The Collection

These five paperback books from the Folk Literature Series are packaged together in a handmade black slipcase.


	edited by Robert Wolf An anthology of autobiographical sketches, fiction, and essays by residents of MATTHEW 25, a shelter for homeless men in Nashville. 82 pp. paper Read excerpt.


	edited by Robert Wolf Written by Iowa farm families around a kitchen table during winter nights, these stories describe the often bleak reality of life in rural America. 58 pp. paper Read excerpt.


	by Josef Goller Poems from prison by a man who says that "hate penned most of the words." Twenty years later, Josef Goller is a successful restauranteur. 24 pp. paper Read excerpt.


	by Rebel Yell A book of prose poems, Hitchhiker's Dream is the journal of a woman's hitchhike through the South in the summer of 1990. 26 pp. paper Read excerpt.


	by El Gilbert A collection of prose poems by an observer of honky tonks, would-be country western heroes, and the people who haunt the Nashville night. 24 pp. paper Read excerpt.

Excerpts from The Folk Literature Series:

from Passing Thru

Lucky Lacey
by Christopher Crawford

Lacey, for the benefit of those who don’t know him, was the town drunk. But Lacey was not your average wino. No, Lacey had been blessed with the gift of song and dance. I don’t know where he was from, but it must have been a swinging place, because Lacey was a cat, a cool jerk so to speak.

Hot was an old guy who owned a juke joint that most of us used to hang out in. Old Man Hot would put a quarter in the juke box and play some of those down home blues that Lacey loved so well. In fact, Lacey’s favorite part of Hot’s was the juke box. That’s where he lived from sunup to sundown.

Slime was a friend of mine who loved to imitate Michael Jackson. He was crazy. And Christopher was the one guy Lacey would talk to sober or drunk. For some reason Lacey trusted him. So the music started, and away Lacey would go, spinning, turning, and twisting. Now the only thing that was different about this wino is that he could do all this with a fifth of redeye, and not spill a drop.

It goes without saying that to Christopher and Slime this was totally amazing. So amazing that Slime started imitating Lacey. (See, I told you he was crazy.) Old Man Hot found it unbearable to see a sixty-five year-old drunk acting this way. But as I said in the beginning, Lacey was far from the denture-grip, rubbing-alcohol, and rocking chair kind. No indeed, Lacey was a rocker without the chair. As a matter of fact, there might have been a few moves Michael Jackson might have stolen from him.

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from More Voices From The Land

Storm Clouds
by Richard Sandry

It is a nice warm June afternoon. The sky is a robin’s egg blue with the white cumulus clouds lazily drifting on their way to their rendezvous with the horizon. A gentle breeze ripples my short-sleeved shirt as I gaze out over the cornfield. Knee-high already and the deepest dark green you can imagine. I think about all of the money we borrowed and all of the planning and time it took to get that crop to where it is now.

My son comes to my side. Now my mind drifts back to when I was his age and I stood beside my father looking at the results of his toil those years before. Then I think, is this the end of the line? I think of how farming has changed over my lifetime, of how we have progressed to where profits are practically nonexistent. What has he to look forward to should he wish to farm? I am filled with a deep sadness and fear for his future, as I have seen an interest in raising livestock and working with the soil being nurtured in him, maybe even bred right into him. "Let’s go to lunch, Dad,” he says.

This brings me back to reality, and for the moment I forget the future and the past. I look to the west and see the dark ominous storm clouds rapidly moving upon us. “We had better hurry,” I tell him, “or we are going to get wet.” In the back of my mind I remember something being said on the radio this morning about storms coming this way.

We finally get home and just as we come into the house, the rain begins to fall. Shortly the full fury of the storm is upon us. As I watch, looking ut through the window, I think of how the days of my life go. How the clouds on the horizon of my sunrises sometimes, later in the day, turn into the black clouds of fear, of despair, of anger, of uncertainty, and of depression.

As suddenly as it began the storm ends. The corn is bent but not broken. Soon the sun will come out and the corn will straighten and begin to grow again.I think how a turnaround in the farm economy would revive the farmers, make them refreshed with that spirit and vigor that has always been a farmer’s attribute.

Tonight I will thank the Lord for seeing me through today and ask for guidance for tomorrow. With spirits bent but not broken.

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from From Within Walls

Phrasing
by Josef Goller

Gray walls, steel bars
put them in a jar
& flush them down the toilet

Pretty boys lifting weights
& spending time
broken down at the waist

The morning’s without sun
so I stare at the glare
of the 50 watt freak

Lying on my bunk
thinking about the punk
who winked at me!

Bedsprings start to sing
to the only tune
& the face on the wall

Guards changing shifts
but not the rules
doesn’t matter, got my own

Received a letter
a week old
& means just as much

Too bad hate’s not
shaped like a key
I’d have a Masters

Don’t tell me
what time it is
it may be too late

The great promise!
Two cars in every garage
& a T.V. in every cell

Nothing really new
about my style,
just the way it’s expressed . . .

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from Hitchhiker's Dream

Just Relaxing along the Interstate
by Rebel Yell

Just relaxing along the interstate at the exit
215 B, just watching the traffic going by me,
not a care in the world.

Traveling free spirit just watching the travelers
heading down the road and watching people getting
off the interstate,

sitting in the tall grass and playing with
the grasshopper with their skin is green like
the grass they live in,

watching the semi rolling down the I-40
heading eastbound and knowing it’s going to
rain soon or tonight,

knowing it’s too late to out my thumb
and to get on the open road, to get away
from the city,

knowing the weekend is coming up soon
in a few more days and it’s time to
hit the open road.

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from Lion's Share

Look Again
by El Gilbert

She has worked hard all week,
goes to Shoney’s Sundays for grilled liver,
baked potato & iced tea. $3.59 including tax.
Not bad except for Muzak, the view from the window:
paint peeling off the Quality Stamp Redemption Center sign.

She lights a cigarette.
The man in the next booth coughs.
A little girl across the way watches,
twists one ankle behind the other,
wonders what she looks like without her clothes on.
(Fat, honey, fat. Dark pubic hair & fat.)

She is a dropout, a poet & like most poets
doesn’t own/drive a car,
which is the only reason she comes here at all.

Her girlfriend, a 43 year old newspaper columnist from
Grand Rapids, says that’s obscene . . . “All responsible
people drive cars.”
(Do they?)

Beads of sweat form under her nose.
Funny . . . air conditioners don’t work as well
as they used to.
Change-of-life couldn’t be that bad . . . or could it?

She scans the paper for jobs, apartments, help.
But the only job is the one she’s got,
apartments are for couples & there isn’t any help.

The waitress dashes between the busy tables
around her, forgets to refill her coffee cup.
It’s hard to keep track of single customers . . .
especially women.
She leaves a quarter tip,
returns to her hot plate/four walls,
the blank pages in her typewriter.

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