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16 APR/MAY 11 #227BOOK REVIEWSchapbook roundupreviews by patrick james dunagan01. Picture Cameras(NoNo Press, 2010) &The Photographer Without a Camera(Trafficker, 2011)Ariel Goldberg02. Light SuiteJessica Fiorini(Pudding House, 2010)03. Bolinas PoemsJim Carroll(Blue Press, 2010)04. acting outAlli Warren(Louis Wain Editions, 2010)05. SloughNicholas James Whittington(Bird & Beckett, 2010)Ariel Goldberg’s Picture Cameras asks theviewer to do just that: “picture cameras” whenyou handle this text. Created from “repurposedmaterials”, namely old Shutterbug magazines byLara Durback and Goldberg herself, it is moreart object than poetry chapbook, although thetext is the best and most compelling aspect ofthe handling experience. “Is that it? / That’s it,/ right there.” These lines and others appear inbold print across newsprint pages of ads andcolumns all concerned with photography. Amust-have accompaniment is Goldberg’s ThePhotographer Without a Camera, this is truepoetry cinéma vérité if there ever has been.Picture Cameras too often reads incomplete*without it (*the text has the feel of being captionsfor images or other text not present). In theopening pages of “this press conference”, ThePhotographer Without a Camera lists suspiciouscharacters who then author and/or appearin the poems, assuming responsibility forthe results, such as, “PHOTOGRAPHER WHOWONDERS WHERE ALL THE PICTURES AREGOING” and “THIS PHOTOGRAPHER WEKNOW.” They serve as our guides, making suchambient requests as “Consider the traditionallure of the photograph, the magic, the powerto bring you back to the feeling of a place, tothe weather, the excitement, the boredom.” Themood is one of reflection that refuses to backaway from declaration: “in a way the live performanceof the poetry about photographs speaksto the frozen nature of the photograph.” This isenjoyable yes/no entanglement of words onthe making of images as art. Goldberg doesn’twaste her ideas and Trafficker is making topnotchchapbooks—the effort and care given isclear. Poetry deserves this press.Light Suite by Jessica Fiorini reads with abreeze and makes for good company over adrink or slice of pizza on the go. The familiarpoetry from the islands of New York (Manhattanand Brooklyn) shines through with sparkling delight.“Where the hell is my Pepsi / it’s the onlything I can count on / not sheep sans wolf tooth/ stuck in sunken sternum” can’t help but jumpTed Berrigan to mind (the ultimate lifelong freeadvertiser for Pepsi) but then pops in a freshperspective: “I’ve never seen stone blush before/ probably because the view up my skirt/ Ya Basta!” while keeping a count all its own:“again those dogs / again those bells” (“BellesArtes”). Fiorini delivers charm in her lines thatare constantly at play: “How can I write aroundin trains” (“Holiday Schedule”) or: “my caminobegins with a ‘63 cadillac el dorado and perhaps/ a single datsun worshipping el sol” of thesort which enraptures with an amusing verbosity:“once I was a shiny silver blue beetle / nowI wear earth tones and make fast money in realestate” (“Engine Work”). It’s all rather whirling,fast fun of the sort which leaves that residue ofcity living spun about through your thoughts,not exactly comfortable but entirely pleasantin that jarring manner we’ve come to love andexpect from New York. Sadly, however, havinga “Publisher’s Position Statement” that attests tothe chapbook in hand being a piece of “limitededition fine art,” you’d think Pudding Housewould put more effort into producing a finerlookingproduct. It’s all very wonderful that specialcollections of various libraries are adding thesechapbooks to their collections, but they are notfor the sensuous bibliophile.The recent loss of Jim Carroll in 2009 was asurprise—though not a shock—for the poetrycommunity, and it continues to reverberate.Carroll’s poems remain as evidence of his eminencefor those readers who have yet to comeupon them. The writing has that laid-back elegancewhich is comparable only to lost afternoonswandering city streets or drinking wineall day, dreaming of Li Po, times that are neverrecaptured despite a lifetime’s desire. BolinasPoems is a must for any Carroll enthusiast.Collected from issues of small zines from theseventies (Big Sky, Little Caesar, and HearsayNews Supplement), and containing one poempreviously unpublished, there are no wastedpages. The reverb is physically rocking off a linesuch as “Do Bison stomp snowmobile” and,yes, there’s no doubting that somewhere are“finely clipped poodles dreaming in penthouse/ampitheatres across mother’s molding furs”(“Wingless”). The “love” and “magic” of “beingIrish” celebrated by Robert Creeley’s “Theresa’sFriends” is given fine company by “For EdmundJoseph Berrigan”, where “Lovely tones of mistsweep / off the channels of England / and theIrish sea ring / with the strength of a home”for “Edmund Joseph Berrigan / born todayacross the cool Atlantic.” This “Villon of the hardcourts”(as he was noted in The Bolinas HearsayNews) serves up poems eternally steepedin cosmic wit: “hands vibrate to memories / oftrapped elevators like epileptic hummingbirds… / ah yes … epileptic hummingbirds…” (“I’m Living Inside Again”). Whichever versionof Carroll’s life you choose to embrace,these poems will stand you up over and over;he practiced poetry with an easy amusementembedded within a vanishing awareness thatthere’s no faking.San Francisco is a poet’s town. KennethRexroth and Jack Spicer, two colossal meatchoppersof the local poetry scene of a bygonegeneration, would be hard put not to admire recentchaps by Alli Warren and Nicholas JamesWhittington. Each of these young poets deliverswork which holds an unambiguous position,staking out clear ground it is intent on holding.Whittington’s Slough is more or less selfpublishedand its apparent unwillingness to be“announced” online, have a price attached toits covers, or really be otherwise made availableother than by the hand of the poet himselfwould immediately win over Spicer. Whittingtonruns Bird and Beckett books in San Franciscowith his father while also editing Amerarcana(which does have an online presence). Warren’sacting out, on the other hand, comes sliding out