Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith
400Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith
400Paperback
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Overview
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the End of the World, David Trinidad brings together a comprehensive selection of Ed Smith’s work: his published books; unpublished poems; excerpts from his extensive notebooks; photos and ephemera; and his timely “cry for civilization,” “Return to Lesbos”: put down that gun / stop electing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 |
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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
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