THE OFFICIAL BEATLICK WEBSITE Welcome to the Beatlicks website and link to BEATLICK NEWS. (bottom of this page)Here on our HOME PAGE we feature two poets of New Mexico - Dick Thomas of Las Cruces and Gary Brower of Placitas.Featured poets on our international POETRY page include Susanne Morning, New Zealand; Luis Benitez, Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Robin Sturges, UK.UPDATES PAGE: Find updates on Josie Kuhn, a great entertainer and friend, who is fighting a brave battle following severe injuries in a Nashville car wreck. Also on the updates page we have a poem from Judy Wells's latest book "Little Lulu Talks With Vincent van Gogh." Barry Alfonso of Pittsburgh, PA, signs in with his latest update "Breach of Promise to an Imaginary Friend." ALSO ON UPDATES:
A photo of San Rafael's most intriguing volunteer fireman Andrew Torrez!
Plus some landscape photos from Las Cruces by Paul Sivertsen.
Glad you found us here, keep in touch with the Beatlicks and don't forget to LIVE FOR ART!
Beatlick Joe's new movie INTIMATE WHISPERS: In the Desert has stunning New Mexico footage augmented with music and poetry including Tom House, Josie Kuhn, Wz, Dave Church, and the AAA Zealots. This short film was named "Best Documentary" at the New Way Film Festival in Berkeley, CA, in December 2007! Currently submitted to Woodstock Film Festival.
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BEATLICK NEWS is published by the Beatlicks Joe Speer and Pamela Hirst. Our publication is a gem of the American underground small press celebrating its 20th year of literary service. This website compliments the hard copies distributed quarterly. Originated in Nashville, Tennessee, 1988, BEATLICK NEWS networks writers locally, nationally, and internationally. From here you can locate essays, poetry, and writing advice by scrolling through this website or clicking on the links to Beatlick News at the bottom of this page.
For the convenience of publishers, Beatlick Joe's book "Backpack Slacker: A Flashback of the 60s" can be found at the Beatlick News website, find the link at the bottom of this page.
Note: Apparently there has been so much traffic to our Beatlick News site that Yahoo shuts us down if we get over 40 hits an hour. If this should happen to you, then you will have to wait until the top of the hour before you can access the Beatlick News website. Sorry for that inconvenience.
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Beatlick Joe Speer and Pamela Hirst CHANGE IN SUBMISSIONS: BEATLICK NEWS TEMPORARILY CANCELS SUBMISSIONS BY SNAIL MAIL. ONLINE SUBMISSIONS ONLY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
We're hitting the road again. After four years in Las Cruces, we are pulling up stakes and headed to our new base camp in the ghost town of Terlingua, Texas. No phone, no address, you'll need a map to find us. Currently being restored is a 1977 Westfalia refitted with an upright motor (nixed the pancake); a new rebuilt transmassion by a retired NASA mechanic; with most of the original green plaid upholstery. That's green the color of money! We will be hunkered down for a while in Terlingua to get everything organized then we will begin touring most of 2009 in the new bus. ON THIS HOME PAGE we have two poets from New Mexico - Dick Thomas, of Las Cruces, and Gary Brower, of Placitas. Submit to BEATLICK NEWS through this website by e-mailing: beatlickjoe@yahoo.com or
publishingpamela@yahoo.com
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 | THE TWENTY-FIVE CENT XMAS The year I was born was a bad one
no star appeared in the East
rather my natural father
disappeared in the West
like a meteorite
that left us
in a crater of poverty
my mother on crutches
from childhood polio
working as best she could
I almost died in hospital
as my head wouldn’t close
then war began--
another surprise attack with only twenty-five cents
for our first Xmas
my mother bought me
the gift of a rubber bib
which I tried to swallow
when she left the room
turned blue
till she returned
threw it in the trash
mirrors reflected no future
years later I told her
I liked to keep an open mind
sometimes had the blues
but would never
wear a bib GARY BROWER PLACITAS, NM ------------------------------------------------ INSIDE BEATLICK NEWS: Find the link to BEATLICK NEWS and all the stories mentioned in this purple text at the bottom of this page. There's an icon for "Backpack Slacker: A Flashback of the 60s" a book by Beatlick Joe. On the homepage of BEATLICK NEWS find poetry from Renee von Paschen; John L. Pate, El Paso; Gary Brower, Placitas, NM; Jon Taylor, Nashville, TN; Elaine Schwartz, Albuquerque, NM; and Beatlick Joe. James C. Floyd, the Jefferson Street Poet, of Nashville, TN, is featured at the end of Calendar Events. Get great writing advice from writer/editor Kevin McIlvoy. Just click on his icon on the navigation bar at the BEATLICK NEWS site. That link is at the bottom of this page. | | | POETRY & PROSE: (click on "archive" icon) for new works from Bruce Adkins, Oklahoma City, OK; Dave Church, Providence, RI; Haikus from the "Jefferson Street Poet" James C. Floyd, Nashville, TN; "Breach of Promise to an Imaginary Friend" the latest from Barry Alfonso, Pittsburgh, PA; and "I'd Rather Die," by BEATLICK JOE SPEER, Las Cruces, NM | | | REVIEWS: Aldous Huxley's "Point Counter Point" reviewed by Beatlick Joe and an essay from Jack Random from Modesto, CA, on "Funding the War." | | | FEEDBACK: Letters from Harry Wilkens, Geneva; Peter Schwartz, Waterville, ME | | | BEATLICK NEWS has a new link to all the writing advice from Emma J. Wisdom, a premiere Nashville, TN, publisher. Check out her latest submission: "What If"
| | | Below: Find links to some of our favorite people here like Josie Kuhn, the chanteuse of Zhuatenijo, Mexico. Also in Las Cruces: Artist: OUIDA TOUCHON; Musician: JOSIE KUHN; Band: RETSILA GEM- featuring Meg Freyermuth and Steve MacIntyre; Poet: WAYNE CRAWFORD |
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GUITAR When I was young and hauling a boatload of dreams, apparently I decided I was going to become Bob Dylan #2 while I hitchhiked Europe. What else can explain boarding the S. S. Montreal with only a tiny knapsack of clothes and a big honkin guitar? By the time we docked in Liverpool I’d survived a hurricane on high seas, was mesmerized by northern lights, and battered by an intense shipboard romance, lost in the chaos of disembarkation because I forgot to pack a pencil and a piece of paper. The knapsack made a good pillow for train stations and hostels, but no sad chords complemented the songs of despair that I was too depressed to write. So after three days, I ditched the guitar in Charing Cross and began my ramblin’ grand tour with a railpass and a sad thumb. Now, when my wife and I travel to Europe, we each check a suitcase of clothes, we haul a computer and a heavy carry-on of pills over our shoulders, and one of us has the itinerary in a jacket pocket.
Apparently, my cells have decided that I am old.
It must be, for I meet people I know all the time in the Pepto Bismol aisle of Walmart. I’m no “Freewheelin” Dylan now. I guess I never was, but I’ve still got a barge-load of dreams. I should try to look her up, the girl I knew for a week, long before Google, but maybe she’s not real . . . anymore. I’m sure I lived through the hurricane, and twenty years ago I saw the northern lights and remember the event as seeing them “again.” But Mary . . . Mary Yvonne . . . Mary Yvonne “Something” . . . something that makes my breath catch, like a name or word you know you know, “Blowin’ in the Wind”
on the edge of your mind.
DICK THOMAS LAS CRUCES, NM |
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