Saturday, January 01, 2011

Out from Otoliths — Market Street Exit by Caleb Puckett

"Launch it on the cusp," replied Caleb when I asked him if he wanted his book to come out in 2010 or in 2011. So I am. It's 2011 on this side of the International Date Line, but still 2010 for most of the mailing list, so this is both the first book from Otoliths for the new year, & the last for the old.


Market Street Exit
Caleb Puckett
84 pages
Cover image by sean burn
Otoliths, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9807651-7-5
$12.95 + p&h
URL: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/market-street-exit/14258006
Che Guevara and I met again at the annual conference in Wichita. We set to scavenging the pre-conference breakfast platters, pouring ourselves some black coffee and catching up on business. Over the course of conversation, Che became alarmingly introspective and by the time we finished our cups he made this observation: “While a person dies every day during the eight or more hours in which he or she functions as a commodity, individuals come to life afterward in their spiritual creations. But this remedy bears the germs of the same sickness: that of a solitary being seeking harmony with the world.”

At first I was taken aback, confused as I was by his statement, but it all started to make sense as the day progressed. Indeed, later that night in my motel room I was so consumed with Che’s insight that I began penning Market Street Exit as a response. Che, old buddy, this one’s for you. —Caleb Puckett

Do not adjunct your set! Do not change that diode! But by all means take the next exit at Market Street if you want to ride into the sunset of a fading empire and its Western Sizzler buffet of fandangoed language. A gallows poetics haunts this bible-belt church funhouse of prose. Do not Pascal. Do not collect toe wonder doll wars. You'll be begging your pardon for the Earth because this book by Caleb Puckett has "the highest level of recycled content. Guaranteed." —Grant Matthew Jenkins

No comments: