The Iceberg Theory & Other Poems

by Gerald Locklin. (Little Red Book No. 18). Lummox Press, P.O. Box 5301 San Pedro, CA. 90733. 48 pp. 2000.

Book Review by Michael Basinski

Locklin here brings to the counter a good slice of American apple or cherry pie, maybe Boston or banana cream, with cold vanilla ice-cream - over the top and melting or on the side, depends how you like it. His populace wit and wisdom here shows how poetry is all of the common American life that each of us lead with our own unique logic and magic and how this strange life we lead is full of twists and veils and in his poems he loves to pull off the pretence of the everyday, blast away the one way of narrow thinking, the mask of poetry being hard to get at and handle and sticks his finger into the socket to point out ridiculous of our beliefs. I laughed out loud in the midst of his poem, “I Like Cat that Catch Things, when he pointed out that some birds are not endangered and therefore can be food for cats and their ultimate trophy like the old in the old man in the sea’s great fish. And of course the title poem of the book is a wonderful homage to American speech via iceberg lettuce. Oh so American and lunch counter Locklin, a consummate poet. Here an easy introduction to one of our, our of us like cab drivers, butchers, heath worker, averagers, that is one of if not our Best Poets!