Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith

Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith

Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith

Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith

Paperback

$24.00 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Thursday, April 4
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

The irreverent, tweetable, ludicrous, painful, wondrous work of the L.A. punk poet—widely available for the first time.

In Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World, David Trinidad brings together a comprehensive selection of Ed Smith’s work: his published books; unpublished poems; excerpts from his extensive notebooks; photos and ephemera; and his timely “cry for civilization,” “Return to Lesbos”: put down that gun / stop electing Presidents.

Ed Smith blazed onto the Los Angeles poetry scene in the early 1980s from out of the hardcore punk scene. The charismatic, nerdy young man hit home with his funny/scary off-the-cuff-sounding poems, like “Fishing”: This is a good line. / This is a bad line. This is a fishing line.

Ed’s vibrant “gang” of writer and artist friends—among them Amy Gerstler, Dennis Cooper, Bob Flanagan, Mike Kelley, and David Trinidad—congregated at Beyond Baroque in Venice, on LA’s west side. They read and partied and performed together, and shared and published each others’ work.

Ed was more than bright and versatile: he worked as a math tutor, an animator, and a typesetter. In the mid-1990s, he fell in love with Japanese artist Mio Shirai; they married and moved to New York City. Despite productive years and joyful times, Ed was plagued by mood disorders and drug problems, and at the age of forty-eight, he took his own life.

Ed Smith’s poems speak to living in an increasingly dehumanizing consumer society and corrupt political system. This “punk Dorothy Parker” is more relevant than ever for our ADD, technology-distracted times.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781885983671
Publisher: Turtle Point Press
Publication date: 06/11/2019
Pages: 400
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ed Smith (1957–2005) was a poet involved in the punk and alternative arts scenes in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. His books were Fantasyworld (1983) and Tim’s Bunnies (1988). His poems appeared in Rolling Stone, St. Mark’s Poetry Project Newsletter, and other publications. Smith also worked as an animator on Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues.

David Trinidad is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, collabora-tions, and edited volumes. These include Swinging on a Star (2017), Notes on a Past Life (2016), Dear Prudence: New and Selected Poems (2011), and Plasticville (2000), finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Trinidad is editor of A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos (2011), which won a Lambda Literary Award. He is a professor of poetry in the English and Creative Writing Department at Columbia College, Chicago.

Read an Excerpt

Denial

I would never do this.
This isn’t me.
You’d never catch me being words on paper,
Being written down,
Being in a position where
I could always be come back to and read.

Table of Contents

Introduction xv

Chronology xxi

Fantasyworld (1983)

A Poem with the Word "alas" in It 3

A Story 4

An Open Letter to Erica Jong 8

Anyway 9

At Home Now 10

Attention i'm a poet 11

Bobby Bankston 12

Brunch 14

Clothes 15

Confessional Poem 16

Croissant 17

Days of Heaven 18

Denial 20

Directed Association 21

Economic Suicide 23

Everybody I Know Wants to Meet Prince, but I Just Want to Have His Baby. 25

Fantasyworld 26

Fishing 28

Gifted 29

Hollywood and Vine 30

I Am Not: 32

I Have to Write This Because: 33

Involved with Music 34

Journal Entry 36

Looking for Work 37

Lunch Break on Hollywood Boulevard 38

Mary and Her Lamb 39

Mary Says for Me to Make This a Poem 40

Memoirs of a Thrill-Seeker 41

Nature Poem 42

oh 43

On the Bus Again 44

Please 45

Rules for Avoiding a Party: 46

Shit Fuck Damn Hell 47

Some Examples of Ways in Which One Can Divide People into Two Major Groups: 48

Sometimes Fucking Seems So Alien 49

The Telephone 50

Things in the Environment 51

Three suicidal fantasies 52

To My One and Only True Love 54

Untitled ("All day long we try to put it together…") 55

Untitled ("He had an orgasm in my girl,") 56

Untitled ("Imagine waking up") 57

Untitled ("Today, I aspire to drunkenness") 58

Writing Home Tonight 59

Zero Zero 60

Tim's Bunnies (1988)

