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Tom Postell: On the Life and Work of an American Master
The poetry of Tom Postell, believed lost since a tragic death in 1980, appears here in its first authorized, comprehensive volume. While Postell ran with the masters of Beat, Black Power, and Hardbop in the 50's and 60's, he has remained elusive, enigmatic, unsung. His poems provide an astonishing look into how issues of race, music, and the political avant-garde intersect at this pivotal moment in post-WWII America. Essays and hybrid work by giovanni singleton, Derrick Harriell, and Aldon Lynn Nielsen complement interviews, typescripts, and archival photos, making this retrospective of Postell the first of its kind.
ABOUT TOM POSTELL
Tom Postell, born Thomas Freeman Postell Jr., was a Black American poet born in Cincinnati in 1927 and closely associated with the Beat Generation, Black Mountain School, and Black Arts Movement in New York City's Greenwich Village from 1953 to 1969. A close friend and mentor of poet Amiri Baraka, Postell's circle included musicians like Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp and fellow poets like Allen Ginsberg and Ted Joans. Hindered by institutionalization, mental health struggles, and substance abuse, Postell disappeared from the literary scene in 1970, leaving a trove of innovative work thought lost upon his death in 1980.
"Postell wrote moon poems that would concern the authorities. A nature poet, jazz poet, love poet, and surrealist raconteur. He was multitudinous, hilarious, occasionally terrifying and always interstellar. In the pages of this iridescent collection, his voice arrives as if from another planet, another place in space-time, to call us forward.” —Dr. Joshua Bennett
"Tom Postell emerged from the mid-1960s Village literary scene as a self-sculpted, deft, barely-listened-to imaginal incessance. And yet, with this surprising new collection of unheralded poems, his work continues to radiate with incantatory significance. —Will Alexander
ABOUT TOM POSTELL
Tom Postell, born Thomas Freeman Postell Jr., was a Black American poet born in Cincinnati in 1927 and closely associated with the Beat Generation, Black Mountain School, and Black Arts Movement in New York City's Greenwich Village from 1953 to 1969. A close friend and mentor of poet Amiri Baraka, Postell's circle included musicians like Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp and fellow poets like Allen Ginsberg and Ted Joans. Hindered by institutionalization, mental health struggles, and substance abuse, Postell disappeared from the literary scene in 1970, leaving a trove of innovative work thought lost upon his death in 1980.
"Postell wrote moon poems that would concern the authorities. A nature poet, jazz poet, love poet, and surrealist raconteur. He was multitudinous, hilarious, occasionally terrifying and always interstellar. In the pages of this iridescent collection, his voice arrives as if from another planet, another place in space-time, to call us forward.” —Dr. Joshua Bennett
"Tom Postell emerged from the mid-1960s Village literary scene as a self-sculpted, deft, barely-listened-to imaginal incessance. And yet, with this surprising new collection of unheralded poems, his work continues to radiate with incantatory significance. —Will Alexander
233 pages, Paperback
Published May 15, 2024
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 26, 2025
Poetry book found in New North
https://poems.com/poem/two-poems-post...
From Tom Postell: On the Life and Work of an American Master, "The Unsung Masters Series"
https://asterismbooks.com/product/tom...
His poems reveal his interior world that is overflowing with imagination and passion, compared with interviews of his exterior presentation - to many he seemed like very ordinary, stoically-based man. He details jazz and growing up in NYC and this book of poems cements what I think a good description, that NYC is only for 5 times of people - immigrants, creatives, gays, rich people, and people of color.
Things that caught my eye:
wearing baggy pants to church
lotus squatting buffaloes
bird blows the saxaphone
storm of architectural sound
mountains of oversimplifications
redundant oasis
melts in your breath
mailer cuts his wife
whimper after the moon
too nonchalant to terrify us
tuned with stereophonic sound
people that give up their virginity to a rolling stone
tongue of ocean / stuttering jazz
a cloud of smoke / or thoughts that choke
whispering out of nothingness a song
tear the muscles from the sea / and leave them bare
friendly sex
heat burns our bare hearts black. Where is your resting place?
rain. Oppression. I love beauty; but I am afraid
autumn hair roan rumbling down
the body transgresses the brain
I sucked her out of a hole in an orange
Remember her / I don't believe she really cared
If I work, I am too tired to write
If I write, I starve, I'll stand beneath the sky
And curse God
Once upon a time i was a sober fox
Martian phantasmagoria
Antecedent invisibilities
You've got to be a freak to get to hell
https://poems.com/poem/two-poems-post...
From Tom Postell: On the Life and Work of an American Master, "The Unsung Masters Series"
https://asterismbooks.com/product/tom...
His poems reveal his interior world that is overflowing with imagination and passion, compared with interviews of his exterior presentation - to many he seemed like very ordinary, stoically-based man. He details jazz and growing up in NYC and this book of poems cements what I think a good description, that NYC is only for 5 times of people - immigrants, creatives, gays, rich people, and people of color.
Things that caught my eye:
wearing baggy pants to church
lotus squatting buffaloes
bird blows the saxaphone
storm of architectural sound
mountains of oversimplifications
redundant oasis
melts in your breath
mailer cuts his wife
whimper after the moon
too nonchalant to terrify us
tuned with stereophonic sound
people that give up their virginity to a rolling stone
tongue of ocean / stuttering jazz
a cloud of smoke / or thoughts that choke
whispering out of nothingness a song
tear the muscles from the sea / and leave them bare
friendly sex
heat burns our bare hearts black. Where is your resting place?
rain. Oppression. I love beauty; but I am afraid
autumn hair roan rumbling down
the body transgresses the brain
I sucked her out of a hole in an orange
Remember her / I don't believe she really cared
If I work, I am too tired to write
If I write, I starve, I'll stand beneath the sky
And curse God
Once upon a time i was a sober fox
Martian phantasmagoria
Antecedent invisibilities
You've got to be a freak to get to hell
Displaying 1 of 1 review