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Tombstone Factory
Poems: John Dorsey. Cover artwork: Henry Denander. Editor: Wolfgang Carstens.
“John Dorsey is a marvelous storyteller, he has a keen eye for detail, and his poems are full of a rare irony and humor. I love the way his poems twist and turn and come full circle.”
—Tony Moffeit, Pueblo Blues
“I always know when I am reading a John Dorsey poem. His style is uniquely his—playful, dark, bardic and authentically American.”
—Todd Moore, Dillinger
“John Dorsey is a literary alchemist. Dorsey’s poetry is genuine, unique, accessible, and it always manages to transcend the act of putting words on the page and work its way into your bloodstream. There is poetry and there are poets—and then there’s the great alchemy of John Dorsey.”
—Wolfgang Carstens, Factory Reject
“Possessing the dexterity of a master juggler with as many arms as Kali, John Dorsey dazzles and breaks our hearts as he balances both searing, highly personal narratives and brilliant pop culture collages that loop and dance through the night in our fractured America.”
—Rob Plath, A Bellyful of Anarchy
“John Dorsey is a marvelous storyteller, he has a keen eye for detail, and his poems are full of a rare irony and humor. I love the way his poems twist and turn and come full circle.”
—Tony Moffeit, Pueblo Blues
“I always know when I am reading a John Dorsey poem. His style is uniquely his—playful, dark, bardic and authentically American.”
—Todd Moore, Dillinger
“John Dorsey is a literary alchemist. Dorsey’s poetry is genuine, unique, accessible, and it always manages to transcend the act of putting words on the page and work its way into your bloodstream. There is poetry and there are poets—and then there’s the great alchemy of John Dorsey.”
—Wolfgang Carstens, Factory Reject
“Possessing the dexterity of a master juggler with as many arms as Kali, John Dorsey dazzles and breaks our hearts as he balances both searing, highly personal narratives and brilliant pop culture collages that loop and dance through the night in our fractured America.”
—Rob Plath, A Bellyful of Anarchy
88 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
About the author
John Dorsey
129 books47 followersJohn Dorsey lived for several years in Toledo, Ohio, and served as the inaugural Poet Laureate for Belle, Missouri. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw's Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory, (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Appalachian Frankenstein (GTK Press, 2015) Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016), Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Press, 2017) and Trump Stamp (Crisis Chronicles, 2026). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 4, 2013
Dorsey at his best!
April 8, 2013
John Dorsey
Tombstone Factory
Tombstone Factory
John Dorsey
ISBN 978-1-926860-05-3
Epic Rites Press
84 pages
Reviewed by Devin McGuire
There is a renaissance of sorts happening right now in the small press independent publishing circles. Because of this it makes reviewing books an exciting thing for me. This is how I get to discover guys like John Dorsey and his latest book of poems Tombstone Factory from Epic Rites Press. A few months ago I was completely unfamiliar with John Dorsey’s work until I saw his Publisher/Editor Wolfgang Carstens give this excellent youtube reading of John’s poems from Tombstone Factory while sitting in his frosty Chevy Astro outside a Canadian post office:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLrXM...
Sold! Poetry is as much a performance art as music is. I truly believe that most books of poetry today are sold not because the buyer read some poems in a mag but because he or she heard the poems read aloud somewhere. After seeing Carstens read Dorsey’s work I did some more you-tubing to find Dorsey readings. I got to hear much of John Dorsey’s poetry before I got to read it. Now every time I pick up Tombstone Factory and start reading I can hear John belting the lines out in my ear, sometimes strong and loud, sometimes soft tender and dreamy like a bedtime story. Always punctuated with the right spots of silence, impeccable timing, and rolling rhythms. But forget the ear for now. Poetry needs to be able to get in and touch a nerve of feeling through other means as well and Tombstone Factory is a book capable of doing that. It is a book that can move the reader to both tears (of sorrow or joy) and to laughter.
Dorsey is stylistically deft with his poetry. He writes fresh vivid narrative driven pieces, torqued up language like poetry, and the modern American haiku. The major hurdle one must overcome in reading Tombstone Factory is the personal nature in much of the poetry; a good third of the poems are to, for, or about someone else. Much like the writing on the backs of postcards is to other people, only one person is being addressed here and so sometimes the reader can feel like they are missing something, some back story, some lost memory, some secret shared between only the poet and his muse that you are not privy to. It’s like digging through the old photographs post cards and letters of your dead grandparents. Questions and naggings arise; it introduces mystery. You might think that mystery would leave you feeling shut out on something that needs to be understood but somehow you don’t. Somewhere in this mystery you sense the spirit of love. Much like the poet Allen Ginsberg wrote in his poem Song: “The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.” one might say the weight of John Dorsey’s poetry is love.
