Birthdays Before and After - Softcover

Perl, Puma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1892184206 ISBN 13: 9781892184207

Publisher: Beyond Baroque Books, 2019

Synopsis

"To the edgy, illustrious ranks of poets like Diane DiPrima and Charles Bukowski, let us now add the fearless, delirious genius of Puma Perl. Long a cult legend and staple of the Lower East Side poetry scene, with “Birthdays Before and After,” she steps forward and cements her place as 21st Century visionary and unsparing chronicler of the human condition. Anyone who cares about phenomenal writing and one-of-a-kind breathtaking lines on the page needs to read this book. Puma Perl is nothing short of a national treasure living in our midst. And “Birthdays” is a jewel. " ~Jerry Stahl

About this title

From the Author:

So many friends wandered in and out of the pages of this book. You are all my muses. From my opening poem, at Razor's Bay Area home, to the closing one, on the Lower East Side, you've breathed this book into being. Love and appreciation goes out to everyone with whom I've made art and music this year. My last collection (Retrograde, 2014, great weather for MEDIA) pursued a post-apocalyptic theme with a Velvet Underground background. My two chapbooks, Belinda and Her Friends and Ruby True, told stories in poetic form, and knuckle tattoos, my first full-length collection, was like a first novel - autobiographical in a non-linear way. "Birthdays" is a long love poem - filled with the life-sustaining energy of my friends and collaborators, the city, the streets, and, of course, sprinkled with loss, regret, loneliness and love. 

From the Back Cover:

It's Puma Perl's New York City, the street stoops and Coney Island, the heartbreaks, the heroin, the ghosts of Haring and the Chelsea Hotel. Like Jim Carroll born a woman, maybe, or Lou Reed with a keener grasp of the written word, her writing is as skillful as it is scary and wonderful. Makes startling poetics of the day-to-day, the big beats and saxophones and rush of subways. All the themes-isolation, sobriety, death, self-reflection, weddings and birthdays-are inescapable and ferocious in her hands. They're earned words, so beautifully bent you could wear them as jewelry - Brain Smith, author of Spent Saints and Tuscon Salvage- Tales and  Recollections of La Frontera

About this edition

• Publisher: Beyond Baroque Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1892184206
• ISBN 13: 9781892184207
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 102
• Editor: Berry Iris