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Pink Fire
Howie Good a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Dreaming in Red from Right Hand Pointing and Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has three chapbooks forthcoming, Fog Area from Dog on a Chain Press, The Death of Me from Pig Ear Press, and Living Is the Spin Cycle from Redbird Chapbooks.
12 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2012
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March 22, 2022
Howie Good teaches journalism at New York’s state university, and in his spare time I understand has been thrice nominated for Pushcart prizes and Best of the Net anthologies both if you can believe it!
If you care for a bite-size sampling of what that mastery of his art makes for in a 12 page serving size, to see if your palate might agree with such refined fare don’t hesitate to download “Pink Fire” free of charge from Red Ceiling Press’s expansive eBook library, and if you can dig it seek out his many other publications online and in print.
Skimming the impressive list of books and articles he has under his belt, there is much of seeming interest, particularly immediately aligned with his profession (The Drunken Journalist: The Biography of a Film Stereotype, “Outcasts: The Image of Journalists in Contemporary Film”, “Acquainted With the Night: The Image of Journalists in American Fiction”, “Muckraking and the Ethic of Care”) which sound enormously illuminating and I’d be quite intrigued to peruse.
I also read that the Media Ethics class he teaches “is one of the campus’ more popular offerings”. It’s rare and a wonderful opportunity to read poems from an actual professional journalist and wire editor who worked on an influential national paper too, can’t say I’ve done that before - unless you count Hemingway’s small trove.
If you’re interested in hearing more about Good from the horse’s mouth, there is a fantastic interview about finding the magic in prose poetry posted by Unbroken journal (which have enthusiastically published his work repeatedly, and were one of his aforementioned nominators) worth reviewing.
(For an idea of his influences and approach, it was helpful to learn during his formative period Howie was heavily inspired by the seminal writings of Rimbaud and Baudelaire.)
This excerpt was also quite fascinating:
“I practice what I call “magpie-ism.” That is, I collect things that catch my eye, stashing them in a memo pad I carry. What sort of things? Words, phrases, facts. The sources include everything from misheard comments to my reading to dreams.”
Hearing about his collection “DANGEROUS ACTS STARRING UNSTABLE ELEMENTS” winning the 2015 Press Americana Poetry Prize also made me want to try and track that down.
Pink Fire is filled with spectacular imagery related by a refined and fastidious hand, clearly trained in expressing thoughts in carefully undiluted language through the most efficacious and direct manners possible. This talent rings true and can be discerned even amongst the absurdest and most surreal undertakings.
The influence of French dadaists (I thought also of Max Jacob and Apollinaire) is certainly apparent, though his East Coast American sensibilities and New Yorker take are also well honed and expressed, with pluck and dynamism and an element of danger that almost invokes the pulp crime novels of preceding generations.
I really love poems this compact and hard hitting, they remind me of exotic fruit, meat and cheese platters to be leisurely noshed upon, can make even the dullest rainy day at home feel decadent. I’ll have to make a note to myself, to read more of this gentleman. Highly recommend investigating if you have not had the pleasure!
“By the time peace had been declared, the future was dotted with burning peasant huts. Faces stared out from behind barbed wire. Out of necessity, a dog spoke up. I crossed the street to be astonished.”
- From “The Virtual Peace Project”
If you care for a bite-size sampling of what that mastery of his art makes for in a 12 page serving size, to see if your palate might agree with such refined fare don’t hesitate to download “Pink Fire” free of charge from Red Ceiling Press’s expansive eBook library, and if you can dig it seek out his many other publications online and in print.
Skimming the impressive list of books and articles he has under his belt, there is much of seeming interest, particularly immediately aligned with his profession (The Drunken Journalist: The Biography of a Film Stereotype, “Outcasts: The Image of Journalists in Contemporary Film”, “Acquainted With the Night: The Image of Journalists in American Fiction”, “Muckraking and the Ethic of Care”) which sound enormously illuminating and I’d be quite intrigued to peruse.
I also read that the Media Ethics class he teaches “is one of the campus’ more popular offerings”. It’s rare and a wonderful opportunity to read poems from an actual professional journalist and wire editor who worked on an influential national paper too, can’t say I’ve done that before - unless you count Hemingway’s small trove.
If you’re interested in hearing more about Good from the horse’s mouth, there is a fantastic interview about finding the magic in prose poetry posted by Unbroken journal (which have enthusiastically published his work repeatedly, and were one of his aforementioned nominators) worth reviewing.
(For an idea of his influences and approach, it was helpful to learn during his formative period Howie was heavily inspired by the seminal writings of Rimbaud and Baudelaire.)
This excerpt was also quite fascinating:
“I practice what I call “magpie-ism.” That is, I collect things that catch my eye, stashing them in a memo pad I carry. What sort of things? Words, phrases, facts. The sources include everything from misheard comments to my reading to dreams.”
Hearing about his collection “DANGEROUS ACTS STARRING UNSTABLE ELEMENTS” winning the 2015 Press Americana Poetry Prize also made me want to try and track that down.
Pink Fire is filled with spectacular imagery related by a refined and fastidious hand, clearly trained in expressing thoughts in carefully undiluted language through the most efficacious and direct manners possible. This talent rings true and can be discerned even amongst the absurdest and most surreal undertakings.
The influence of French dadaists (I thought also of Max Jacob and Apollinaire) is certainly apparent, though his East Coast American sensibilities and New Yorker take are also well honed and expressed, with pluck and dynamism and an element of danger that almost invokes the pulp crime novels of preceding generations.
I really love poems this compact and hard hitting, they remind me of exotic fruit, meat and cheese platters to be leisurely noshed upon, can make even the dullest rainy day at home feel decadent. I’ll have to make a note to myself, to read more of this gentleman. Highly recommend investigating if you have not had the pleasure!
“By the time peace had been declared, the future was dotted with burning peasant huts. Faces stared out from behind barbed wire. Out of necessity, a dog spoke up. I crossed the street to be astonished.”
- From “The Virtual Peace Project”
Displaying 1 of 1 review