Lydia Tomkiw Poems

Book excerpt: In 1978, Lydia Tomkiw - precocious, inventive poet and beguiling new wave chanteuse - blazed out from Chicago's intertwined worlds of poetry and punk rock. Her trajectory stands as a thrilling testament to the independent do-it-yourself ethos - that the journey from the Chicago's Ukrainian Village to the inaugural volume of Best American Poetry can be made via nightclubs, armed with little more than office xerox machines, glue, restless imagination, words and moxie.Tomkiw's poetry is both innovative and immensely enjoyable - formally playful, rigorously perceptive, delightfully surreal, and fueled by her singular, sexy charm. Tomkiw's story leads us back to a circle of immensely talented poets, mostly women, including Elaine Equi, Sharon Mesmer, and Connie Deanovich. Collectively they invigorated American urban poetry and cleared a path for a more vital, raucous, and fiercely female verse. In their scene lay the roots of now celebrated forms like slam and spoken word. With her acclaimed band Algebra Suicide - designed explicitly as a vehicle for her poetry - she pushed the boundaries of poetic performance, while also leaving behind a series of unassailably ace records. This new collection presents all her publications in facsimile editions, preserving the raw sizzle of her early self-published chapbooks as well as comprehensively reissuing the works that secured her reputation. In addition, it brings together over 180 uncollected poems, joined by critical and biographical essays by poets Paul Hoover and Sharon Mesmer and music critic Ira Robbins.LYDIA TOMKIW POEMS restores to print and posterity an exhilarating and important voice in American poetry.