Dorsey is remarkably sanguine with the subject of death treating it like it’s just another place; it has a zip code that he can send postcards to. He honors his friends, peers, and mentors both dead and alive with lines that spill onto the postcard like a libation in honor to a hero or a god. If letting go is what we find we often must do in life Dorsey shows us how to do it with love and grace, a letting go like it’s an offering. This sort of offering in death is best displayed in his poem “dandelions playing softball (for jack gilbert)”:
poets
are the
only people
that applaud
at funerals
they whisper to the wild flowers
who become our reflection
―to watch a girl blossoming
on the bottom of the monongahela river
―is a blessing
yesterday I threw your god
into the sea
While many poems in Tombstone Factory are in homage to people, many others are simply just steeped in human longings, memories, and dreams. This is serious matter, but just before things might seem to be getting too serious Dorsey has the ability to slap the reader out of reverie with a laugh bomb. “how to fight a hard-on” and “norm and betty’s bar” provide hilarious intermission. Dorsey’s humor can also serve a scathing bite as best displayed in this poem for the former Penn State assistant football coach who was recently convicted of child molestation:
poem for jerry sandusky
because of you
jerry’s kids has a whole
new meaning now
I like the longer narrative poems in Tombstone Factory the best. Dorsey offers lucid reflections on childhood memories with these poems. “the bride of frankenstein” tells in allegory the story of his 8th grade shop teacher who got one of girls in class pregnant. “christmas cookies” reflects on forced visits to a great grandmother who demanded kisses and served cookies that reeked of mothballs, and “masculinity” is a nostalgic nod to boyhood adolescence, the talk of girls, sex and things unknown; it’s about growing up dreaming big and getting out and how its possible to carry our dreams with us. Dorsey writes:
nothing was wrong then
we were kids who dreamt
about a lot of things
none of them sad
things like fast cars
and kissing with your eyes closed
come prom night
whatever that was
it was in the distant future
things like honor, like brotherhood,
like family
we were going to make it
out of the small pennsylvania town together
but in my heart
we’re still there
still 10 years old
still waiting for our dreams to come true
This is all accessible poetry. Nothing here high brows beyond the trailer park. It’s real honest to goodness contemporary blue-collar American poetry that pulses with life. Dorsey feels like a friend from childhood you might have grown up with, or one you roomed with in college, or one you have as a neighbor and drinking buddy. He’s like someone we all know and love. He lives life bravely, wears his heart on his sleeve, knows how to tell a great story, and can make you laugh your ass off when you need it most. With Tombstone Factory it’s like having that friend on your bookshelf.
Back to the ear part…
I’ve never understood why on the whole our poetry is fed to us through books, magazines and journals. To me it’s akin to rarely listening to an album of music but often reading their clef notes and lyrics. Poetry is meant to be heard. Not enough poets seem to understand this part. To be forced into a public reading is a painful thing for many of them and it often shows in their delivery. I’ve come to the opinion that any poet who does not read his or her work in public or cannot read his or her work with any tone, inflection, timing, or force doesn’t really get it and doesn’t really know what they are doing. As an editor when considering poetry for publication I always read aloud to myself. When reviewing books of poetry it’s now become important to me that I get to hear the poet’s work in performance. Several of Dorsey’s readings can be found on youtube.com. If you take the time to watch and listen you will see that John Dorsey is a man who clearly gets it and knows damn well what he his doing. He yells his words out as if he were on a mountaintop calling to the gods, humanity, and all the creatures. It starts off like an assault, like a loud wave crashing over you and then softens as you slip under and let it take you. That’s pretty cool to me.
Tombstone Factory
Tombstone Factory
John Dorsey
ISBN 978-1-926860-05-3
Epic Rites Press
84 pages
Reviewed by Devin McGuire
There is a renaissance of sorts happening right now in the small press independent publishing circles. Because of this it makes reviewing books an exciting thing for me. This is how I get to discover guys like John Dorsey and his latest book of poems Tombstone Factory from Epic Rites Press. A few months ago I was completely unfamiliar with John Dorsey’s work until I saw his Publisher/Editor Wolfgang Carstens give this excellent youtube reading of John’s poems from Tombstone Factory while sitting in his frosty Chevy Astro outside a Canadian post office:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLrXM...
Sold! Poetry is as much a performance art as music is. I truly believe that most books of poetry today are sold not because the buyer read some poems in a mag but because he or she heard the poems read aloud somewhere. After seeing Carstens read Dorsey’s work I did some more you-tubing to find Dorsey readings. I got to hear much of John Dorsey’s poetry before I got to read it. Now every time I pick up Tombstone Factory and start reading I can hear John belting the lines out in my ear, sometimes strong and loud, sometimes soft tender and dreamy like a bedtime story. Always punctuated with the right spots of silence, impeccable timing, and rolling rhythms. But forget the ear for now. Poetry needs to be able to get in and touch a nerve of feeling through other means as well and Tombstone Factory is a book capable of doing that. It is a book that can move the reader to both tears (of sorrow or joy) and to laughter.
