23 Poems

by Shane Jones. Vis-a-septic Publications, P.O. Box 3441, Quartz Hill, California, 93586.

Book Review by Michael Basinski

Send some bucks. Do it Now. I did meet Shane Jones and I did hear Shane Jones read. And I said, this is an interesting poetry he has a going here. And then he talks about small press poetry and it is obvious that he has read a lot of it and has chosen this realm as his realm. I got scarred like falling out a window into the jaws of the alligators of hell that are sharks and razors and ghosts. This guy might be the real thing, I thought. Even thought I am older and have credentials and say things like I eat ear cancer for breakfast poetry and the crucifixion nails oh sure, tasty, fascinating and the line this and the image of that, yes…all very very interesting and art full of knives and bullets and ballets of garlic in the stomach…. all very very interesting, interesting, and I was afraid. While I read his poems, I turned to the cover again to make sure that I wasn’t reading Charles Bukowski because of all the poets like Bukowski, Shane Jones had actually studied Bukowski’s line structure and the cadence of Bukowski’s verse and Shane Jones could but did not like copy Buk but like a merging, like a merging with Bukowski’s poems, like a poem written for the very first time. I was mighty impressed and thought that I have to get this guy to sign this book cause when he rolls the wining dice I wanna sit back and say, hey you out there reading this in cait collins’s THE HOLD, I told you assholes, I told you so.