Interesting news concerning Gaton. It seems one of the editors of the most recent issue of Burdock magazine has been researching Gaton based on my few entries into this blog. I've been asked to show them my copy of the rare "People of Grenada" long poem.
Gaton himself has been reading Burdock for sometime along with the few other poetry journals published in Milwaukee.
According to the blogsite for Burdock (strangely named Teppichfresser Press) they've also put out a few chapbooks. Since the poem is no longer in print I've suggested it get another go around since it is over 25 years old and most probably few in the younger circles in Milwaukee have even heard of Gaton.
I believe the poem holds up well after all these years in part because it existed under the radar to begin with.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Of Grenada
Gaton recently gave me a chapbook of his from the early 80's, a 6 part anti war poem that uses metaphors as wide ranging as Films by Gehr and the Mountain Meadows Massacre to discuss the Regan administrations various "weekend" conflicts in South and Central America. It is either a harsh condemnation of the American Public's inability to pay attention or a plea for sanity in foreign policy.
The whole book begins with a quote from a book by Harold Lamb "Genghis Kahn: Emperor of All Men"
"He knew now that beyond the ranges of his westerly border existed fertile valleys where snow never fell. Here, also, rivers never froze. Here multitudenous peoples lived in cities more ancient than Karakorum or Yen-king"
It's tone is similar to Robinson Jeffers and has the awareness (maybe not quite the hipness) of Ginsberg. Gaton seems to have a direct line into the CIA's mindset in section I and his comparison of that organization to the Spanish Inquistors is as near a bullseye as one can get.
It's a little dated in terms of content but since it is highly political/topical it must be viewed in this scope and taken as a lesson of what happens when the powers that be to quote Gaton: "wear bloodstained gloves".
It was a limited edition chapbook that was self published and sent overseas to friends abroad. The copy I found was autographed by Gaton "To J- they're never worth it but we love them"
He refused to tell me who "J" was, or why the book was back in his posession, but insisted that I take it.
The whole book begins with a quote from a book by Harold Lamb "Genghis Kahn: Emperor of All Men"
"He knew now that beyond the ranges of his westerly border existed fertile valleys where snow never fell. Here, also, rivers never froze. Here multitudenous peoples lived in cities more ancient than Karakorum or Yen-king"
It's tone is similar to Robinson Jeffers and has the awareness (maybe not quite the hipness) of Ginsberg. Gaton seems to have a direct line into the CIA's mindset in section I and his comparison of that organization to the Spanish Inquistors is as near a bullseye as one can get.
It's a little dated in terms of content but since it is highly political/topical it must be viewed in this scope and taken as a lesson of what happens when the powers that be to quote Gaton: "wear bloodstained gloves".
It was a limited edition chapbook that was self published and sent overseas to friends abroad. The copy I found was autographed by Gaton "To J- they're never worth it but we love them"
He refused to tell me who "J" was, or why the book was back in his posession, but insisted that I take it.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Exerpt From Gaton's Latest Book
While this might not be the best example of Chris Gaton's work, he asked me to share a work about his late wife before anything else:
It is a short work, emotional without being burdensome. He finds a comical approach to dealing with his grief. It is sexual without being graphic. Well, perhaps a little graphic, but in a way that is tender and familiar, not vulgar.
Periodontal Maidenhead
Someday soon when I’m too old and deaf
to remember that I’ve fallen asleep
with the television too loud, a woman screaming
in a film will drive my neighbors
to report me to the police
and after they burst in, guns out and raised,
arresting me, they’ll bring in the scientists
with the white plastic suits
and black lights
and find our trails of blood:
yours on the sheets, mine in the sink.
Where’s the body? they’ll ask me
in the interrogation room. The blood
told them about a murder and I can’t
bring myself to talk about your wedding gift.
It is a short work, emotional without being burdensome. He finds a comical approach to dealing with his grief. It is sexual without being graphic. Well, perhaps a little graphic, but in a way that is tender and familiar, not vulgar.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Works By Chris Gaton
Now that I've lectured you all, maybe it's time for me to be helpful as well. If you are one of the many currently living without the poetry of Chris Gaton, here is an admittedly incomplete list of his major and recent publications.
His books of full collections are:
Am I Too Among The Prophets?
Tannery Row
Gifts From Temuco
Toy Dogs
He has several chapbooks and broadsides, the most recent entitled:
"You Can Find Red Shirts Outside Of Madison, A Farewell To Frank Zeidler."
And his first locally published work in nearly a decade, "Pomes (sic)", was published in the second issue of B Squad Magazine.
His works are very difficult to find in Wisconsin, impossible in Milwaukee. Neither Downtown Books nor Woodland Pattern carry any of his work. I found a copy of Tannery Row at Avol's Books in Madison two years ago. No libraries that I've found have his work in circulation either, so while the hunt may not be easy, it's rewards are well worth it.
His books of full collections are:
Am I Too Among The Prophets?
Tannery Row
Gifts From Temuco
Toy Dogs
He has several chapbooks and broadsides, the most recent entitled:
"You Can Find Red Shirts Outside Of Madison, A Farewell To Frank Zeidler."
And his first locally published work in nearly a decade, "Pomes (sic)", was published in the second issue of B Squad Magazine.
His works are very difficult to find in Wisconsin, impossible in Milwaukee. Neither Downtown Books nor Woodland Pattern carry any of his work. I found a copy of Tannery Row at Avol's Books in Madison two years ago. No libraries that I've found have his work in circulation either, so while the hunt may not be easy, it's rewards are well worth it.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
A starting place by the water
To better inform the public, since that is the role the internet should take, I've chosen a task that very few people are lucky enough to perform. I will attempt to take a great American poet out of the depths of obscurity and give him the position he deserves. If you don't know Christopher Gaton or his poetry you are hardly alone in the world. But if you live in Milwaukee and aren't aware of heights this voice has achieved then you are in good company.
Gaton is a published poet that readers around the world have come to love. He chose to live in Milwaukee to find the obscurity he felt he needed to obtain his heightened narratives. Here he is a above transcendence. He is in exile, one of his own making. He has lived a life of quiet exhilaration and thunderous serenity and most recently overcame the death of his beloved wife, Bea.
I've studied his writing academically for years. He only took one writing class in college before his wife became pregnant with their first child. He switched majors to something more promising in terms of return. After getting his B.S. in business he went to work for a frozen foods retailer acting as a liaison to Sargentos, a cheese company, appropriate to the man who has breathed new recognition Wisconsin poetry around the world. Not since Horace Gregory has a poet from the Badger state been so revered internationally and not since Niedecker has one been so influential and yet so removed.
The aim of this blog is to familiarize people to this, perhaps, the last poet to escape the macroscope of the internet and still maintain a presence in poetry unequaled since the early Beats.
The back cover of his latest book, Am I Too Among The Prophets?, contains a quote that says it better than I ever could:
"Chris Gaton is Milwaukee's Wallace Stevens. It is criminal how he is completely forgotten in his own home." -Hayden Carruth.
Gaton is a published poet that readers around the world have come to love. He chose to live in Milwaukee to find the obscurity he felt he needed to obtain his heightened narratives. Here he is a above transcendence. He is in exile, one of his own making. He has lived a life of quiet exhilaration and thunderous serenity and most recently overcame the death of his beloved wife, Bea.
I've studied his writing academically for years. He only took one writing class in college before his wife became pregnant with their first child. He switched majors to something more promising in terms of return. After getting his B.S. in business he went to work for a frozen foods retailer acting as a liaison to Sargentos, a cheese company, appropriate to the man who has breathed new recognition Wisconsin poetry around the world. Not since Horace Gregory has a poet from the Badger state been so revered internationally and not since Niedecker has one been so influential and yet so removed.
The aim of this blog is to familiarize people to this, perhaps, the last poet to escape the macroscope of the internet and still maintain a presence in poetry unequaled since the early Beats.
The back cover of his latest book, Am I Too Among The Prophets?, contains a quote that says it better than I ever could:
"Chris Gaton is Milwaukee's Wallace Stevens. It is criminal how he is completely forgotten in his own home." -Hayden Carruth.
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