In 1955, Charles Olson wrote two letters to the young poet Ed Dorn, later revised as A Bibliography on America for Ed Dorn. I read this compilation in the late 1960s. At one point, Olson argued: PRIMARY DOCUMENTS. And to hook on here is a lifetime of assiduity. Best thing to do is to dig one thing or place or man until you yourself know more abt that than is possible to any other man. It doesn?t matter whether it?s Barbed Wire or Pemmican or Paterson or Iowa. But exhaust it. Saturate it. Beat it. And then U KNOW everything else very fast: one saturation job (it might take 14 years). And you?re in, forever. His admonition is to Dorn as a novice, and rings with a certainty that I can only partially share. But it planted a seed in me for the writing of this book. My aim is not to know more than ?is possible to any other man,? but to make use of a pluralistic approach that may result in a fuller ?reading? of comic book imaginations might yield. I don?t want to engage the comics in an ahistorical void or to strip mine them for ?poetic? materials. Among other things, I want to incorporate their imagery into poetry as a primary antecedent dimension, in effect opening a trap door in poetry?s floor onto these unbounded but evocative gestures. As a poet?s book, Superman is an attempt to reclaim the poem merged with drawing of Blake and the phanopoeia of Pound as imagistic-mythical memory in which early intimations of what we call ?muse? may be experienced. Poetry itself is questioned throughout this book: how can one make use of its strategies to engage materials that have no historical significance or penetrating language?

Dreadful Quietude: A confused saturation of Pre 9/11 America & Supermen

Literature & Fiction

Gatza, Geoffrey

History & Criticism

BlazeVOX Books

Geoffrey Gatza's poems go straight to the point. From one to another the plane is consistent, the tone both literate and congenial; the feeling, one of an assessment of options while moving through choice to definition, a definition-in-progress of how to be, allowing large time outs for horseplay, an inventory of asides that end up occupying large chunks of mind. The book as ethos - you can live with it -- you wish - why not?    -Bill Berkson

Secrets of My Prison House

Poetry

On January 31st 2012, a woman slowly transforms over the period of twelve hours into words. Beginning with the hairs on her arms then to her skin then her body coverts into empty space marked by all the words in all the worlds dictionaries present and past. Her words take shape, organizing from short phrasings to into longer texts, into spontaneous poetry and onto longer prose works. Texts meld into a literature. She dances in the moment. Her life finds meaning in the definition of devalue. She is unsure if literature defined her life or rather, her life is an invention of literature itself. Emotions responding to her changing environment, works of literature set out a path for her to follow. Now, in her new shape, the works that defined her are now less than adequate to navigate straits flowing past the end of the story. She forgoes literature discovering other forms of writing law, philosophy, physics, and so on. Finding no solace, she transforms further into logical statements and equations. These expressions divide their forms, converting into sets that can be in the universe and sets that do not need a universe to formulate their function. Slowly, hour by hour, she converts into nothingness, anything and everything all in the same moment; a thing in the universe and an object of pure conception, surviving as would a number four floating in an alone space, in the seas of infinity without a function until a skilled mathematician can recall her on a dusty slate chalkboard in a red one-room schoolhouse for an empty classroom except for one teacher and one child.

House of Forgetting

There's a lot of humor in the book, a lot of anger, some silly crazy Oulipo style nonsense, and some honestly felt emotional ballast. If one could compare a book of poems to a ship, this one has a hull filled with heavy cargo that sometimes shifts as the equator moves around deep waters. And so much concern for the animals, the lowliest species get their share of respect. It is the first book I've read, for example, that alludes to the "terror attack" on Siegfried and Roy by their tigers and lions, in terms of deepest sympathy for the big cats for whom the worm finally turned. 
- Kevin Killian

I wear a figleaf over my penis

Self-Help

Poetry. "Geoffrey Gatza is a one-man marching band, a solo carnival, an individual masquerading as a very creative small town. He is a chef, an artist, a shape-shifter, a savant. BLACK DIAMOND GOLDEN BOY TAKES BULL BY HORNS is exactly what it sounds like: the Headline News of what's happening in the magic storyland of Gatza's head, startling the reader like Wonderland continually startles Alice. I am fully convinced that never in the history of the world has there been anyone like Gatza -- unless Sir Percival the Pure actually was a real guy, way back when"--Ted Pelton.

Black Diamond Golden Boy Takes Bull By Horns

BlazeVOX: an.online.journal.of.voice Vol. 3 : 2k5

Literary

The Albatross Around the Neck of Albert Ross: Strange Stories for Wild Children

Children's Books

Lavender Ink

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Books by Gatza, Geoffrey