This collection of new poems by self-styled “Pony Expressionist” Mike Silverton is augmented by over seventy color photographs by Kevin Johnson of Silverton’s painting, assemblage, and sculpture. Includes two Dada manifestos, a note on the objects, and a tauntingly useless Index of First Lines.
Notices
“I don’t know that I’d want to live in Mike Silverton’s head, which seems to be a very crowded, sometimes scary and always fascinating place. But O my living god do I love what comes out of that unique cranium, be it poetry or art or, as in this case, a delicious combo platter called New and Used Poems and Objects. This is his fourth collection in as many years, and it reveals that at the tender age of ninety (!) Silverton is only gathering speed, strength and skill. His verbal invention and powers of imagination are now moving so fast that he makes the rest of us look like we’re walking backwards. There are as many new poems here as in his first three collections combined. The sheer flood of them would be overwhelming except that they are mostly short, brimming with beauty and wit, and redolent with dreamy after-images, like the photos of the objects that are interspersed with them. Is that a hammer blooming a twig or a twig blooming a hammer? All I know is, it’s impossible to look away. As with any collection, this one appears to contain both major and minor poems. Yet as you read and reread, you may find your opinions of which is which changing constantly. And it will have nothing to do with the nominal topic or the length of the poem, and everything to do with the dazzling voice and psyche of the poet and the layered richness of what he has wrought. Above all, this thing is alive, like any genuine work of creation.”
—Kurt Luchs, author of Tributaries: Essays & Verses Flowing From & Celebrating Favorite Poems
Mike Silverton’s poetry appeared in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in Harper’s, The Nation, Wormwood Review, Poetry Now, some/thing, Chelsea, Prairie Schooner, Elephant and other publications he may have (and most likely) mislaid. William Cole included Mike’s poems in four anthologies: Eight Lines and Under, Macmillan, 1967; Pith and Vinegar, Simon and Schuster, 1969; Poetry Brief, Macmillan, 1971; and Poems One Line & Longer, Grossman, 1973.
As a culture go-getter, Mike produced poetry readings for The New School for Social Research, New York’s municipal radio station, WNYC, and Pacifica Radio’s WBAI, KPFA, and KPFK. One glaring regret: Mike had arranged to record Frank O’Hara on the week in which he was killed, the weekend intervening, by a dune buggy.
Mike’s music writing, centering on modernist classical, appeared in Fanfare, a bimonthly review, and several Internet publications, including his own LaFolia.com. Mike’s reviews of high-end audio hardware appeared in the main in The Absolute Sound, a print publication, and StereoTimes.com. For the unlikely audiophile reading this, Mike’s speakers are Wilson Audio Sasha W/P.
When Mike and Lee relocated from Brooklyn to Midcoast Maine in early 2002 he indulged an interest in Dadaesque assemblage, resulting in several works in a group show at The Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, and a one-man show at Belfast’s Aarhus Gallery. Mike and Lee’s 1842 house and barn are peppered throughout with work he’d have preferred to sell. (Jefferson Davis spent a night, obviously at an earlier time. Really.)