Noir Outlaw Poetry From Zombie Logic Press

Mostly I'm comfortable publishing Outsider Poetry, Surrealism, and Dada at Zombie Logic Press and Zombie Logic Review because I have what i think is an innate grasp of those styles, but the next book from Zombie Logic Press, which is now imminent, The Blood Dark Sea, is a marvelous book of Outlaw Poetry in the movie noir style. It was written by Rockford poet Dennis Gulling, a writer I have known a long time and respect very much. I'm proud to own the press that will be making the first full-length collection of this mostly unknown writer available to the world. I say mostly unknown because Dennis Gulling is mysterious, even to me. I know we both published in the small presses in the late 80's and early 90's. I know we did poetry readings together at Cafe Esperanto and other places in Rockford, and I know he is thought of by many in the know, including Mas Tequila editor Richard Vargas, and co-founder of the Outlaw Poetry movement and his mentor Todd Moore, as the region's finest poet. The poems in Blood Dark Sea will bear this high praise out. 

Just this week I got a quote for the first press run of the book, and I think if I have the energy and don't encounter any setbacks with my ongoing dental work I may have it ready for the printer as early as late next week. I can't resist just laying down a little taste here as a teaser, but also to motivate me because I know it's time for people to see this book. This is an example of the crime noir Outlaw Poetry I'm talking about.

VEGAS

The ring on her finger
Felt like a noose around her neck
So she threw everything she had
Into 3 garbage bags
While he was at work
And stuffed them into the trunk
Of her ‘78 Bonneville
Took the $200 he had in a roll
In the back of his underwear drawer
Along with the .22 automatic
He never bothered to register
She drove the 96 miles to Vegas
To work the $200 into something solid
Sold the gun for $20
At a gas station along the way
To some fat guy in a pickup truck
Loaded with old barbed wire and rusty pipes
When she hit the Golden Nugget
She didn’t even stop to check in
Turned the whole bankroll into chips
And made a beeline for the blackjack table
Walked away about an hour later
With $30 and a lump in her stomach
As hard as her luck
Didn’t have anywhere else to go
But back home
He didn’t say anything 
When she walked through the door
He didn’t have to
She went into the bedroom
Curled up on the bed
And stared a hole in the wall

Artwork from The Blood Dark Sea by Jenny Mathews

     What amazes me about the poems in this book is how elegantly they delve into some really dark subject matter, but are never once prurient, or mean-spirited. There's humanity to these observations of people in some pretty awful situations. But there's also a sense of humor and no judgement. These things happen. The Blood Dark Sea is the kind of book where you can be glad they are happening to someone else, and a poet with a keen eye and flair for the subject matter is there to report back, so to speak. 

I hope you'll check back in a few weeks when it is available. Pin It

Rockford Poetry

I never knew being associated with the search term Rockford Poetry was important to me. Until yesterday when Jenny told me it was important to me to be associated with the search term Rockford Poetry. Because I am the most widely published poet in Rockford (even though I quit publishing in 1996) and because I have the only serious literary press in Rockford I assumed if I looked for Rockford Poetry I'd be right there.

Wrong.

Not only wasn't I right there, I wasn't anywhere 

Having  been born in Swedish American hospital, which I can all but see from the window of the building that serves as Zombie Logic Press headquarters, and having published poetry here since 1997, I feel awful that I haven't been able to make Google consider my efforts more noteworthy. I think that will change in the coming years, as I have plans to publish the first books of several up-and-coming poets from America's 3rd most dangerous city. Already I have published the first book of C.J. Campbell, and later this year we will be releasing an as-yet untitled poetry book by noir poet Dennis Gulling, a protege of Todd Moore, perhaps the most published and widely read poet the Rockford area has ever had.

After my heart surgery two years ago it became crystal clear to me I wanted to do my part to make Rockford more than just a punchline to people from other cities who only hear we have been named to another most fat, least educated, most violent or miserable list. 

I have written a piece about the history of Rockford poetry that will be published later this year. In my research for that story I found many times when poetry almost took a hold in Rockford, but eventually fizzled because of egos, in fighting, or lack of support from the community.

I'm not sure what time I have left to accomplish this, or make my contribution, but I hope to do all I can in these coming years to support the poetry scene in Rockford, which I know for a fact has numerous brave, unique, and powerful voices. 

I regret that because of Schizoid Personality Disorder and tremendous social anxiety I won't be able to do readings because it would be an honor to take the stage with some of these writers, but maybe I can use Zombie Logic Press and Zombie Logic Review to give a forum for their voices. 

