I hate poetry. I usually find it self-indulgent, navel-gazing,
cloying pap, an archaic art form that's long outstayed its
relevance. In this brave new technological world where writing has
evolved and anointed screenplay as endgame, poetry has been reduced
to little more than a freakish sixth toe, as useful as an appendix.
So why am I writing the introduction to a poetry book? Because Joel
Landmine, that's why. Since first meeting Joel, I've been
mesmerized by his work. A fixture on the San Francisco literary
scene for years, he's etched out a name for himself by being
exactly what I wish all poetry could be. Accessible. Relevant.
Poignant and unforgettable. To quote Willy Wordsworth, Joel employs
the "language really used by men." (Yes, I know about the Romantic
Poets; I'm not a barbarian.) In short, in the battle of us vs.
them, Joel is one of us. (If you have to ask, you are probably one
of them.) Joel writes for the butchered and abandoned, the castoff
and downtrodden, and is unlike any poet I have ever read, unique in
the truest sense of the word. He excels at the conversation of the
lowlife, but Joel's work is steeped in the ordinary, too, infusing
pop culture with philosophy, eviscerating the minutia and mundane
that sometimes yields a world of riches. At least to those of us
who have nothing. Squalor paints his scene, dejection his theme-but
it's love, however fleeting, bizarre, unholy, perverted or
downright religious (in the strictest unorganized sense) that
remedies. There is a burning love and passion that colors this
work, the desire of one man to reach out in the dark and confusion
to say, "Hey, baby, I'm just as fucked up as you. Let's have a
smoke and compare tattoos. Then maybe later, we can get naked.
Here, let me light that for you." Now that's the kind of poetry I
want to read. Joe Clifford, author of 'Junkie Love' (Battered
Suitcase Press, 2013)
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