Out of Print: City Lights Spotlight No. 14
The third full-length collection by Julien Poirier, Out of Print is a truly bicoastal volume, reflecting the poet's years in New York as well as his return to his Bay Area roots. Consider it a meetinghouse between late New York School and contemporary California surrealism, a series of quips intercepted from America's underground poetry telegraph, or an absurdist mirror held up to consumerist culture.

"Welcome Julien Poirier! What a distinct inspired voice. His work is abundant in surprise. His musical,often bonkers play of language is, for me, a source of delight & revelation."—David Meltzer

"Julien Poirier’s poems calibrate the vernacular in a sublime mathematics of commonalities. The effect is that of feelings on the run, enunciated clearly. In a sudden down-draught—'You’re wind, you melt on my tongue'—he’ll take the contemporary love poem into new stretches of believability while knowingly calling to account the failings that, whether perennial or merely topical, hem round ourselves to disastrous effect. For, no mistake, Out of Print means business: a forceful wake-up call, allowing as how for this old world the time for meaningful action may well have run out and we’ve joined the fabled damned, lost but for such eloquence, affection, and mad, mad laughter in Hell’s despite."—Bill Berkson

"Out of Print’s unexpectedly a love poem, its humor sharpening into dissonant pleasure. And what a pleasure! Julien Poirier’s weirdly direct and directly weird poems notice what an event is, whether it’s four square monks in a Coupe de Ville or becoming the Invisible Hand, and render that event into a sensual and searching landscape. You are really there, no where, but there, in poetry as a means to think differently, and maybe, absurdly, hope."—Karen Weiser

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Out of Print: City Lights Spotlight No. 14
The third full-length collection by Julien Poirier, Out of Print is a truly bicoastal volume, reflecting the poet's years in New York as well as his return to his Bay Area roots. Consider it a meetinghouse between late New York School and contemporary California surrealism, a series of quips intercepted from America's underground poetry telegraph, or an absurdist mirror held up to consumerist culture.

"Welcome Julien Poirier! What a distinct inspired voice. His work is abundant in surprise. His musical,often bonkers play of language is, for me, a source of delight & revelation."—David Meltzer

"Julien Poirier’s poems calibrate the vernacular in a sublime mathematics of commonalities. The effect is that of feelings on the run, enunciated clearly. In a sudden down-draught—'You’re wind, you melt on my tongue'—he’ll take the contemporary love poem into new stretches of believability while knowingly calling to account the failings that, whether perennial or merely topical, hem round ourselves to disastrous effect. For, no mistake, Out of Print means business: a forceful wake-up call, allowing as how for this old world the time for meaningful action may well have run out and we’ve joined the fabled damned, lost but for such eloquence, affection, and mad, mad laughter in Hell’s despite."—Bill Berkson

"Out of Print’s unexpectedly a love poem, its humor sharpening into dissonant pleasure. And what a pleasure! Julien Poirier’s weirdly direct and directly weird poems notice what an event is, whether it’s four square monks in a Coupe de Ville or becoming the Invisible Hand, and render that event into a sensual and searching landscape. You are really there, no where, but there, in poetry as a means to think differently, and maybe, absurdly, hope."—Karen Weiser

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Out of Print: City Lights Spotlight No. 14

Out of Print: City Lights Spotlight No. 14

by Julien Poirier
Out of Print: City Lights Spotlight No. 14

Out of Print: City Lights Spotlight No. 14

by Julien Poirier

Paperback

$15.95 
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Overview

The third full-length collection by Julien Poirier, Out of Print is a truly bicoastal volume, reflecting the poet's years in New York as well as his return to his Bay Area roots. Consider it a meetinghouse between late New York School and contemporary California surrealism, a series of quips intercepted from America's underground poetry telegraph, or an absurdist mirror held up to consumerist culture.

