Detective Story, poem by David Tucker

DETECTIVE STORY
after Jane Kenyon’s “Happiness”
by David Tucker

Happiness is a stubborn old detective who won’t give up on us
though we have been missing a long, long time,
who stops in towns where we once lived and asks about us
in a grocery where we shopped ten years ago, who visits
the drugstore in the city where it always rained and walks
the hallways of that house by the river, leafing through
the newspaper left on the table, noting the date.
When the search party has called it off, when the dogs
have been put up and our names stuffed in cabinets
at the back of the station house, happiness is still out there,
staring up at a road sign in a distant town,
studying a map by cigarette, weeks away, then days.
A breeze smelling of the river enters the room though
no river is near; the house is quiet and calm for no reason;
the search does end, the detective does finally sleep, far away
from anything he imagined, his dusty shoes still on. 

…“Detective Story” appears in David Tucker‘s  collection Late for Work, winner of the Bread Load Writers’ Conference 2005 Bakeless Prize (and published by Houghton Mifflin, 2006), available at Amazon. com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Journalist and poet David Tucker grew up in Tennessee. He earned a BA at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he studied with poet Donald Hall. Booklist critic Donna Seamanhas described his poems as “deceptive in their sturdy plainness . . . inlaid with patterns as elegant as the swoop of swallows, and images as startling and right as a cat’s bowl of milk shimmering as its ‘moon god.’” His debut collection, Late for Work (2006), was awarded the Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize by judge Philip Levine. Donald Hall, a former US poet laureate, appointed Tucker a Witter Bynner Foundation Fellow in 2007. A newspaper editor for more than 25 years, Tucker is an editor for the Metro section of the Newark Star-Ledger newspaper, where he was part of the team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. (Source: poetryfoundation.org)

Illustration: “Film Noir Detective” by igrayne01 (via deviantart.com)

The Big Sleep, novel by Raymond Chandler

THE BIG SLEEP
Chapter Twenty-Four (Opening Paragraph)
By Raymond Chandler

The apartment house lobby was empty this time. No gunman waiting under the potted palm to give me orders. I took the automatic elevator up to my floor and walked along the hallway to the tune of a muted radio behind a door. I needed a drink and was in a hurry to get one. I didn’t switch the light on inside the door. I made straight for the kitchenette and brought up short in three or four feet. Something was wrong. Something on the air, a scent. The shades were down at the windows, and the streetlight leaking in at the sides made a dim light in the room. I stood still and listened. The scent on the air was a perfume, a heavy cloying perfume.

ABOUT THE NOVEL: Published in 1939, The Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first to feature detective Philip Marlowe. The book has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and again in 1978. The story, set in Los Angeles, is noted for its complexity, with many characters double-crossing one another and many secrets exposed throughout the narrative. In 1999, the book was voted one of the ”100 Books of the Century” by French newspaper Le Monde. In 2005, it was included in “TIME’s List of the 100 Best Novels.” (Read more at wikipedia.org.)

Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology: Already a Collector’s Item!

While checking the amazon.com page for the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology — released about 30 days ago — I noticed that several online booksellers had listed the book for around $1,000 (yes one thousand dollars). I have no idea what this is all about — only that some “experts” feel that the book is collectible. Perhaps Guy Budziak‘s superb cover art has led to this phenemenon.

Get a new copy today for the bargain price of $10.15 at Amazon.com.

Wake-Robin Ridge, romantic suspense novel by Marcia Meara

Congratulations to Marcia Meara — whose poetry has appeared in three Silver Birch Press anthologies — on the recent release of her romantic suspense novel Wake-Robin Ridge, available in paperback and Kindle versions at Amazon.com. Marcia is an inspiration — and we’re looking forward to reading her novel over the holidays.

BOOK DESCRIPTION:  On a bitter cold January night in 1965, death came calling at an isolated little cabin on Wake-Robin Ridge. Now, nearly 50 years later, librarian Sarah Gray has quit her job and moved into the same cabin, hoping the peace and quiet of her woodland retreat will allow her to concentrate on writing her first novel. Instead she finds herself distracted by her only neighbor, the enigmatic and reclusive MacKenzie Cole, who lives on top of the mountain with his Irish wolfhound as his sole companion. 

As their tentative friendship grows, Sarah learns the truth about the heartbreaking secret causing Mac to hide from the world. But before the two can sort out their feelings for each other, they find themselves plunged into a night of terror neither could have anticipated. Now they must unravel the horrifying events of a murder committed decades earlier. In doing so, they discover that the only thing stronger than a hatred that will not die is a heart willing to sacrifice everything for another. 

A story of evil trumped by the power of love and redemption, Wake-Robin Ridge will transport you to the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and introduce you to characters you won’t soon forget.

