A Passion for Apathy: The Collected and Rejected Poems of Vittorio Carli, a small press gem of punk rock poetry, carries poetic traditions in its teeth. Punk rock because of the in-your-face-anti-establishment irony and earnestness in Carli's presentation of his verse, traditional in the homage and muse tradition of poetry. He writes to and for those and that which enlarges his voice. Carli's work reads like a cross between cultural commentary/homage to persons as varied as Lawrence Welk to Woody Allen, to snapshots of socio-political unrest, which are flags of protest. My favorite is the “The Trouble with Librarians (for Andrea)” where Librarians are cast as the progenitors of closed information; they are “all closed books/with a couple of pages missing.”
He's a poet, and I imagine him in some stacked room typing madly, or in transit, to and fro Chicago, scribbling on the back of brown paper bags. He works it. He's out there living poetry. Proof. My copy of the book included his hand-written edits, which reminds me that poetry isn't confined to slick, glossy, university backed volumes, but pops and sizzles in small presses. Still. Technology has infiltrated poetry so that the most cash strapped starving artist/small press can create copy that appears in design and aesthetics as if it came from a cash rich publishing house. The Press of the 3rd Mind, a Chicago based indie, bound and printed Carli's book, which means people touched, and handled, and cared for the book. For someone who is isolated from a local poetry rich community (the region is dripping with it, mind you, if you care a two hour drive through farmland and small towns) it is evidence that poetry is alive and kicking.
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