LAMBKIN, GRAHAM - Slimers Verb

"Kendra Steiner Editions is honored to release a new poetry chapbook from renaissance man GRAHAM LAMBKIN. Grahams work in music/sound-art  and in visual art is well-known, as is his operation of the KYE record label, perhaps one of the ten best labels in the world devoted to contemporary forward-thinking music. His work, even after 20 years of various releases, is still surprising and still edgy and chance-taking, something one can say about very few peoples work in any discipline. This is a totally original poetry chapbook,  full of snaking rhythms and rich particulars and textures that stick to the reader, certainly different from any of the 100+ other poetry chapbooks weve published here at KSE. If you go back and listen to Grahams earlier works that involve lyrics or read his writings or watch  videos of his performances or even read his Facebook posts, you see an careful attention to the weight and texture of language. He SOUNDS OUT each phrase he writes or speaks  with precision, as if hes sipping and savoring a single-malt scotch or a Texas barrel-aged micro-brew. Of course, all that is true of his music/sound-art too, but were offering a poetry chapbook here…

To my American ears, Grahams literary works—-whether his Shadow Ring lyrics/vocals or his writings or spoken word performances—-are quintessentially British (in a raw and real manner, like a sample of soil from his native Kent), in the same way that perhaps the works of Hasil Adkins or Jandek or Sam Shepard or William S. Burroughs are quintessentially American to European ears. There is a mixture of whimsy and melancholy and a kind of kitchen-sink surrealism, a musicality and a classicism that is cobbled together from the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life. Graham also brings an elegance and a wisdom to poems that grow out of a hardscrabble yet charmed existence. The magic of Marc Bolans candied otherworldly explorations with a twist of Iggy Pop grit and tempered with Beckett-like gallows humor, with a stir of the pot from Lewis Carroll. Thats a lot to deliver in ten poems, but this chapbook does. And when you finish, you realize that the author has also delivered–for no extra charge–some wise and profound thoughts on mortality (not unlike the Dylan of the last 15 years). Walk through this world of charred bread and broken mirrors and crusty breadcrumbs and sacks of flour and clam pits and Christmas logs…and if you dare, ride the Amgash Thunder along with Soft Todd. Its a fitting follow-up to his 2009 collection of writings DUMB ANSWER TO MIRACLES, yet totally different." - Kendra Steiner Editions.