Broken Bulbs
by Eddie Wright Copyright: © 2008 $9.00 Paperback Free E-book 144 Pages As I write this essay, I’m listening to the Belgian rock band K’s Choice hit song “Not An Addict,” the first single from their 1996 album called Paradise in Me. The lines, “It’s not a habit, it’s cool. I feel alive. If you don’t have it your on the other side,” kept playing over and over in my mind as I read the short novella, Broken Bulbs, by Eddie Wright. This brilliantly twisted farce is the story of one man’s desperate journey for what Wright so aptly calls “somethingness.” The story is told from the point of view of Frank Fisher, and oh what a point of view it is. The first chapter alone is a nauseating churn of short choppy staccato sentences, random thoughts and actions, that read like beat poetry at a slam. I actually had a lot of fun going back and reading them out loud. The author does a magnificent job of putting you into the head of Frank Fisher, who is suffering from a strange addiction. You, the reader, will be drunk on words just after the first five pages. I loved the way Wright also uses a bit of poetic flare in his writing to strengthen his point, giving certain words beats and meters that force them to stick in the reader’s mind. Here’s an example… The mummy wrap ‘round my head is soaked with dirt and blood. It needs to be changed but I’m sick of it. Sick of this. It covers my eye. My right eye. Half the world is gone. Only the left side exists. I chew my nails again. Bite ‘em too low. Too short. They hurt. They bleed. They drip. I drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. RING RING RING RING RING RING RING The phone. Sure, an editor at a traditional publishing company would rip this story apart and use Wright’s syntax (Ha! What syntax??) for toilet paper. But a story like this really embraces the true art of self-publishing anyway.
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POETRY! Handle With Care: a book of poems and something sort of like art POETRY! by Chazda Albright Copyright ©2009 127 Pages $21.45 Hardcover With a title like that, I just had to take a look at Chazda Albright’s book. Being a fellow poet and artist, the title alone definitely captured my attention. Chazda introduces the book with an explanation about her medium: The images here that are “something sort of like art” have been drawn directly in the book using tools available within the Microsoft Word program and a cordless mouse. Each image has been drawn as an visual and spontaneous reaction to the poem it follows. I’ve never been a fan of computer generated art or the limits and confines I myself have experienced with programs like Word or Paint. I have tinkered with both when it comes to creating book covers – with not much luck – so I admire anyone who can do a better job than me. Viewing Chazda’s manuscript in Google docs was quite fun since I could catch a glimpse of each upcoming page in the right hand margin before viewing it full size. Here’s a sample: |
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