On The Toad

by J.D. Nelson

J D Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words and sound in his subterranean laboratory. More than 1,000 of his bizarre poems and experimental texts have appeared in many small press and underground publications. He is the author of Roman Meal (Ten Pages Press, 2011), Noise Difficulty Flower (Argotist Ebooks, 2010), and The Frankendelphia Experiment (Tainted Coffee Press, 2010). Visit MadVerse dot com for more information and links to his published work. His audio experiments (recorded under the name Owl Brain Atlas) are online at OWLNoise dot com. J. D. lives in Colorado, USA.

20 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2011

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Reviews

[Jerome Berglund · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I was certain that Monopoly came with white dice…”

I have been working my way through the vast and consistently captivating archives of free eBooks offered generously by Red Ceilings Press, and am so happy to have finally reached the other chapbook of J.D. Nelson’s released there, a year before his best known work Cinderella City dropped through the same publisher.

Highly encourage you to investigate this unique and inventive little collection of thirteen poems in under twenty pages. As Cinderella City did for me previously, I suspect you will be similarly enthralled by this upon first exposure, find yourself unable to resist navigating to Nelson’s website (and music collections) and become a great fan of his experimental writings, which have made him one of the most frequently and widely published poets, an underground literary rock star of our day, across the internet and in print.

Written around the same period, through a little later than his earlier collection Roman Meal (so helpful the poet provides a timetable of composition for situating) On the Toad exhibits a broad selection of J.D.’s different preferred styles and approaches, ranging from their most wildly dada and arcane to pieces demonstrative of a concreteness and specificity uncommon in the author’s other bodies of work, put together making a wonderfully inclusive showcasing of Nelson’s capabilities and representation of his greater oeuvre.

The pleasure J.D. Nelson’s writing brings readers I might equate with what a person experiences taking in a gallery of Salvador Dali paintings, or on a laser-lit dance floor amidst an electronica music festival writhing while the bass drops. In literature such flights were something the French surrealists accomplished marvelously, but the English speaking world rarely dares or succeeds at mastering the genre with as much gusto and eloquence as you’ll find herein.

There’s something mindful and meditative about such experiences, immensely relaxing and absorbing. I’m reminded of Leary’s famous countercultural recommendation to “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.” Should you consent and boldly venture that direction, I highly doubt anyone shall be disappointed…

Nelson should also be celebrated for his absolutely brilliant command of the concrete poem, in which millennials may find the most charming nostalgia in its throwbacks and conjurings of the messaging developments of early-nineties primeval chatrooms/forums and proto-emojis’ evolution, something they can find many further rich examples and appearances of in his other collections!

Love this guy, follow his website to track new material’s frequent releasing in interesting places, and also highly worth becoming one of his 130,000 (!!) followers on Twitter… <3

“apple the pie is a game…”