Dorsey is stylistically deft with his poetry. He writes fresh vivid narrative driven pieces, torqued up language like poetry, and the modern American haiku. The major hurdle one must overcome in reading Tombstone Factory is the personal nature in much of the poetry; a good third of the poems are to, for, or about someone else. Much like the writing on the backs of postcards is to other people, only one person is being addressed here and so sometimes the reader can feel like they are missing something, some back story, some lost memory, some secret shared between only the poet and his muse that you are not privy to. It’s like digging through the old photographs post cards and letters of your dead grandparents. Questions and naggings arise; it introduces mystery. You might think that mystery would leave you feeling shut out on something that needs to be understood but somehow you don’t. Somewhere in this mystery you sense the spirit of love. Much like the poet Allen Ginsberg wrote in his poem Song: “The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.” one might say the weight of John Dorsey’s poetry is love.
Dorsey is remarkably sanguine with the subject of death treating it like it’s just another place; it has a zip code that he can send postcards to. He honors his friends, peers, and mentors both dead and alive with lines that spill onto the postcard like a libation in honor to a hero or a god. If letting go is what we find we often must do in life Dorsey shows us how to do it with love and grace, a letting go like it’s an offering. This sort of offering in death is best displayed in his poem “dandelions playing softball (for jack gilbert)”:
poets
are the
only people
that applaud
at funerals
they whisper to the wild flowers
who become our reflection
―to watch a girl blossoming
on the bottom of the monongahela river
―is a blessing
yesterday I threw your god
into the sea
While many poems in Tombstone Factory are in homage to people, many others are simply just steeped in human longings, memories, and dreams. This is serious matter, but just before things might seem to be getting too serious Dorsey has the ability to slap the reader out of reverie with a laugh bomb. “how to fight a hard-on” and “norm and betty’s bar” provide hilarious intermission. Dorsey’s humor can also serve a scathing bite as best displayed in this poem for the former Penn State assistant football coach who was recently convicted of child molestation:
poem for jerry sandusky
because of you
jerry’s kids has a whole
new meaning now
I like the longer narrative poems in Tombstone Factory the best. Dorsey offers lucid reflections on childhood memories with these poems. “the bride of frankenstein” tells in allegory the story of his 8th grade shop teacher who got one of girls in class pregnant. “christmas cookies” reflects on forced visits to a great grandmother who demanded kisses and served cookies that reeked of mothballs, and “masculinity” is a nostalgic nod to boyhood adolescence, the talk of girls, sex and things unknown; it’s about growing up dreaming big and getting out and how its possible to carry our dreams with us. Dorsey writes:
nothing was wrong then
we were kids who dreamt
about a lot of things
none of them sad
things like fast cars
and kissing with your eyes closed
come prom night
whatever that was
it was in the distant future
things like honor, like brotherhood,
like family
we were going to make it
out of the small pennsylvania town together
but in my heart
we’re still there
still 10 years old
still waiting for our dreams to come true
This is all accessible poetry. Nothing here high brows beyond the trailer park. It’s real honest to goodness contemporary blue-collar American poetry that pulses with life. Dorsey feels like a friend from childhood you might have grown up with, or one you roomed with in college, or one you have as a neighbor and drinking buddy. He’s like someone we all know and love. He lives life bravely, wears his heart on his sleeve, knows how to tell a great story, and can make you laugh your ass off when you need it most. With Tombstone Factory it’s like having that friend on your bookshelf.
Back to the ear part…
I’ve never understood why on the whole our poetry is fed to us through books, magazines and journals. To me it’s akin to rarely listening to an album of music but often reading their clef notes and lyrics. Poetry is meant to be heard. Not enough poets seem to understand this part. To be forced into a public reading is a painful thing for many of them and it often shows in their delivery. I’ve come to the opinion that any poet who does not read his or her work in public or cannot read his or her work with any tone, inflection, timing, or force doesn’t really get it and doesn’t really know what they are doing. As an editor when considering poetry for publication I always read aloud to myself. When reviewing books of poetry it’s now become important to me that I get to hear the poet’s work in performance. Several of Dorsey’s readings can be found on youtube.com. If you take the time to watch and listen you will see that John Dorsey is a man who clearly gets it and knows damn well what he his doing. He yells his words out as if he were on a mountaintop calling to the gods, humanity, and all the creatures. It starts off like an assault, like a loud wave crashing over you and then softens as you slip under and let it take you. That’s pretty cool to me.
March 5, 2013
http://www.redfez.net/nonfiction/463 interview/review with John Dorsey
May 23, 2013
Excellent poetry in this collection and a lovely publication from Epic Rites Press. Dorsey has a marvellous poetic voice at once recognisable and familiar as an old friend, but also searching and as thought provoking as a new place.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews