Roche

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=120 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0ec8dfe1esnpes.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>FootHills Publishing 2008</B></FONT><B>     </B><B>|</B><B>     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="FootHills Publishing 2008"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id41.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Books 2008"><U>Books 2008</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Krok"><U>Krok</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Thomas"><U>Thomas</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id43.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lunt"><U>Lunt</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id44.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Waber"><U>Waber</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id45.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mesler"><U>Mesler</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Arnold"><U>Arnold</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id48.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Landsman"><U>Landsman</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id49.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Holley"><U>Holley</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id50.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Burchell"><U>Burchell</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id51.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Parlato"><U>Parlato</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Whittle"><U>Whittle</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hays"><U>Hays</U></A>   |   <B>Roche</B>   |   <A HREF="id56.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Jones"><U>Jones</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id57.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Barone"><U>Barone</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id58.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="McKee"><U>McKee</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id59.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Czarnecki"><U>Czarnecki</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Seaton"><U>Seaton</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id61.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lyons"><U>Lyons</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id62.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Nixon"><U>Nixon</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id63.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Holmes"><U>Holmes</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id64.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="McDonnell"><U>McDonnell</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id65.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Evans"><U>Evans</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id66.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michalak"><U>Michalak</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id67.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ballard"><U>Ballard</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id68.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bauer"><U>Bauer</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id69.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ikins"><U>Ikins</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id70.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Jefferis"><U>Jefferis</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id71.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Campbell"><U>Campbell</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id72.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Laura Glenn"><U>Laura Glenn</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id73.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Roberta Gould"><U>Roberta Gould</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id74.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Carmine Dandrea"><U>Carmine Dandrea</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id75.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Rhonda Morton"><U>Rhonda Morton</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id76.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Suzanne Shane"><U>Suzanne Shane</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id77.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Kathleen Jo Zimmerman"><U>Kathleen Jo Zimmerman</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id78.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Vicie Rolling"><U>Vicie Rolling</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id79.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sueann Wells"><U>Sueann Wells</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ordering By Mail"><U>Ordering By Mail</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact FHP"><U>Contact FHP</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=360 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0ec8dfc3.jpg"> <div> <I>Roche</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>John Roche</B></div> <div> <B>TOPICALITIES</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#on_conesus" TITLE="Roche"><U>(See John's previous FootHills book</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#on_conesus" TITLE="Roche"><U><I>On Conesus</I></U></A><A HREF="#on_conesus" TITLE="Roche"><U>)</U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="1652cd50.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="469" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <I>You won't need a secret decoder ring to open up these poems by John Roche-they're right there in your face, full of the energy & direct imagery of daily life and composed with careful grace for the way they sound in your ear. Not to simplify things too much, but this is the kind of poetry I like!</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>   --John Sinclair</div> <div> Amsterdam</div> <div> December 14, 2007</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <I>This is a good, solid book, musical and full of unexpected turns, defining the topics of the day just before they turn the dark corner into history. And, even more important, Roche refuses to draw a line between the personal and the topical. After all, our lives are on that table where the dice of politics are being thrown. In an age when so much poetry is predictable and solipsistic, </I><I><B>Topicalities </B></I><I>is a gift. </I></div> <div> --Steven Huff</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <I>I can't think of any other way to phrase this:  John Roche's </I><I><B>Topicalities</B></I><I> is a manifesto for our grim times, a “must-read” to help us survive the Bush Years and their aftermath. Yet the political sensibility of his poems is anything but grim. These poems raise awareness of the costs of the war in Iraq, for example, but his touch is deft. It moves, it rattles, it shakes and breathes passion, compassion…</I><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#323232" FACE="Comic Sans MS" ><I> </I></FONT><I>This poetry is honest without being brutal; hope rises from these pages. Thus, he makes us see both a “child's broken body” on the road to Damascus and the hosta lilies of spring in Western New York.