John M. Bennett Is Hoisted Aloft By The Shattered Wig Dancers

(From Piedra Portatil by Sheila E. Murphy and John M. Bennett)




John M. Bennett is not only the hardest working mench in the poetry avant-garde and just retired curator of the experimental writing wing of the University of Ohio library, but his long running and vital magazine Lost & Found Times, which ran from 1975 until 2005 (54 issues in all! The last few assembled while Professor Bennett was undergoing all kinds of hellish eye surgery), was the conduit for me to discover the weird and wonderful world of Blaster Al Ackerman.

(Sheila E. Murphy & John M. Bennett)

"From its origins in mail art to its more recent participation at the edges of language (and what is coming to be called post-language) poetry, Lost and Found Times provides a model of how marginalized cultural workers can create productive areas of engagement within a network of activity." — from Loose Watch.

Although Bennett no longer publishes his magazine Lost & Found Times, his press, Luna Bisonte Productions, continues to crank out tiny beauties like the above Piedra Portatil and Benzene, his collaboration with Musicmaster, below.

But of course the meaty core of Bennett's production is his own slippery writing. Shattered Wig was very pleased to just receive a thick packet of new work by Bennett and we feel it sings among his finest. Here are a few. And although it's too soon to call this a Shattered Wig Review #29 sneak peek because God only knows when I will arise from sluggardness to put that one together, I guess that's what this sort of is.

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Numb Thorn

the jerky suit the chest of hair

and socks .blast of number phone

called my I you did .your did

my unit clamber .dice and dime

.dressed in lieberwurst conejo !mine

dusted ,bash what spoon nimbles the

thoughtless dust ,I dressed ,you

dreamed I pulled you pilled .ah

epiphyte rolling down the steps !

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Plunder

chased my cloudburst you a golf

ball mildewed in my soapdish

what the mist dried like ziti

in your lap a dozen masks g

runt and chain inside the soup

closet dribbly with your dogwash

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Check out John M. Bennett's Luna Bisonte/Lost & Found Times website at:

http://www.johnmbennett.net/Lost_&_Found_Times_Luna.html

There are video poems, text poems, a catalog of the immense amount of titles published by John and some history of the press and its mission/passion.