Up in Lakeville

North Jersey Gutter Helmet

Making a Meal out of It

Spinner

The Piano on Canal

One Red Rose That I Mean

Dub Housing

Entropia

Main Street, Paterson

The Track of My Tears

After Hearing the Lee Komnitz Trio

Algiers

Birth of the Cool

Lennie Tristano's Subway Stop

To the Great Hard-Bop Pianists

The Heavenly Music Corporation

Back at the Jodo

The Dupree Bolton Discography

Flavor Bud Living

Leaving It up to You

At the Melville Room

Iron Path

Is, Was (Changing)

Cool Blue Halo

Mechanical Weathering: Paterson Scanned Postcards

Nervous Fabric.

Other Format:

Online version: Lewis, Joel. Vertical's currency.

ISBN:

1883689848

9781883689841

188368983X

9781883689834

OCLC:

40813429