Part of my job as a typesetter is to, well, typeset articles for scientific journals. A lot of these journals contain book reviews, so I have a fairly good idea of how one should go. Of course, I'm not going to follow the professional formula at all because formulas are fucking boring.
A typical book review in a scientific journal will include a brief description of a book's cover, the blurbs about the book and its author, and so forth. Fuck that. I took a picture of the book with my phone so you can look at it and judge for yourself;
No, I did not receive the book all bent and banged up like that. It got that way from me toting it around in my back pocket and reading it at my writing desk at home while I drank MD 20/20.
Jesus, where are my manners? The chapbook is titled Chasing Kerouac With My Credit Card, if you can't clearly read the title from the photo. It is by one Edward Austin Robertson, which is the nom de plume of my good friend Robert. But enough of these formalities. Let's get on to the stuff that really matters; the poetry.
There are about sixty poems in Chasing Kerouac which are divided into two separate parts. The first part chronicles feelings of restlessness and boredom and then the subsequent quest to put those feelings in their place. The second part kind of tails off from that quest, but get's progressively melancholic toward the end. I really enjoyed how the poems were strung together with a sort of chronological cohesion. It made reading the chapbook (which is a pretty quick read at just over 100 pages of poetry) feel more like I was reading a novella of vignettes stitched together from the writer's memory.
This is how I suggest you read this collection. Use your substance of choice. Mine is shown.
The poems themselves have a Bukowski-like quality to them. They contain unabashed descriptions of sex and debauch that never get repellant, but seem instead to draw the reader in to the moment. And it's not like you'll be sitting there panting and wanting to beat off, either. The moments are intimate and sweet and a little sad sometimes for all the sex they ooze.
You know how I said it starts to get melancholic toward the end? Well that's a bit of a Bukowski-ism too. There are poems in here about starvation and frustration and loneliness and isolation (you know, the kind you can only see in the slow movement of the hand of a clock?) and you feel that too, especially if you've been there.
For all of the influence drawn from old Buk's work though, there's a good slathering of the Beats in there as well. The whole book is a journey from home to the world and back home again with all of the spiritual learning that entails. We follow our hero as he travels from Texas to the East Coast, up to Canada, back down again, all the way down for some raucous shenanigans in Mexico, and then off to California and back. Not once was I left feeling distant from the poet, but instead felt like I was right there beside him in all those places I've been and in all those places I want to see. Even the food poems are good, for Christ's sake.
Anyone who's a fan of poetry or transgressive literature should give this little book a shot. It won't eat up a whole hell of a lot of time (you could finish it in one sitting if you wanted to) and is plenty fun to drink along with as you read.
I found the book on lulu.com where it's sold, so here's the link if you want to check that out;
http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=chasing+kerouac+with+my+credit+card&type
Check out Robert's blog here, while you're at it;
http://thaclick2pick.com/
The guy's hilarious and won't disappoint.
From the typesetting desk,
Good night!
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