One of my favourite poetry books over the
last five years has been Bill Gainer’s Lipstick
and Bulletholes (Epic Rites Press, 2014) so I was excited to learn that he had
recently published a new book The
Mysterious Book of Old Man Poems through legendary Lummox Press https://www.lummoxpress.com/lc/).
The book is a collection rich in observational & narrative poems, told from
Gainer’s perspective, a man in his late 60s. Gainer writes about mundane
things, such as, bookstore cats, listening to the falling snow, pissing off his
porch, but he also attempts to tackle the big issues- of love & death-
usually with great warmth, depth & humanity.
There are 89 typically short free verse
poems in this collection. The writing is fresh, pared back, intimate
and always full of surprises. Gainer gives us just enough detail, without
providing the specifics of his own experiences, to allow the reader to reflect
on our own pasts & how we too might have stuffed up & perhaps impulsively
thought about “reaching for the pistol.”
The collection is the by-product of the
long lasting relationship between Gainer and his publisher RD Armstrong. Asked about his
previous involvement in Lummox Press and the process of getting the book
published Gainer explains in the interview which follows this review:
“Armstrong and I go way back. Probably close to 20 years. Though RD has long called Southern California
home, his dad lived up north here, close to me, and before he passed, RD would
visit him a couple of times a year. I
was running the Nevada County Poetry Series back then, and got a call from RD about
him possibly doing a reading for us the next time he was up visiting. We went to lunch, and struck up a friendship
that has lasted over the years.
“Over the years we have supported one
another in a gang of ways: doing readings together, visiting back and forth,
mutual publications and different things.
He has always been generous in asking me to send a poem or two for
various anthologies and magazines he was publishing. And whenever I had the opportunity, I would
go down south to support their releases.
A while back we were on the phone talking about me coming down to be
part of a release reading for Lummox #6.
He asked if I had anything new in the works. At the time I was shopping around The Mysterious
Book of Old Man Poems, and had two publishers who wanted it, one in
Canada and the other in Kansas City. For
various reasons, neither fit my needs. I
really wanted to get someone out here on the coast who had good
distribution. Though Lummox fit both of
those requirements I hadn’t thought about making an inquiry. RD asked to see the manuscript, liked it and
we hammered out a deal.
“As for working with Armstrong, I couldn’t
ask for a better situation. Though he
can be a very straight talking, blunt, grump at times – I find him a pleasure
to work with. Let’s face it, the
relationship between a writer and his/her publisher is a very intimate affair –
one based on trust. I trust him. RD does
all the back work, I go out and sell books.
It works well for both of us.”
Despite the outward simplicity of Bill
Gainer’s poetry it is awkward & limiting to sum up what he has achieved in
this book because his work is so varied and there are so many different cogs
churning in his work. Upon first reading when you think you have him figured
out & begin to consider that in some of his poems he has become complacent, trite or tired- he "busts a move" & tosses another incredible gem or two our way for us to feast on.
Gainer says in part about his writing, “I
have no set method for writing. I am relentless about taking notes, I
rewrite and edit continuously – most of which is done late at night and early
into the morning. I do not write every day. Though, most days, I am
working on something.
“I seldom write political stuff… I write
about how I feel about things, not what I think I know about things. I’m not a
journalist – my job is not to fill the page, but to fill the heart. Hard work
for an old man who, these days, wishes more than he prays.”
The
title of book The Mysterious Book of Old
Man Poems is coolly enigmatic and I was curious as to what Gainer meant by
the word “mysterious.” In the interview which follows, Gainer implies that
“mystery” shapes his experiences and enables him to see people & things in
a romantic hue & he has no need to try to rationalise these feelings,“I mostly live in the moment, and don’t like to complicate things.
Mysterious events, people and things tend to take on a romantic connotation for
me. I like to leave them as they are – mysterious. It allows me to dream
my way into the back story, to dance close in smoke filled barrooms, drink
bourbon slow, and sometimes whisper a secret to a stranger.”
The front cover is designed by Hungarian
photographer Sarolta Bá
n (http://www.saroltaban.com/prints ).
Asked about the design of the cover
Gainer replied: “A friend showed me some of Bán’s work and
I was enthralled. I fell in love with the
Three Crows and the Old Man
piece. It seemed a perfect representation of
The Mysterious Book of
Old Man Poems. We ran down Bán’s agent, and cut a licensing agreement
to use the picture. All I know about the picture is that Bán is a digital
artist and I am assuming she combined three or four photos to create the piece.
Check her out, her work in enchanting.”
As you might expect, OLD MAN POEMS often deals with an old man’s concerns: such as sitting
around doing nothing (“The Great Mysteries of Nothing”), gardening (“The Digging”),
thinking about friends & acquaintances long since deceased (“Franks
Bicycle”, “A Fellow Traveler”, “The Wrong Side of Dirt”), reading obituary
columns (“Ruby S.- the reincarnation of”), outlining the type of funeral he
wants (“The Someday Plan”) and imagining the incredible solitude which will be
ushered in with his last breath (“A Place in the Quiet”).
Gainer’s work is never clichéd or
predictable. These are certainly not the poems of an old man on his last legs as
you might find in Clive James’s Injury
Time (Picador 2017). These are poems full of
yearning, hopeful love and abundant humour. Gainer breathes humanity onto every
page through his diary like collection of feelings, thoughts, insights and
impressions.
“The Someday Plan” is a typical and highly
memorable “old man” poem which reveals Gainer’s clear, free verse style &
cheeky humour. He uses an intimate, conversational tone. It is as if he is
talking directly to the reader. The last stanza adds a nice personal touch when
he casually invites us to his wake.
The Someday Plan
I want my ashes
in a cocktail
shaker
silver plated
knocked around a little
vintage.
Just so the lid
stays on.
At the funeral
plays the Stone’s
“Sympathy for the Devil”
and maybe Solomon Burke’s
“Can’t Nobody Love You”
just so Kae St. Marie knows
I do…
Otis’s- “I’ve Been Loving You
Too Long”
Because you gotta have
Otis.
Close it out
with the Isley Brothers
“Shout.”
Join in
raise your arms up, shout- loud.
I like a noisy crowd.
A dear friend
out of New Orleans
says he’ll hoist my final
toast
something legendary
make the old men
sit quiet, reflect
the ladies sip their bourbon
ask for another- smile, blush
and the lovers pull close
not caring who sees.
I’m hoping
he doesn’t miss
the show.
There have been
a couple of
nasty incidents.
He likes to chase
crazy women.
Most of them
carry knives.
When it comes around
you’re invited.
Stop by
have a cold drink.
It could be a potluck
would be nice
if you brought
a little something.
(all poems posted in this review are with the poet's permission)
Time is also an important motif which
Gainer often personifies in his poetry. In “A Better Place to Be” the speaker
regretfully reflects that he has spent “too many years/ on the assembly line”
and he concludes sarcastically:
We grow old
and time wars on.
We’ve built our empires-
the young ones
are building theirs.
These days- it’s different
the factories- gone.
All that’s pulled
from the past
rusts.
It’s a new world,
some say
A better place
to be.
In
“A Night Wish” the speaker thinks about a former lover and realizes that “she’s
mostly gone./ Time shuffles/ memory.” In the excellent poem “Hushed in Loneliness”
Gainer contemplates how a painful, suppressed memory from childhood can
resurface to make “reaching for the pistol/ that much easier.” Despair & loneliness emerges, then as it
does now, through the realization that:
“all time does/ is push/ all you want/
farther away.”
More subtle perhaps are Gainer’s
ruminations on time which are often metaphorically linked, like Robert Frost,
to the seasons. “The Disappearance of Time”, “In the Time of Wind”,
“Surrendering the Leaves”, “The Last Light of Summer”, “The Sounds of Snow” and
“The Hands of Winter Reaching” are short, highly evocative poems which operate
on both a literal & metaphoric level.
The highly impressive “The Hands of Winter
Reaching” is an ominous poem in which the speaker foreshadows his own death:
The Hands of Winter Reaching
It’s nights like these that bother me
the cool breeze of fall has arrived
not threatening, but warning.
The threat comes later
along with the promise.
Know winter smiles
with one tooth missing
but bites just as hard.
And tonight’s breeze
just a warning
winter is coming
for you.
Asked about how he is going as a man in
his late 60s, Gainer candidly remarks, “Yeah – by chance I just happen to be
born into the first generation of life’s new paradox: ‘You may have the
great good fortune of living to be 100 years old, or you may have the grave
misfortune of living to be 100 years old.’ Me, I’m good with things, the
poems tell the stories. Yeah, there are a few folks I’d like to see dead before
I go. I got a list – it’s kind of private. Don’t worry, you’re not
on it. Other than that – it’s been a good-crazy-mad-run ... I’m good.”
At the heart of Bill Gainer’s poetry is
his exploration of love in its many facets- the yearning for love, both real
& imaginary (“Women I’ve Loved”, “NOLA- Sings to me”, “Ruby S. – the
reincarnation of”) the suffocating expectations & hatred love can sometimes
bring (“The Joy of Crows”, “Christmas Eve with Her”), the nostalgic glow of lost
or fading love (“Kissing Shadows”, “A Rickety HOTEL- a CLIFFSIDE, HWY 1, LONG
AGO”) and the importance of keeping the flame alive (“Blame it on the
Gardenias”, “A Magical Thing”, “A Last Drink of Water”).