Rockford Poetry

Pin It

Poems At the End of the World by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

I wrote a book of poems titled Poems At the End of the World. It was published by Subourbon Press in 1992. Then I forgot I had written a book of poems titled Poems At the End of the World until last night when I suddenly remembered after a flood of comments about the end of the world that I had written a book of poems about the end of the world. Then I wondered if I hadn't just made up the part about writing the book of poems about the end of the world, and since everything I had archived was lost long ago I had no way to prove it, I tried to find a copy of the book of poems I had written about the end of the world. And I found only one copy in existence. Here in the WorldCat of books contained in libraries I discovered that Kansas State University has a copy of this book in their Hale Library. Which made me rest easier that I wasn't simply making up the part about having written the book of poems about the end of the world in 1992.

I told Jenny and she asked me what was in the book. I said I didn't remember. And I don't. I know I published five books in rapid succession in the early 90's before I stopped publishing until I started Zombie Logic Press in 1997. But everything I had was lost more than once. A magnificent library of small press zines and books, many signed by writers like Charles Bukowski, Todd Moore, Kurt Nimmo etc. None of that can ever be recovered. 

I'd like to find a copy of Poems At the End of the World just to see what is in it because I don't have copies of whatever poems I wrote back then. I wonder what I had to say about the end of the world. 

Oh, Jenny sent me this picture of me from a few weeks ago when we went out. 

The poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg, in anticipation of the end of the world, decides he doesn't want to enter the next reality with a full bladder. 

Pin It

Outsiders, Outlaws, and Then There's Me

I've decided to call myself an Outlaw Poet this week. Last week I was a Zombie Poet. Next week I'm considering being an Outsider Poet. I'm not really any of those things, or aligned with any of those movements in any significant way, but I just feel like I need some movement to help me define my work and who I am.

The Outsider movement seems good because if I decide it's not for me, I can leave and still be in the movement. The Outlaw movement is slightly more problematic because, as Bob Dylan wrote, "To live outside the law you have to be honest," and I ain't falling for that shit.

I guess I just need help defining myself.

When I first started publishing poetry in the late '80s, it was the height—but the unforeseen beginning of the end—of the Small Press movement, defined by journals like The Wormwood Review and poets like Charles Bukowski and Lyn Lifshin. Thousands of small zines published a rogues' gallery of poets who wrote about bad behavior, freedom, and trying to survive as poets outside the universities and without the grants the academic circle jerkers distributed among themselves.

It really was a fun and golden time for the poetry scene, and one I was immersed in from a very young age, learning my first lessons from poets like Todd Moore, Ron Androla, Kurt Nimmo, and Gerald Locklin. Even the immortal Charles Bukowski seemed to break his own rules and return encouraging letters to me without calling me a talentless punk.

That era ended with the internet.

What needs to be understood is that before the internet, it often took months, even a year, to collect submissions for a literary review, make editorial decisions, print it, and send it out to everyone who was in it. Now this can be done almost instantaneously, which takes a lot of the sacred nature out of the process.

You used to wait, and wait, and wait, and when that zine finally arrived in the mail, you looked to see who else was in it. You knew them because you knew they went through the same process you did, and you savored the whole thing from cover to cover. The internet has made this process too accessible, too easy, and therefore disposable.

Many of those poets from the golden age of the small presses are gone, like Todd Moore, the first Outlaw Poet. Many simply gave up trying to reach an audience and went back to lives outside the universities and MFA programs. Many have dispersed into the Outsider and Outlaw movements, and some have learned how to use the internet to boost themselves into the public consciousness.

It's always sad to come in at the end of an era. To be the last generation of anything.

There's nothing like the printed word. There's nothing like the smell of paper and that unmistakable scent of a fresh Kinko's copy. There's nothing like waiting to improve one's discipline. And there's nothing like sharing a common love to create fellowship.

That's what's gone, for the most part: the fellowship.

In February, the numbers told me more people read my work on the internet than in the entirety of the words I have printed on pages. But just knowing someone is holding your book in their hands creates a bond the cyber world will never duplicate.

I still haven't found the movement that's right for me. I've jokingly created movements that include just myself, like Reductionism, but even I got bored at the meetings. I just don't think I'm going to be welcomed into anyone else's camp anytime soon.

I have resigned myself to going on alone.

By the way, thanks for coming. Here's a poem.

I'm going to post this one for the first time. I think I was reading Dorothy Parker at the time I wrote it, and it represents a growing desire to incorporate some sort of form into my poetry. At least as an experiment.

It's Hell

It's Hell you say
As you assay
With a pro's cache
The chemicals we
Have procured to allay
The night's malaise

It's Hell you attest
But without the interesting
Party guests
The assassins
The buggerers
And the incest

It's Hell I agree
This eternal thrashing
In the scree
And watching you slither
Twixt debauches
Tailored more to you
Than me

August 2026 update: I guess all this time later I can tell you what I really think. All those poets who identified themselves as Outlaw Poets always struck me as the losers you'd see at the end of the bar who got nothing to say until they get home, then they weave these tall tales about how they're badasses and outlaws whereas if they ever did pipe up in public they'd like just get their ass whooped. The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry is an anthology chock full of losers, pretenders, and posers who write at best mediocre poetry. 

Pin It