…Find Wake-Robin Ridge at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marcia Meara is a native Floridian, living in the Orlando area with her husband of twenty-seven years, two silly little dachshunds and four big, lazy cats. She’s fond of reading, gardening, hiking, canoeing, painting, and writing, not necessarily in that order. But her favorite thing in the world is spending time with her two grandchildren, eight-year-old Tabitha Faye, and seven-month-old Kaelen Lake. Marcia is the author of Wake-Robin Ridge, a romantic suspense novel set in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, and Summer Magic: Poems of Life and Love. She is currently working on her second novel, Swamp Ghosts, set alongside the wild and scenic rivers of central Florida. Her philosophy? It’s never too late to follow your dream. Just take that first step, and never look back.

Book cover by Nicki Forde at nickifordedesign.com.

Editor’s Notes: Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology

Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology

Released: December 7, 2013

Size: 122 pages (5.5 x 8.5″)

Available in paperback for $10.60 at Amazon.com

EDITOR’S NOTES

WHY: As a longtime fan of hardboiled detective fiction and film noir, and an aficionado of found poetry, I wondered what would happen if the two were combined. A call for submissions on the Silver Birch Press blog, as well as requests from our contributing editors to their colleagues resulted in a wide range of submissions, including those featured in the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology. 

WHAT: So just what is an erasure poem? Take a page from any book, cross out or whiteout some of the words and the remaining words constitute the erasure poem. The Silver Birch Press Noir Erasure Poetry Anthology pays homage to noir authors—including genre founders Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, as well as other authors of crime fiction whose work served as source material.

WHO: My thanks to the 46 poets represented in the collection (find their names in this post), as well as the 16 noir authors whose writing served as inspiration. A special thank you to contributing editors Jenni B. Baker, Catfish McDaris, james w. moore, and Gerald So—accomplished poets and authors who encouraged their writing colleagues to participate in the collection. Thanks, too, to Guy Budziak for his stunning cover art. (View more of the artist’s work at filmnoirwoodcuts.com.)

DEDICATION: Noir and erasure poetry are a perfect match—stark, pared down, elemental, bare bones.  As the author who invented L.A. Noir and elevated prose to poetry, we dedicate the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology to Raymond Chandler.

WHERE: Find the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology — an interesting, unique (and inexpensive) holiday gift for lovers of crime fiction (and poetry!) — at Amazon.com.

Detective Story, poem by David Tucker

DETECTIVE STORY
after Jane Kenyon’s “Happiness”
by David Tucker

Happiness is a stubborn old detective who won’t give up on us
though we have been missing a long, long time,
who stops in towns where we once lived and asks about us
in a grocery where we shopped ten years ago, who visits
the drugstore in the city where it always rained and walks
the hallways of that house by the river, leafing through
the newspaper left on the table, noting the date.
When the search party has called it off, when the dogs
have been put up and our names stuffed in cabinets
at the back of the station house, happiness is still out there,
staring up at a road sign in a distant town,
studying a map by cigarette, weeks away, then days.
A breeze smelling of the river enters the room though
no river is near; the house is quiet and calm for no reason;
the search does end, the detective does finally sleep, far away
from anything he imagined, his dusty shoes still on. 

…“Detective Story” appears in David Tucker‘s wondrous collectionLate for Work, winner of the Bread Load Writers’ Conference 2005 Bakeless Prize (and published by Houghton Mifflin, 2006), available atAmazon. com, where copies are available for just one (1) cent, plus shipping. If you love poetry or aspire to write it, Late for Work by David Tucker is a must-have, must-read book! 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Journalist and poet David Tucker grew up in Tennessee. He earned a BA at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he studied with poet Donald Hall. Booklist critic Donna Seamanhas described his poems as “deceptive in their sturdy plainness . . . inlaid with patterns as elegant as the swoop of swallows, and images as startling and right as a cat’s bowl of milk shimmering as its ‘moon god.’” His debut collection, Late for Work (2006), was awarded the Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize by judge Philip Levine. Donald Hall, a former US poet laureate, appointed Tucker a Witter Bynner Foundation Fellow in 2007. A newspaper editor for more than 25 years, Tucker is an editor for the Metro section of the Newark Star-Ledger newspaper, where he was part of the team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. (Source: poetryfoundation.org)

Illustration: “Film Noir Detective” by igrayne01 (via deviantart.com)

Haruki Murakami Reads Ross Macdonald

In this excerpt from The Paris Review interview with Haruki Murakami — bestselling author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle — the writer discusses the influence of hardboiled detective fiction on his work.

INTERVIEWER: … hard-boiled American detective fiction has clearly been a valuable resource. When were you exposed to the genre and who turned you on to it?

MURAKAMI: As a high-school student, I fell in love with crime novels. I was living in Kobe, which is a port city where many foreigners and sailors used to come and sell their paperbacks to the secondhand bookshops. I was poor, but I could buy paperbacks cheaply. I learned to read English from those books and that was so exciting.

INTERVIEWER: What was the first book you read in English?

