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Ghosts by Albert Ayler,
Ghosts by Albert Ayler
Merry Fortune
Available May 2004
Official Pub. Date: Nov. 1, 2004
Paperback Poetry/Prose
0-9716800-3-5
128 Pages, 6 X 8
$14.00 U.S.
"Merry Fortune’s new book of poems “Ghosts by Albert
Ayler, Ghosts by Albert Ayler” is a quirky yet major achievement
that should point the way to the future of poetry. I have read it and
re-read it now for about the sixth time, and it still astounds, it still
works the kind of magic that poetry is supposed to work, but so rarely
does. Fortune displays an impressive range of sophisticated technique
in her eagerness and ability to capture The Moment for forever. Each poem
is uniquely itself and unlike any other in this varied collection. Her
themes may be the age-old ones of love, loneliness, family, friendship
and longing, yet she comes at each of them with a passion that only outsider
poets, such as Lorca, O’Hara, Crane, employ."
—B—Bill
Kushner, 12/04 Gathering of the Tribes Online (Read Entire Review)
"I'm an electric guitarist. Merry Fortune is an electric poet."
—Marc
Ribot
"In a madcap grammar handbook about the love that lives inside a
savage world, Merry Fortune holds the keys to the tender ode, the raw
confession and the syntactically exhilarating manifesto. Ghosts
will surprise you with its sharpness and its joy. Read this book because
it's excellently funny and read this book because it's seriously good."
—Lisa Jarnot
"Merry Fortune’s poems are sudden & direct, profligate
in their engagement with beauty (sordid & sublime), and always inspiring.
She writes in the time lapse between the hand and the eye—‘the
brainchild crocus of stability’—and never slows down."
—Lewis
Warsh
"Merry Fortune’s poems are sort of broken and beautiful and
melodic—she’s awkwardly smart. She’s sort of like Francois
Villon. She’s kind of a twenty-first century Susie Timmons. The
fact that she’s doing music (I mean working with musicians) is only
more evidence of her greatness. She’s a cat orchestra. She’s
cartooniness without even pictures or laughs."
—Eileen
Myles
". . . a microscopic gauntlet of “imaginary landscapes”
where the spiritual and pedestrian share parity in a squirmingly comfortable
way at both exhilarating heights and disquieting depths. Created at times
are edgy musical messages, just as Ayler’s strange, simple, melancholic
melodies shared space with his weird impassioned howling and plaintive,
overflowing cries. . . . Desire’s internal struggle opens into a
sometimes frantic, sometimes sublime, always abstract abyss called life."
—Steve Dalachinsky
Merry Fortune is a poet, musician, and environmentalist of German and Native American descent. She is a former editor of The World, editor of Pagan Place (with Robert Martens), and former coordinator for the Poetry Project Monday night reading series. She has appeared in several anthologies: The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder’s Mouth), The Portable Boog Reader (Boog Literature), and The Unbearables “Help Yourself!” Anthology (Autonomedia). Her poems, reviews and articles have appeared in The Poetry Project Newsletter; Boog-City; Brooklyn Review; Lungfull!; Fire (UK); High Times; Rattapallax; 6ix; Tamarind; CanWeHaveOurBallBack?; E-News online magazine and G (publications of the NYS Green Party). She is currently working on a compilation of essays, conversations, and profiles featuring dedicated and articulate artists, activists and politicians—previous interviews include: Penny Arcade, Stanley Aronowitz, Darius James, Mary Jo Long, Wanda Phipps, and Wreckless Eric. She has a collaboration with musicians Don Christensen, Pat Place and Julia Murphy (FAT) on the 3-CD compilation State of the Union (Electronic Music Foundation) produced by Elliott Sharp and is producing a recording titled The Love Dogs of Misfortune featuring musicians Daniel Carter, Don Christensen, Dee Pop, Barry Seroff, Dave Sewelson, Marc Ribot, and Drew Waters. Merry was born in downtown Brooklyn and currently lives and works in New York City.