</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>                        -- Karla Linn Merrifield </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Forward</B></div> <bR> <div> Dedicated to the proposition that the topical poem is not inferior to the personal lyric and that poems about today's struggles are not necessarily lacking in “eternal themes.”  At a recent Wheeler Hill reading, Susan Deer Cloud alluded to a poet who apologized before reading a “political poem.” Expect no such apologies here. Neither expect a clear demarcation between the personal and the political, except in those poems, like <I>Rick's Café </I>or <I>Coalition of the Willing</I>, where a distinct p.o.v. is assumed.</div> <bR> <div> Dedicated to poets like Janine Pommy Vega, John Sinclair, and Ed Sanders who've kept the issues, and the music, alive. And to Woody Guthrie, who was always ready to confront “the new situ-ation.”</div> <bR> <bR> <div> From the book:</div> <bR> <div> <B>Lucky</B></div> <bR> <div> It's 1955</div> <div> I'm being rocked in my cradle</div> <div> My father's on the road</div> <div> driving the byways of Connecticut</div> <div> for the American Tobacco Company</div> <bR> <div> Four decades later he'll succumb to emphysema</div> <div> in what lungs remain from the cancer surgery</div> <bR> <div> But, right now, he's tanned and young</div> <div> energetically setting up the Camels display</div> <div> flour-pasting Lucky Strike decals on the windows</div> <div> of package stores and general stores and grocery stores</div> <div> in Goshen Hebron Pomfret Scotland Norfolk Cornwall Coventry Norwalk New Canaan, New Milford, Norwichtown Deep River</div> <bR> <div> This morning he's sitting at a lunch counter</div> <div> in some pharmacy in some hamlet too small for a Woolworth's</div> <div> My Dad's got a cup of coffee a donut a cigarette</div> <div>  (a triad that was a constant in his life-</div> <div>  matched only by Mom and morning Communion) </div> <bR> <div> I would create a world where such pleasures are non-lethal</div> <bR> <div> Picture him outside</div> <div> on a sunny June day</div> <div> leaning against a wooden post</div> <div> examining his work with a satisfied eye</div> <div> and enjoying one more Lucky</div> <div> while morning stretches out and around the elm-draped bend</div> <div> in the road that goes on the road that goes on the road that goes on forever</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Virtual Wendell Berry</B></div> <bR> <div> Rushed out of work and onto the freeway</div> <div> burning fossil fuels</div> <div> to get to reading by the famous farmer poet</div> <div> hear why we need to slow down to mule-speed</div> <div> and learn to jettison consumerist dissatisfactions</div> <div> become human beings in human-scaled communities</div> <div> once again</div> <bR> <div> But first I'm shunted into snaking line around reflecting pool</div> <div> at the art museum</div> <div> then herded along with a hundred or more ethical sheep</div> <div> into the overflow pen (wainscoted and elegant)</div> <div> to watch our contemporary Thoreau</div> <div> over live videostream</div> <div> get an award for truth-telling</div> <bR> <div> Right after two words from our sponsors:</div> <div> a local state university branch</div> <div> and a globalizing bank</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Baghdad Boogaloo</B></div> <bR> <div> If it ain't broke, don't fix it</div> <div> If it ain't broke, don't fix it</div> <div> If it ain't broke, don't fix it</div> <div> If it ain't broke, don't fix it</div> <bR> <div> You break it, you bought it</div> <div> You break it, you bought it</div> <div> You break it, you bought it</div> <div> You break it, you bought it</div> <bR> <div> Jus' a little glue will do </div> <div> Jus' a little glue will do </div> <div> Jus' a little glue will do you</div> <div> Jus' a little glue will do </div> <bR> <div> Superglue that Sumerian figurine</div> <div> Superglue that pipeline</div> <div> Superglue that armor plating to the Humvees</div> <div> Superglue that power plant</div> <div> Superglue the Coalition of the Willing</div> <div> Superglue the Shias to the Sunnis to the Kurds</div> <div> Superglue their government</div> <bR> <div> You think you're quite the handyman, don't you?</div> <bR> <div> Down on the ranch jus' choppin' wood</div> <div> Choppin' wood all day</div> <div> Choppin' wood down on the ranch</div> <div> Jus' choppin'</div> <div> All day</div> <div> Jus' choppin'</div> <bR> <div> You can't fix it and you can't leave it</div> <div> You can't fix it and you can't leave it</div> <div> You can't fix it and you can't leave it</div> <div> You can't fix it and you can't leave it</div> <div> You can't you can't you can't you can't</div> <div> Your cant your cant your cant your cant</div> <bR> <div> Jus' more Baghdad Boogaloo</div> <div> A whole lot more Boogaloo</div> <div> Jus' more and more Baghdad Boogaloo</div> <div> Next time it's Tehran Tooraloo </div> <bR> <bR> <div> To contact John Roche - <A HREF="mailto:jfrgla@rit.edu" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:jfrgla@rit.edu"><U>jfrgla@rit.edu</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>TOPICALITIES</B></div> <div> is an 84 page hand-stitched paper book with spine.</div> <div> $16.00</div> <bR> <div> TO ORDER  ON-LINE  </div> <bR> <div>        <B> <form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/sc-but-01.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"> <input type="hidden" name="add" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart"> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="fhp@foothillspublishing.com"> <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Topicalities"> <input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="08-12"> <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="16.00"> <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD"> </form>  </B></div> <bR> <div>  <form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart"> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="fhp@foothillspublishing.com"> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/images/view_cart.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"> <input type="hidden" name="display" value="1"> </form>  </div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ordering By Mail"><U>To order through mail click here.</U></A></div> <bR> <div> ****************************************************************************************</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>  <A NAME="on_conesus"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A>On Conesus</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="16804a40.jpg" border=0 width="260" height="420" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <I>"There is a lovely resonance and particularity in these various poems. One's brought home to the physical world again, its daily, relieving insistences.  So a life finds its company, always."</I></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Robert Creeley</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <I>"John Roche's  </I>On Conesus<I> traces for us a place he located in his life-journey where the mind's contours could fit, for him, with the spiritual contours of the land and water on which and near which he and his wife lived.  You can trust that vision.  Thus, the silent loss when a beloved cottonwood falls, the poem notes it, and we can feel  its loss for all of eternity, as long as words stand black on white.   A pig farm mentioned in the </I>Maximus Poems<I> is long gone, but the poem remains. Long live the vision of Conesus."</I></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Ed Sanders</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.jsp?tag=MoreReviewsDec2006" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.js"><U>Short review of </U></A><A HREF="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.jsp?tag=MoreReviewsDec2006" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.js"><U><I>On Conesus</I></U></A><A HREF="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.jsp?tag=MoreReviewsDec2006" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.js"><U> </U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.jsp?tag=MoreReviewsDec2006" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.js"><U>by Levi Asher on his</U></A><A HREF="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.jsp?tag=MoreReviewsDec2006" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.js"><U><I> Literary Kicks</I></U></A><A HREF="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.jsp?tag=MoreReviewsDec2006" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msg.js"><U> Site</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> From the Book:</div> <bR> <div> <B>On Conesus</B></div> <bR> <div> wine glow of</div> <div> "Indian summer"</div> <div> afternoon</div> <div> no wine-dark sea</div> <div> but sparkling</div> <div> water and</div> <div> air that intoxicates</div> <div> --why "Indian"?</div> <div> autumnal images</div> <div> (even John Ford employed)</div> <div> Senecas once</div> <div> a lake rich with</div> <div> northern pike</div> <div> saltlicks</div> <div> wild ducks</div> <div> turtle stones</div> <div> longhouses on Conesus Creek</div> <div> (village of old Can-ne-hoot,  Chief Conesus in Hosmer's  <I>Yonnondio</I>)</div> <div> sheepberries</div> <div> beaver colonies before the hat fad</div> <div> fox</div> <div> bear</div> <div> panther</div> <div> wolf</div> <div> (Did Rushville's "Great Wolf Hunt" of 1811 reach here?)</div> <div> --reverie broken by jet ski--</div> <div> stillness returns</div> <div> even Thoreau had the railroad</div> <div> reverberations across his lake</div> <div> --whose lake?</div> <div> time</div> <div> aboriginal canoes</div> <div> time</div> <div> Mort Zuckerman bulldozers</div> <div> time</div> <div> Don Henley concerts</div> <div> time</div> <div> All-Aboard!</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Wellspring</B></div> <bR> <div> stream path</div> <div> from hill</div> <div> through our</div> <div> cellar</div> <div> surfacing</div> <div> on beach</div> <div> forms ice-</div> <div> banked</div> <div> river</div> <div> soon widens</div> <div> into bay</div> <div> as ice </div> <div> recedes</div> <bR> <div> we drank from this spring</div> <div> until January</div> <div> contractor</div> <div> broke concrete</div> <div> of driveway</div> <div> drilled frozen ground</div> <bR> <div> now we have </div> <div> chlorinated baths</div> <div> a mound of earth</div> <div> an eroding trench</div> <bR> <div> for fifty years</div> <div> people drank from the well-</div> <div> spring</div> <div> within this house</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Solar Returns</B></div> <bR> <div> Day-O!</div> <div> glistening</div> <div> island sun</div> <bR> <div> Take a Carnival Cruise</div> <div> in my li'l rowboat</div> <div> but it's 40°F.</div> <div> and the boat leaks</div> <bR> <div> Van Morrison</div> <div> on the box</div> <div> "Too Long in Exile"</div> <div> and</div> <div> "Til We Get the Healing Done"</div> <div> for now</div> <div> thankful</div> <div> for a wee bit</div> <div> o' sun</div> <div> after yesterday's</div> <div> 1st snow</div> <div> that stuck</div> <div> barely broke 30°</div> <div> two layers</div> <div> of socks</div> <div> two sweaters</div> <div> in the house</div> <div> burning fossils</div> <div> eating carbs</div> <bR> <div> That old cave mentality</div> <div> returns</div> <div> almost enough</div> <div> to make one</div> <div> a Republican</div> <bR> <bR> <div> ISBN 0-941053-57-1</div> <bR> <div> <B>On Conesus</B> is a 96 page hand-sewn paperback with flat spine - $16.00</div> <bR> <bR> <div> TO ORDER  <B>On Conesus  </B>ON-LINE </div> <div> <B> <form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/sc-but-01.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"> <input type="hidden" name="add" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart"> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="fhp@foothillspublishing.com"> <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="On Conesus"> <input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="05-02"> <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="16.00"> <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD"> </form>      </B><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#111111" FACE="Comic Sans MS" > <form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart"> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="fhp@foothillspublishing.com"> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/images/view_cart.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!"> <input type="hidden" name="display" value="1"> </form>  </FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <div> To order through mail click here.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>