A Green Bean Press Sampler

by Green Bean Press. Green Bean Press. P.O. Box 237, NY, NY 10013.

Book Review by Michael Basinski

This is Ian Griffin candy. Poets and prose with throbbing robin eggs laid by armadillos and dishes screaming in the air from the boss’s flabbing, sweating lips, tore panty-hose again - twice this week, standing still and being hit by a truck - it is your fault, here in America - this isn’t. This isn’t a guy who can fly off to Brazil for a strawberry milkshake to sooth his hurt mind. No. Here are poets who butter your toast with shit and butterflies. Oh the night notes are lonely and strange things. How these insects ignored by the museums sing. We are fortunate that the Bush II’s DDT didn’t kill them, kill us all. I am sitting here smoking a cigarette with Mike Kriesel, Winans, Crocker, the group. And joe r. and Mark Terrill and Nathan Graziano - it is his kitchen. I don’t play cards. I sit and smoke and look out the window at the pleasant dark night. I hear the Gods, the bugs. Gontarek comes in with Sal Salasin. “Where the hell’s Griffin?” someone asks. No one answers. I think he is out back making books, I think, but remain silent. My smoke drifts out the window. There are plenty of insects. I hear them. They make me happy. These insects are free and they refuse.