May. 20, 2011 at 3:08pm
doug coxpoetrythe last decent jukebox in americalsspress
People of Internet, I have an announcement. LS&S Press, the fledgling literary publishing endeavor I started with my wife last year, has published its first title in paperback. Imagine an exclamation point in there somewhere. Several. The Last Decent Jukebox in America by Doug Cox is a debut poetry collection that calls out to Joe Strummer and Otis Redding, Walt Whitman and William Matthews, freegans and SHARPs, mosh pits and the quiet just before sleep. It is thirty-five poems at times formal, funny, introspective and angry. Often it is all of those at once. These are poems as rich in their poetic legacy as they are their pop music roots. Barbara Hamby said of the collection, “Doug Cox’s gorgeous music chimes in his anarchic rhymes that join Johnny Cash and the Clash in a hymn to crazy late nights in karaoke bars, rock-n-roll dives, and pinball joints.” Jennifer L. Knox called Jukebox “cool, but never too cool for school.” Frank Giampietro said, “Imagine a poetry one part Bukowski’s canny humor, one part Simic’s weird deadpan and one part Jeopardy questions on American Rock Music—no, imagine whatever you fucking want. Just read this.” Other people have said other things, too. Suffice it to say, I love this collection of poems and I am very happy that Doug agreed to take this adventure with us. Soon, we will release a small-run hardback version (styled after a tri-gatefold LP, with each of the book’s three sections as individually saddle-stitched “records”) and following that, our second title. But for now, we begin with this wonderful debut. You can find excerpts from the book and learn a bit more here. You can also find Doug’s poems online at Suss, La Fovea, Juked, and The Ghazal Page. More importantly—because I care about the salvation of your eternal souls here on the brink of rapture and because there could be worse ways to spend your final hours of creation than with this book—you can buy Jukebox at the LS&S shop or from Amazon. And if you’re in or near Nashville this weekend, you can catch Doug read tomorrow night at The Melrose. Lastly, if you would help spread the word, I’ll love you in my awkward, enthusiastic way for far longer than either of us will be comfortable.

People of Internet, I have an announcement.

LS&S Press, the fledgling literary publishing endeavor I started with my wife last year, has published its first title in paperback. Imagine an exclamation point in there somewhere. Several.

The Last Decent Jukebox in America by Doug Cox is a debut poetry collection that calls out to Joe Strummer and Otis Redding, Walt Whitman and William Matthews, freegans and SHARPs, mosh pits and the quiet just before sleep. It is thirty-five poems at times formal, funny, introspective and angry. Often it is all of those at once. These are poems as rich in their poetic legacy as they are their pop music roots. Barbara Hamby said of the collection, “Doug Cox’s gorgeous music chimes in his anarchic rhymes that join Johnny Cash and the Clash in a hymn to crazy late nights in karaoke bars, rock-n-roll dives, and pinball joints.” Jennifer L. Knox called Jukebox “cool, but never too cool for school.” Frank Giampietro said, “Imagine a poetry one part Bukowski’s canny humor, one part Simic’s weird deadpan and one part Jeopardy questions on American Rock Music—no, imagine whatever you fucking want. Just read this.” Other people have said other things, too. Suffice it to say, I love this collection of poems and I am very happy that Doug agreed to take this adventure with us.

Soon, we will release a small-run hardback version (styled after a tri-gatefold LP, with each of the book’s three sections as individually saddle-stitched “records”) and following that, our second title. But for now, we begin with this wonderful debut.

You can find excerpts from the book and learn a bit more here. You can also find Doug’s poems online at Suss, La Fovea, Juked, and The Ghazal Page.

More importantly—because I care about the salvation of your eternal souls here on the brink of rapture and because there could be worse ways to spend your final hours of creation than with this book—you can buy Jukebox at the LS&S shop or from Amazon. And if you’re in or near Nashville this weekend, you can catch Doug read tomorrow night at The Melrose. Lastly, if you would help spread the word, I’ll love you in my awkward, enthusiastic way for far longer than either of us will be comfortable.