Gerry Lafemina

Poet Sounds Gerry Lafemina

Lo-fi Poetry: Poets cover your record collection. CityLit Press's Lo-fi Poetry Series continues with POET SOUNDS. Inspired by The Beach Boy's seminal 1966 album, "Pet Sounds," this anthology features more than thirty poets covering each of 13 tracks. A "Liner Notes" section of poems reflects on the power of the album as a whole. This eclectic range of poems is like verse surfing and is filled with what defines Brian Wilson's voice and poetics.

Edited by Gerry LaFemina and Christine Stroud, POET SOUNDS includes poems from Glen Armstrong, Ned Balbo, Robert Balun, Susana H. Case, Vincent A. Cellucci, John Davis, Rishi Dastidar, Bonnie Emerick, Kestra Forest, George Guida, Denise Scannell Guida, D. Gilson, Donald Illich, Jacqueline Jules, Tim Kahl, Lisa Kosow, Gerry LaFemina, Amy Lemmon, M. L. Liebler, Margaret Luongo, Dawn McDuffie, Cameron McGill, Katie Mullins, Sean Murphy, Joey Nicoletti, Corey Oglesby, Kenneth Pobo, Andrea Rogers, Brent Royster, Jane Satterfield, Jessica Server, David Starkey, Brendan Stephens, Christine Stroud, Tim Tomlinson, Jon Tribble, and George Yatchisin.

From editor Christine Stroud's essay, "More Than Just Surfer Anthems" "One of the final pieces in the book, found in the liner notes, "Animal Gospel" by Jane Satterfield, reminds me again the way art inspires. She writes,

... Upbraid me if I forget
the jade frenzy of grasshoppers

caught in a plastic superstore pouch,
the sleepwalker's sanctuary broken

as the doe threads a stand of oak,
its tonnage pounding the fraught floor.

Those lovely lines, those rich images, those reverberating sounds. I'm in awe again and again reading this book because it reminds me again how connected we are and how we all continue to search for more. Like the tracks on Pet Sounds, these poems call to us, say "Let's Go Away for Awhile."