Gainer never tries to dumb it down, fuck
with our emotions or pull a swifty on us. His writings on love are always deeply
grounded, and on occasion, emotionally profound. “A Night Weeping- San Francisco” is an
outstanding poem in which the speaker quietly observes a young couple and
senses through the missed signals of their subtle body language that their love
is doomed. The poem concludes:
The chill
of a night weeping
holds her tighter
than he
ever will.
A looser, more sophisticated love poem is
aptly entitled, “A Different Kind of Love Poem” which appears early in the
collection. The transitions made by Gainer between the personal, cultural and
political spheres are seamlessly & brilliantly handled. His wry, dismissive
tone, and by contrast, the intimate second person narration & contemporary referencing
add to our total enjoyment of the work.
A Different Kind of Love Poem
The world is full of them
the fools.
I’ve been there myself
sometimes wishing I wasn’t
sometimes wishing I was
and sometimes
just not knowing the difference.
They’re there.
Some waiting to push the button
just to hear the boom
and some waiting
to dust off their champion
after the loss
just because
they need
someone to love.
That’s what I’m doing
trying to write a love poem
about you and me
with the shades pulled
and the doors closed
sitting in the cool
alone- together.
You in your slip
one barrette in your hair-
me in my shorts
one sock on
trying to figure a way
to steal a line
from John Prine
just so I can tell you
if you need a fool
to love you
I know one.
Asked about his interest in writing poems
about love and what he has learnt about it, Gainer quips, “It has long been a
part of what I do. What I have learned about it – nothing! What one
loves another hates. If that isn’t the architecture of battle, what is?
It is beautiful. Touching another’s finger tips is nice thing to do now
and then though ... I’ve found a bit of magic hidden there.”
As you can see through this brief review of
Bill Gainer’s poems, he is comfortable with who he is and how he can unleash nuanced
but powerful immortal poems on the whim of a conversation, personal reflection
or observation. His capacity to tap into the blurred, often ambiguous
side to our emotional states is uncanny and this is essentially what makes
Gainer’s poetry so compelling to read over and over again. Gainer is at his best as a poet when he is sipping on a bourbon,
drawing back on a smoke, having a good look around, abandoning all notions of ambition and simply and authentically commenting on the quiet mysteries of the moment.
Bio: Bill Gainer is a storyteller, humorist, poet and a maker of mysterious things. He earned his BA from St. Mary's college, and his MPA from the University of San Francisco. He is the publisher of the PEN Award winning R.L. Crow Publications, and is the ongoing host of Red Alice's Poetry Emporium (Sacramento, CA). Gainer is internationally published, and known across the country for giving legendary fun filled performances. His work is not for sissies. Visit him in his books, at his personal appearances, or at his website: http://billgainer.com
INTERVIEW WITH BILL GAINER 22 FEBRUARY 2018
Can you outline your
involvement with Lummox Press and the process of working with RD Armstrong in
getting The Mysterious Book of Old Man Poems published?
BG –
Armstrong and I go way back. Probably close to 20 years. Though RD has long called Southern California
home, his dad lived up north here, close to me, and before he passed, RD would
visit him a couple of times a year. I
was running the Nevada County Poetry Series back then, and got a call from RD
about him possibly doing a reading for us the next time he was up
visiting. We went to lunch, and struck
up a friendship that has lasted over the years.
Over the years we have supported one
another in a gang of ways: doing readings together, visiting back and forth,
mutual publications and different things.
He has always been generous in asking me to send a poem or two for
various anthologies and magazines he was publishing. And whenever I had the opportunity, I would
go down south to support their releases.
A while back we were on the phone talking about me coming down to be
part of a release reading for Lummox #6.
He asked if I had anything new in the works. At the time I was shopping around The Mysterious
Book of Old Man Poems, and had two publishers who wanted it, one in
Canada and the other in Kansas City. For
various reasons, neither fit my needs. I
really wanted to get someone out here on the coast who had good distribution. Though Lummox fit both of those requirements
I hadn’t thought about making an inquiry.
RD asked to see the manuscript, liked it and we hammered out a
deal.
As for working with Armstrong, I couldn’t ask
for a better situation. Though he can be
a very straight talking, blunt, grump at times – I find him a pleasure to work
with. Let’s face it, the relationship
between a writer and his/her publisher is a very intimate affair – one based on
trust. I trust him. RD does all the back
work, I go out and sell books. It works
well for both of us.
You seem to have a
fascination with the word “mysterious”. You previously published a chapbook in
the Lummox little red book series “The Mysterious Woman Next Door” and the word
appears a few times in your latest book. I was wondering if I could pin you
down on what you mean by the word “mysterious”, particularly in regard to the
title of the book. For instance, are you referring to the mystery of the
creative process, of how inspiration & persistence can lead to ink on a
page or how each reader mysteriously translates/ interprets your poetry
according to his/ her own personal experiences or are you talking about life in
general?
