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| "A
large percentage of the poetry in the journal emanates in the U.S.A. and
the best of it comes from the quill of California's Steve DeFrance,
always an elegant writer, and often reminiscent of that great scribbler
of the American yarn O. Henry. It's
a sad fact that a great many poets do not read poetry magazines or even
borrow poetry books from the public library. Fortunately there are poets
who do. The difference in the quality of their work is obvious even to
the untrained eye. Perhaps many new poets, retirees taking up the pen
for instance, are frightened off from reading by memories of doggerel
inputted years ago by chalky schoolmasters. To them I'd say put it all
behind you and begin by reading a lot of what's being written today?
Steve DeFrance in issue 22 of Current Accounts might be one place
to begin. Pat Winslow Current Accounts "He is one of
a handful of great names in the contemporary alternative press." "De France's poems, narrative and lyrical,
starting from detailed actuality and moving toward a more abstract epiphany,
are very impressive. The language tends to the conversational to the
point of flatness, which works extremely well as a counter to the often
highly charged decriptive metaphorical burden. The modesty of the diction
becoming more and more moving as one reads." "Other comparisons have been made, but
to me Steve De France is a laconic Whitman for the end of our millennium.
Like the old Solitary Singer, De France celebrates himself in his poems:
not, however, as a demi-god of democracy or tribal shaman for the human
race, but as an unintimidated survivor of his era's social and spiritual
collapse--a collapse we feel in his every line. Treading a different
edge between prose and poetry, De France strips all the varnish and
superfluous color from our entropic middle class. De France's poetry
is compelling." "His narrative poems take the reader
through a world that's funny, witty and familiar to most of us. A poet
of the street, suburbs,classroom, cheap motels, dirty kitchens. . .
Steve De France has done it all and writes like a slumming angel on
the mean streets of Los Angeles, but what I appreciate most is De France's
quick wit and humor." "People mention Bukowski and Carver
when they talk about Steve De France's poetry, they shouldn't, because
he has a voice all his own." "Your poems really do kick serious ass!" "Steve writes complex, tough, angry
modern American poems which somehow capture the mystery of ordinary
everyday occurrences." "Imagine Walt Whitman after getting
mugged at Venice Beach. That's how I read De France's poetry." "De France has something so many writers
don’t, a sort of natural talent of chronology. Which is, arguably and
without tricks, the oldest and best way of story telling, poetry or otherwise.
His words appear, with the grace of simplicity, in order. This happened,
then this, then this, so the listener truly listens at the perfect edge
of language, perched at the firelight’s bright rim of darkness, the inevitable
drop off into then what happened? Which when done properly is forever
what must and will be. And De France knows what the story is.
Some of the writing is so good it just couldn’t be any better. Like
the description of love in “Dancing”, where the mother cleans him, wiping
his face into a momentary sanity of quietness, stillness like sleep,
and Roy holds her hand. This is beautiful. And this same poem is utterly
unsentimental in its revelation of the necessary outcome seen in the
flash of this light, this insight.
In fact, this single poem is a mirror of much of De France’s method
of description, of a kind of linear counterpart of chronology, the way
he uses movement from here to there, by train, by simple walking, by
the juxtaposition of place, to achieve actualities of possibilities,
and possibility’s balance of dimension in the cessation of all movement,
or Death. And here also is his good use of light, in this case a simple
stop, or crossing, light. In other poems successfully evoked in the
poetic echoes of shadows, sharp darkness and quick bright light, in
a black and white resolution of exclusion, evil, hope, and the moral
rightness of life’s mystery. Oh when he’s good, he’s good all right. Look
at how he uses single words, framed by periods, and they’re foundation
pyramids supporting an at first sight half constructed house, stark
framed against the sky. The only question being, is it in the process
of being built, or the continuing, inevitable ruin being torn down by
life’s process itself?"
"Steve De France ia a tremendously
talented writer with a gut wrenching, soulful window on the problems
of living in our modern world. He belongs with the best poets writing
in the English language today. He is in the tradition of Raymond Carver,
Charles Bukowski, and Henry Miller. But most importantly, Steve like
Ray, is not afraid to reveal himself. He writes with a fine sensibility
in a robust, virile style." "Steve De France writes poetry the way
a porn star fucks-hard and heavy while packing some serious thrust.
He is a writer that I keep going back to when I need some personal inspiration." |
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© 2004-2006 Steve De France Poetry · Contact: Steve |
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