A True Story of Enormous Significance 65

Almost Drunk 66

At the Gourmet Shop 67

KJOI 68

Shake Your Head 69

What I Don't Understand 70

Baby Fae 71

Church of the All Night Party 72

"735-8318" 73

A Poem in 4 Parts 74

"vacuum cleaner bags" 75

Dialogue 76

Bath 78

Of Course I Want You 79

Jessica 80

Breaking Point 81

My Hardening Dick 82

Tiger 83

60 Percent 84

There Was a Time 85

Babysitting 86

Untitled ("Lettuce") 87

Poster Boy 88

The Seven Dwarfs 89

Excursion 90

Converse All Stars 91

Me on the Phone to My Mom Having Some Stupid Argument 92

Anita Baker 93

No Way Yes Way 94

Partials 95

Sharing 96

Untitled ("You're my kind of guy") 98

Just Think 99

For Dry, Damaged Hair 100

Vacation 101

Tim's Bunnies 102

"miracle whip" 103

"bait and switch" 104

"youth hostle" 105

"ballet parking" 106

"O ye winds blow me" 107

"this morning I dreamed" 108

"you're no bother" 109

"when water from the sprinklers" 110

"knowledge" 111

"The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown" 112

"route 10 to 5 north stadium" 113

"I reached in to his pajamas …" 114

"If you'd like" 115

"shiver yer own" 116

"I spent a few minutes" 117

"I saw a rainbow" 118

"I'm in no moo'd" 119

"breathe deep" 120

"that comb cost me a fortune" 121

"Free Champagne!" 122

"if this were a bomb" 123

"molding young minds" 124

"so many men" 125

"i'm surrounded by flowers" 126

"I bought a gun today." 127

"I love it when you're wrong" 128

"no more bugs" 129

"It won't happen again" 130

"If you need help" 131

Return to Lesbos (1982)

Return to Lesbos 135

Uncollected Poems (1980-2002)

"Sexual Competition" 145

Found Words 146

Self-conscious Poem 147

Why I Grew a Beard 148

Untitled ("This is a good line.") 149

Dinner Time 150

Poem Poem 151

Benediction 152

Letter from the Grave 153

Poem for Ed Smith 154

Benediction in E-b Minor 155

Rent 156

March 24 157

Boredom 160

Greed 161

Ponderous Execution 162

I Don't Like the Way the World Is Changing 167

A List of 3 Letter Words 168

When I Get You on the Phone 169

An Unnumbered List of People I Hate So Much I Don't Even Want to Mention Their Names 170

Ode to a Streetlight 171

The Poem That Cannot Be 172

Cheating the Stork 173

Dear Fuckface Asshole Jerk, 174

Definition 175

Love Poem 176

Untitled ("I'm in my late 20's, I make") 177

My Secret Dream 178

If I Could Suck My Own Dick 179

You Can't Legislate Maturity 180

"oh ye of little hope" 181

Dear Suzanne, 182

Your Smell 183

"Dear Idiot," 184

"There were eight songs on the album…" 186

Revenge 187

"I have to get up" 188

Desire 190

Tonight's Line-Up 191

"There's something to be said" 192

"You have to use a washcloth" 193

For You 194

My Last Beer 195

Siege 196

"When I wrote" 197

Politicians 198

The Hardest Thing 199

15 Line Sonnet 200

Humphrey Bogart 201

"the only difference" 202

Art and Poetry 203

Seat47K 204

3 Prepositions 205

"I love you so much your" 206

Irony Clause 207

Excerpts from Ed Smith's Notebooks (1978-2004) 211

For Ed: Nine Tributes

Sweet Nothing by Dennis Cooper 353

Repose by Amy Gerstler 355

Ed Smith Slept Here by Celia Pearce & David Trinidad 357

Ed's Boots by Brad Gooch 358

From Fear of Kathy Acker by Jack Skelley 360

Grandiose Delusions as a Form of Escape from Reality Resulting from a Feeling of… Steve Abbott 361

Ed Smith by Michael Friedman 363

Poetics by Bruce Hainley 366

Elegy with Peonies by Amy Gerstler 367

Acknowledgments 371

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews