HATE
A BOOK OF POEMS by Mark
Salerno
$8.95 [order
info]
n
For Immediate Release
96 Tears Press is pleased to announce the
publication of
Hate, a book of poems by Mark Salerno.
This innovative sequence of poems explores the themes of love and loss, and the not-always-successful discovery of one’s humanity in a world recently described by Bob Dylan as “gone wrong.” Obdurate and unsentimental, this book is as much a harrowing journey through a landscape of shifting value and affection as it is an extended struggle between poetic form and poetic content. The moral burden that this book attempts to take up seems nothing more nor less than the ever-present question: “What is there left to say?”
Stylistically, Hate for the most part eschews the tropes of “poetry” (metaphor, simile, image, etc.) in its search for a more direct statement. At the same time, these poems reference, echo, develop and extend each other, creating their own poetic context, and causing the book to read, as Carl Rakosi has pointed out, “like one long poem.” What unifies this sequence is a voice that is consistently laconic, pragmatic, skeptical and realistic.
In short order it becomes apparent that the “hate” of the title is meant not as a program, expletive, invocation or imperative, but as a recognition of the difficult and often baffling flipside of whatever “love” could be. One must return to certain poets of Mr. Salerno’s hometown of New York (especially Oppenheimer, Sorrentino and Blackburn) to find works as adamant in their address as are these.
Mark Salerno was born in New York in 1956. He lives in Hollywood, where he edits Arshile: A Magazine of the Arts.
Hate
A Book of Poems by Mark Salerno
ISBN 0-9644269-0-0
62 Pages
PERFECTBOUND
$8.95
Publication Date: May 1, 1995
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CARL RAKOSI
Strong, bittersweet poems poignant with existential questioning and with observations of the endless trivia that pulls one’s spirit down, the real everyday world in a philosophical nutshell, difficult to express without being pretentious or abstract, which Mark Salerno is not. Quite the contrary, his language is always personal, straightforward and colloquial, free of posturing. Thus he is able to be both earthy and philosophical. In addition, there is such tonal consistency throughout the book that it’s like reading one long poem. Recommended.
TONY TOWLE
Salerno’s work is filled with subtle and clear-sighted observations about life that at first glance may seem abstract, but on rereading form emotional landscapes and still lifes that give pleasure with their lucidity and seamlessness.
WILLIAM BRONK
I like these poems. They are felt and forthright. It is satisfying to say them.
MICHAEL LALLY
Mark Salerno’s deadpan wit belies the romantic poignancy of his poetry. Despite his arch tone, these poems seem more often than not to be about a broken heart. It’s as if Groucho Marx were a poet wounded by love—but still Groucho.
DOUGLAS MESSERLI
In Hate Mark Salerno performs an almost breathless testament to love—the love of living, with all its attendant annoyances and sorrows; the love of other human beings—with all their fears and resistance; and the love of communication, of language, the “desire for the soothing / transitive for calm and human / trust.” His unsentimental language is made to produce an almost elegiac account of hearts that are “neglected, abused and unquenched.”
ANSELM HOLLO
Ted Berrigan used to say, “Poems are stories with the boring parts left out.” In Hate, Mark Salerno’s work strikes a perfect balance that way: the “story” looms but does not infringe on the integrity of the words. A beautiful and haunting book.
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