BG –
Well, it does pop up now and then –
doesn’t it? The short answer is, none of the above. I am a very
pragmatic kind of guy. Actually, I am a dyed in the wool “Utilitarian”. I
mostly live in the moment, and don’t like to complicate things. Mysterious
events, people and things tend to take on a romantic connotation for me.
I like to leave them as they are – mysterious. It allows me to dream my
way into the back story, to dance close in smoke filled barrooms, drink bourbon
slow, and sometimes whisper a secret to a stranger. That’s all.
What’s the story behind the front cover design? It is designed by the
Hungarian artist Sarolta Bán and features a surreal appropriation of a
photo of an old man walking amongst three giant ravens. Do you know where
the original photos are taken from?
BG –
A friend showed me some of Bán’s work and
I was enthralled. I fell in love with the Three Crows and the Old Man
piece. It seemed a perfect representation of The Mysterious Book of
Old Man Poems. We ran down Bán’s agent, and cut a licensing agreement
to use the picture. All I know about the picture is that Bán is a digital
artist and I am assuming she combined three or four photos to create the piece.
Check her out,
her work in enchanting.
Can you give us the run down about your
present methods of getting it down on the page? Do you write every day?
Do you do much editing? Where do you find sources of inspiration?
BG –
I have no set method for writing. I
am relentless about taking notes, I rewrite and edit continuously – most of
which is done late at night and early into the morning. I do not write
every day. Though, most days, I am working on something.
I seldom write political stuff. The
regurgitation of the evening news is not what I do. As a citizen I have a lot
to say about those things – as a poet, not so much. I recently reread 1984.
If you want write about politics start there. Though it does have its own
beauty, 1984 is an ugly book with an ugly ending. Isn’t that what
politics are? Ugly. I write about how I feel about things, not what I think I
know about things. I’m not a journalist – my job is not to fill the page, but
to fill the heart. Hard work for an old man who, these days, wishes more than
he prays.
Many of your poems are
about love, including the ongoing longing for love and lost love. Any pointers
about what you’ve learnt about love so far? (As an aside, who is Kae St.
Marie?)
BG –
Yes, that alliteration – “Love, Loss, and
Longing.” It has long been a part of what I do. What I have learned
about it – nothing! What one loves another hates. If that isn’t the
architecture of battle, what is? It is beautiful. Touching another’s
finger tips is nice thing to do now and then though ... I’ve found a bit of
magic hidden there.
Kae St. Marie and I have run together for
a lifetime. We were high school sweethearts, and remain so. The
deal was, whoever left first had to take the kids, neither of us had that much
courage. So here we are.
Many of your poems are
told from the point of view of an old man who increasingly thinks about death.
What’s your personal experience of life in your late sixties?
BG –
Yeah – by chance I just happen to be born
into the first generation of life’s new paradox: “You may have the great
good fortune of living to be 100 years old, or you may have the grave
misfortune of living to be 100 years old.” Me, I’m good with things, the
poems tell the stories. Yeah, there are a few folks I’d like to see dead before
I go. I got a list – it’s kind of private. Don’t worry, you’re not
on it. Other than that – it’s been a good-crazy-mad-run ... I’m good.
You’ve been doing
readings for the book. How’s the book faring so far? What has been the reaction
of the community?
BG –
The Mysterious Book of Old Man Poems is
doing amazingly. The reviews have been great and sales over top. It
is selling in the numbers I wish others were blessed with.
And yes, I am hitting the bricks doing a
gang of readings to support it. I’ll have hit most of the county (U.S.) by the
end of the year. The truth is, a publisher can’t sell a book for you.
Once it is in print, and the publicity laid down, it is time for the
author to go to work. You have to get out there and sell it, do the
readings, and shows – put the time in. It is all part of the commitment
the writer makes to the publisher. I’m looking at doing at least two
years of support for The Mysterious Book of Old Man Poems. Lummox
has packaged the work in a product I am proud of, they have stretched out for
me, now it is my turn. It’s the job.
What do you read these
days? Found any good new writers lately?
BG –
The poets Rebecca Schumejda, Heather Bell,
Tyree Daye and the novelist Joshua Mohr. These young writers are
marvelous. They all take different approaches to their work, storytelling, and
the expression of their experiences and feelings. Just wonderful.
Check them out.
What’s next for you?
BG –
I continue to write poems, do readings,
and have fun. Maybe get another poem book out in two or three years.
I’m not one of those guys who needs to have a ton of titles out – doing
three or four books a year. Competing with yourself in the marketplace is
silly, the folks give up on you.
I am working on a longer project, The
Penny Hoarder. It has a few more years of work waiting. I am having
fun with it though.
That’s all I got for now. Thanks for
asking.
Thanks for taking the
time Bill.
