Fall & All

Poetry in homage of William Carlos Williams written by Dave Roskos. introduction by Donald Lev.Some of the poems in Fall & All have been published in Arbella, The Black Swan Review, Big Scream, Big Hammer, Casino Anthology, Home Planet News, The Home News Tribune, The Daily Observer, New Jersey Bowel & Bladder Control, Elephant, The Paterson Literary Review, Blue Collar Review, Dionysus--The Journal of Literature and Addiction, LUMMOX, Without Halos, Working Hard for the Money (Bottom Dog Press, Working Lives Series), in the 2016 CAT IN THE SUN PRESS edition of LYRICAL GRAIN, DOGGEREL CHAFF, & PEDESTRIAN PREOCCUPATIONS (LGDC&PP).& online in POETS on the line, & Napalm Health Spa.I'd like to thank the editors of these publications for their commitment to small press publishing.This is the 2019 print-on-demand second edition of this book. Around 300 copies of a xeroxed/saddle-stapled 28 page chapbook were published in 2000. One poem from that edition has been omitted from this version; six poems from that time period (mid 90s to early 00s) have been added. One poem from 1986 ("Veterans") is reprinted from my first chapbook The Energy of the Flesh (1989), to keep the laundromat poems together. "Early Morning Suicides" is from my fifth chapbook INTENSIVE CARE (Black Rabbit Press, 2010). A later version of early morning suicides appears in LGDC&PP as "a blessing & a curse." "These Tomatoes Have Life In Them" was written in 1983 & is reprinted from Without Halos #1.The book review by Donald Lev, used here as a forward, is reprinted from Home Planet News #48 (2002). Long Live Donald Lev!Iniquity Press/Vendetta BooksPO Box 906, Island Heights, NJ 08732-0906iniquitypress(at)hotmail.comThis book is for Ayler.New Jersey is a state full of poets, one of whom, David Roskos, who works various laboring jobs including furniture moving, and who publishes books and magazines and runs series of poetry readings, wrote this little pamphlet in homage to another good New Jersey poet who worked as a doctor, and like Dave Roskos did a lot for other poets and wrote a lot of poems about New Jersey and its people, particularly its working people.And like his great predecessor, Roskos does not waste words, does not try to dazzle the reader with gratuitous flourishes. In fact, he warns the reader at the outset that "you will search/these pages/for one good line." But you will be astounded, as I was when I picked this little book up, by page after page of well-made poems on what the poet has seen and felt and known. The untitled poem (most of the poems are untitled) beginning "the moon/is defunct/as an image/in poetry--" is a case in point. It's as close as Roskos comes to being lyrical: Moon!2 of themcupped in mywife's brassiere.Moon!melted down& shot upby junkies.(rubber gloveddishwashersw/ moonsin their hair nets)...Moon!lamented& lost,& at what cost?the whole of the sky.Some of the poems are more precisely homages to William Carlos Williams, such as: the chickens walk slowin the yard aroundthe old rusted auto.cautious chicken stepstaken lightly.the rooster smiles& the worms worry.I, as an addict, must stopto pray.The poem which follows, "On the Road to the Contagious Crack House" contains language and nuanced observation truly worthy of the author of "Spring and All"--as does the charming little untitled poem on the page after that: Noonwith Aylerat Manasquan Inleta clam boatslowly approaching...one lone worker on deckin orange hip wadersspackle bucketsoverflowing with clamsFALL & ALL is like a good piece of theater presenting to its audience a panorama of experience of drugs, work, and domestic life with strength, dignity, pith, and "No Bullity" of expression.-- Donald Lev2002