MURAKAMI: The Name Is Archer, by Ross Macdonald. I learned a lot of things from those books. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. At the same time I also loved to read Tolstoyand Dostoevsky. Those books are also page-turners; they’re very long, but I couldn’t stop reading. So for me it’s the same thing, Dostoevsky and Raymond Chandler. Even now, my ideal for writing fiction is to put Dostoevsky and Chandler together in one book. That’s my goal.

INTERVIEWER: At what age did you first read Kafka?

MURAKAMI: When I was fifteen. I read The Castle; that was a great book. And The Trial.

INTERVIEWER: That’s interesting. Both those novels were left unfinished, which of course means that they never resolve; your novels too—particularly your more recent books, like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle—often seem to resist a resolution of the kind that the reader is perhaps expecting. Could that in any way be due to Kafka’s influence?

MURAKAMI: Not solely. You’ve read Raymond Chandler, of course. His books don’t really offer conclusions. He might say, He is the killer, but it doesn’t matter to me who did it. There was a very interesting episode when Howard Hawks made a picture of The Big Sleep. Hawks couldn’t understand who killed the chauffeur, so he called Chandler and asked, and Chandler answered, I don’t care! Same for me. Conclusion means nothing at all. I don’t care who the killer is in The Brothers Karamazov.

INTERVIEWER: And yet the desire to find out who killed the chauffeur is part of what makes The Big Sleep a page-turner.

MURAKAMI: I myself, as I’m writing, don’t know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don’t know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there’s no purpose to writing the story.

Read the rest of The Paris Review interview here.

Photo: Haruki Murakami and cat friend.

Detective Story, poem by David Tucker

DETECTIVE STORY
after Jane Kenyon’s “Happiness”
by David Tucker

Happiness is a stubborn old detective who won’t give up on us
though we have been missing a long, long time,
who stops in towns where we once lived and asks about us
in a grocery where we shopped ten years ago, who visits
the drugstore in the city where it always rained and walks
the hallways of that house by the river, leafing through
the newspaper left on the table, noting the date.
When the search party has called it off, when the dogs
have been put up and our names stuffed in cabinets
at the back of the station house, happiness is still out there,
staring up at a road sign in a distant town,
studying a map by cigarette, weeks away, then days.
A breeze smelling of the river enters the room though
no river is near; the house is quiet and calm for no reason;
the search does end, the detective does finally sleep, far away
from anything he imagined, his dusty shoes still on. 

…“Detective Story” appears in David Tucker‘s  collection Late for Work, winner of the Bread Load Writers’ Conference 2005 Bakeless Prize (and published by Houghton Mifflin, 2006), available at Amazon. com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Journalist and poet David Tucker grew up in Tennessee. He earned a BA at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he studied with poet Donald Hall. Booklist critic Donna Seamanhas described his poems as “deceptive in their sturdy plainness . . . inlaid with patterns as elegant as the swoop of swallows, and images as startling and right as a cat’s bowl of milk shimmering as its ‘moon god.’” His debut collection, Late for Work (2006), was awarded the Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize by judge Philip Levine. Donald Hall, a former US poet laureate, appointed Tucker a Witter Bynner Foundation Fellow in 2007. A newspaper editor for more than 25 years, Tucker is an editor for the Metro section of the Newark Star-Ledger newspaper, where he was part of the team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. (Source: poetryfoundation.org)

Illustration: “Film Noir Detective” by igrayne01 (via deviantart.com)

Disappearing Poem, quote by Raymond Chandler

“I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.” RAYMOND CHANDLER, The High Window

Photo: “West Hollywood in the Early Morning Fog” by nightsinweho.com.

Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology: Deadline 9/15/13

There are still a few more days until the Sept. 15, 2013 deadline for the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology, a collection of passages from hardboiled detective novels — by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross MacDonald, and others — with sections marked out to create poems. If you’re unfamiliar with erasure poetry, check out our posts that feature erasure poems by james moore and  Cathy Dee. For more about hardboiled fiction, visit Wikipedia.

TO SUBMIT: Photocopy a page from a noir/hardboiled novel, mark out passages with magic marker or whiteout (or another form of your choosing) to create a noir poem. On a separate sheet, list your name, address, phone, and email, along with the title of the novel, author, edition, publisher, page number, and any other identifying information. Include your one-paragraph bio along with a typed version of the poem(s).

SEND TO: Silver Birch Press, P.O. Box 29458, Los Angeles, CA 90029 (DO NOT FOLD, AS WE WILL FEATURE THE ORIGINAL SUBMISSIONS IN THE BOOK) or email as an attachment to silver@silverbirchpress.com.

DEADLINE: September 15, 2013

PAYMENT: All contributors featured in the book will receive a paperback copy of the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology

We look forward to reading your inspired NOIR erasure poems! 

And thank you to everyone who has already submitted. We plan to review all submissions by the end of September and release the book in late fall.

Cover art: Guy Budziak, filmnoirwoodcuts.com.