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Charles Henri Ford:
OM KRISHNA I


Bogg Publications
422 N. Cleveland St.
Arlington VA, 22201


20 pp., SASE (large)

This book, offered in Bogg's free-for-postage series, was published in 1979 by Cherry Valley Editions. Charles Henri Ford was one of the "founders of the New York school" of poetry, but this book is not a very good primer on that genre. OM KRISHNA I is an uncomfortable mix of '50s styles, '60s subjects, and '70s me-generation attitude. The book (mostly one long poem) combines beat, subconscious stream-of-consciousness, flower-power pop philosophy... a dash of Eastern mysticism and a fistful of pop literary references. But it's not a savory stew. Ford published his first volume of verse in 1938, but OM KRISHNA I sounds hippy-dippy and temporal, a detour by a graying poet into the love-beads scene.--Roger-Kyle Keith


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This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #5,
Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1996.

Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press