"Welcome Julien Poirier! What a distinct inspired voice. His work is abundant in surprise. His musical,often bonkers play of language is, for me, a source of delight & revelation."—David Meltzer

"Julien Poirier’s poems calibrate the vernacular in a sublime mathematics of commonalities. The effect is that of feelings on the run, enunciated clearly. In a sudden down-draught—'You’re wind, you melt on my tongue'—he’ll take the contemporary love poem into new stretches of believability while knowingly calling to account the failings that, whether perennial or merely topical, hem round ourselves to disastrous effect. For, no mistake, Out of Print means business: a forceful wake-up call, allowing as how for this old world the time for meaningful action may well have run out and we’ve joined the fabled damned, lost but for such eloquence, affection, and mad, mad laughter in Hell’s despite."—Bill Berkson

"Out of Print’s unexpectedly a love poem, its humor sharpening into dissonant pleasure. And what a pleasure! Julien Poirier’s weirdly direct and directly weird poems notice what an event is, whether it’s four square monks in a Coupe de Ville or becoming the Invisible Hand, and render that event into a sensual and searching landscape. You are really there, no where, but there, in poetry as a means to think differently, and maybe, absurdly, hope."—Karen Weiser


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780872867048
Publisher: City Lights Books
Publication date: 04/19/2016
Series: City Lights Spotlight , #14
Pages: 124
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 6.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Julien Poirier has taught poetry in the New York City and San Francisco public schools and at San Quentin State Prison, and was a founding member of the Ugly Duckling Presse Collective. Previous books include Way Too West (Bootstrap Press 2015), Stained Glass Windows of California (Ugly Duckling Presse 2012), El Golpe Chileño (Ugly Duckling Presse 2010), and the newspaper novel, Living! Go and Dream (Ugly Duckling Presse 2005). For Ugly Duckling, he has edited such volumes as Jack Micheline’s One of a Kind (2008), Steve Dalachinsky’s In Glorious Black & White (2005), and two editions of Cedar Sigo’s Selected Writings (2003, 2005), as well as co-editing the periodicals 6x6 and New York Nights. With Garrett Caples, he is the co-editor of Frank Lima's Incidents of Travel in Poetry: New and Selected Poems (City Lights 2015). He lives in Berkeley with his two daughters.

Table of Contents

OPENING POEM
17 REASONS WHY
AVERAGE PAST
“Dear reader”
BACK ON ROOSTER
POEM (“I used to be the biggest leftist”)
THE 2ND AMENDMENT NEVER SLEEPS (2 pages)
PEPPER’S GHOST
ENTROPY REX (3 pages)
SHIMMERING LUCIFERS
STAGE 4 LUNG CANCER WON’T WAIT
SHOWDOWN WITH DEATH
THE BABOON IS EATING STRAWBERRIES
GREAT ESCAPES IN NEW YORK CITY (3 pages)
INVESTIGATION
WINNEMUCCA (2 pages)
FOUR FAILED REVOLUTIONS (2 pages)
“When I was growing up in America”
ORCHESTRE DE PARIS
LOUIS ARMSTRONG
THE 1906 SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE (AN EPISODE)
THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING (3 pages)
DRUNKARD’S ALMANAC
EXISTENTIALIST SPA
GARDENS & AIRPLANES
THE COMMODITY SINGS TO ITS BELOVED (2 pages)
HEAVY LOSSES, BOSS (3 pages)
EGYPTIAN BOWLING TROPHY
SHADES OF THE GENIE GENRE
TAMERLANE
MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT
SHUT EYE
EXIT SIGNS BURN
THERE’S LOVE AND THEN THERE’S LOVE (2 pages)
ZERO WITH A THOUSAND ACES (2 pages)
INDEPENDENTLY BLUE
RABBITS AND CANARIES (2 pages)
LONG LIVE (2 pages)
CAPE CODE
MOVE ON
INNER OAF
MY SKELETON
PIERRE DE RONSARD
THE PERFECT MAN
THE RED CAPS
MOUCHE VERTE MORTE
GREEN BOTTLE FLY
LOUIS ARMSTRONG INTERNATIONAL
BERKELEY VOICE NOTES (3 pages)
IF YOU’RE READING THIS
REAL-LIFE ADVENTURE
THIS IS THE LIFE
SILVER TO SILVER
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