Come Out Tonight: Selected Works of Steven Jesse Bernstein

by Steven "Jesse" Bernstein, Dennis R. White (Introduction), Larry Reid (Editor)

Steven Jesse Bernstein was born December 4, 1950, in Los Angeles, California. On October 22, 1991, he took his own life on the Makah Indian Reservation near Neah Bay, Washington. The brutal facts of Bernstein's life, his struggles, his addictions, living with mental illness, and the ultimate act of ending his life, shouldn't been seen as tragic, nor should they be romanticized. It's doubtful Jesse, as the protagonist of his own story, would see it either way. It's more likely that Jesse would have made art where others saw disaster. Creating art out of disaster is what Jesse did best.

The horrors of addiction and a cycle of self-medication to ward off mental illness were crucial to his work. More importantly, they were only a small part of Jesse's depth of experience. This collection of Steven Jesse Bernstein's poetry marks 2021 as the 30th anniversary of his death.
(From the introduction by Dennis R. White)

Genres: Poetry

132 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2021

Reviews

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

if jimmy recommends you a book you say okay jimmy yes jimmy right away and you read it and its amazing and it blows you away every time

[Keiron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having discovered the work this June, and it becoming harder to find any Bernstein's books at the right price due to their scarceness and expensive premise, i luckily sourced a copy of this book from the press that originally pressed it (it oddly unavailable anywhere, but the press pulled through and sent me a copy for free) truly an immense and excellent collection of this overlooked poet's works, blurring the lines of Bukowski and Burroughs with the right amount of beauty and grit encapsulated within his words. SJB writes like a true outlaw poet: his life as an on-and-off junkie and his prolific presence across Seattle gives SJB a unique writing style, sometimes loud incoherent rants ("come out tonight") heartfelt poems for his lover Leslie ("poem for L") and his struggles with mental illness (the excellent "More Noise Please"). if you can find this do give it a read. its been on rotation on my many jaunts across bars and travelling over these last few months.

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

The unheard music of Seattle. Grunge poetry? Nah, but there’s grit in them there poems that you won’t be able to get out of your head.