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Inside a String: a collection of poems, essays, lyrics and prose.
Award wining songwriter, producer, entertainer and poet Tom MacLear has captured a span of life from the east to the west in his new book, Inside a String. Those familiar with Hemingway, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Dylan and Ginsberg will enjoy the "Beat" flavor of the poetry in this book as well as some of the more simple, straightforward attacks on our hearts and our senses. These poems speak to the reader and take us on that wonderful journey from the depths of city life in NYC to the beautiful coastlines of California and everywhere in between, wherever our minds choose to travel as we take a magical ride with poet, Tom MacLear. Poet Jacob Erin-Cilberto Author of Intersection Blues More on Tom MacLear @ www.maclear.net
- GenresPoetry
108 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2014
42 people want to read
About the author
Tom MacLear
1 book3 followersProducer, Singer, Songwriter, Tom MacLear, often referred to as "the man behind the curtain, one of music's best kept secrets," is now emerging more toward the center of the stage as the driving force of 'Tom MacLear & Friends.' An evergreen concept for his band that allows MacLear to perform and make music with some of the best musicians in the business.
Most recently “MacLear & Friends” was awarded "Best New Country Band 2015," by New Music Weekly Magazine and also garnered top honors from the Hollywood Music in Media Awards in Best Country in 2014 and has once again received a nomination from the 'HMMA's' for Best Country for MacLear's new summer radio single release 'Unapproachable.
Prior to MacLear's arrival in Los Angeles, at the age of 19, he had spent formative years in London where he found an affinity for all things stringed. So, when he walked into the legendary Topanga Corral he was an accomplished multi-instrumentalist just as a new kind of country music was being born. Emmylou Harris, the Flying Burrito Brothers the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Crazy Horse were all part of the scene. Soon the Scottish kid was on stage with them on the road this time as a bonafide country music guitar player, literally on any instrument with tightened strings.
Ry Cooder became one of MacLear's close friends, guide and mentor "He was one of the most influential people I ever met," MacLear says. "I learned so much from him. Tom MacLear has followed in Ry Cooder's footsteps, becoming one of the top Bottleneck guitarists in the business today. 'Never will touch Ry's level, but I'm proud to be part of a group of players who carry on his legacy.
MacLear proceeded to have one of those prolific, quiet careers that many true musicians have - not the guys on the marquee - but the ones who write the songs, play whatever lick needs to be played. He has written and or played for Rod Stewart, Annie Lennox, Concrete Blonde, among others.
He has written screenplays, recently published the critically acclaimed book of poetry 'Inside A String' (published by Water Forest Press) and has produced art for such television shows as "Californication" and "Caveman."
Find Tom MacLear on Facebook
Most recently “MacLear & Friends” was awarded "Best New Country Band 2015," by New Music Weekly Magazine and also garnered top honors from the Hollywood Music in Media Awards in Best Country in 2014 and has once again received a nomination from the 'HMMA's' for Best Country for MacLear's new summer radio single release 'Unapproachable.
Prior to MacLear's arrival in Los Angeles, at the age of 19, he had spent formative years in London where he found an affinity for all things stringed. So, when he walked into the legendary Topanga Corral he was an accomplished multi-instrumentalist just as a new kind of country music was being born. Emmylou Harris, the Flying Burrito Brothers the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Crazy Horse were all part of the scene. Soon the Scottish kid was on stage with them on the road this time as a bonafide country music guitar player, literally on any instrument with tightened strings.
Ry Cooder became one of MacLear's close friends, guide and mentor "He was one of the most influential people I ever met," MacLear says. "I learned so much from him. Tom MacLear has followed in Ry Cooder's footsteps, becoming one of the top Bottleneck guitarists in the business today. 'Never will touch Ry's level, but I'm proud to be part of a group of players who carry on his legacy.
MacLear proceeded to have one of those prolific, quiet careers that many true musicians have - not the guys on the marquee - but the ones who write the songs, play whatever lick needs to be played. He has written and or played for Rod Stewart, Annie Lennox, Concrete Blonde, among others.
He has written screenplays, recently published the critically acclaimed book of poetry 'Inside A String' (published by Water Forest Press) and has produced art for such television shows as "Californication" and "Caveman."
Find Tom MacLear on Facebook
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 30, 2014
*NetGalley book review*
Awesome. I loved this book. The poems, essays and everything that was and could have been crammed into this book. My most favorite one was the poem titled BITTER END. I just loved this. I will certainly buy this book for my collection when I find it. Such goodness. If you like crazy but oddly perfectly worded poems and what not this is for you.
Awesome. I loved this book. The poems, essays and everything that was and could have been crammed into this book. My most favorite one was the poem titled BITTER END. I just loved this. I will certainly buy this book for my collection when I find it. Such goodness. If you like crazy but oddly perfectly worded poems and what not this is for you.
August 12, 2015
This is an amazing collection of texts. I loved how musical everything is and how beautiful it sounds, especially since I like to read texts like these out loud. Some poems really reached out to me and I absolutely loved reading them more than once. There were others that I didn't like as much, perhaps because I'm not in the intended audience. The fact that it covers many years and that it's set in different places makes it really interesting for a teenager like me who hasn't seen much of the world yet.
I would recommend this book, it's a great collection.
(Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)
I would recommend this book, it's a great collection.
(Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)
February 17, 2015
This book felt like soft music playing in my brain. At first, you try to get used to it, to its calmed sound, to its melody. But then, suddenly, you find yourself moving to the music. You find yourself appreciating every note, every detail about it.
This a pretty slow down book, but very unique. Every now and then, there are powerful verses that hit you at a emotional level.
The author talks about life, about the road we have to walk, about death. He also talks about life as an artist, which I found very inspiring.
He puts into words thoughts that many of us have had, but we were never truly aware we've had them.
This a pretty slow down book, but very unique. Every now and then, there are powerful verses that hit you at a emotional level.
The author talks about life, about the road we have to walk, about death. He also talks about life as an artist, which I found very inspiring.
He puts into words thoughts that many of us have had, but we were never truly aware we've had them.
October 8, 2020
I have lived, loved, and lost enough and hard enough to finally understand what Buddha was saying...
Inside a String: A collection of Poems, Essays, Lyrics, and Prose by Tom Maclear is a journey through American culture. Maclear is a songwriter, producer, and entertainer who has taken up poetry.
Inside a String is a multidimensional journey. It travels the country from New York to California. It starts in the 1950s and moves through the 1960s and 70s and finally pulls into a stop in the present. It covers the Beats, the turbulent 1960s, the unsettled 1970s, and the ever-evolving present. The journey is also spiritual: beginning with Buddhism, moving to Catholicism, and ending in atheism.
There is a musical journey too. Although not part of the collection music has its role. After the first stanza of "The Village," I was in Beat reading mode. I had the rhythm and pattern of the words that one naturally falls into when reading Kerouac or Ginsberg. I reached over and put on some Charlie Parker to complete the scene.
Yesterday is just a melted muse of lectures... leering at the multitudes.
Charlie Parker soon gave way to Bob Dylan, who gave way to Lou Reed.
There characters in different stages of the collection. A priest at a shelter and Cajun Rouge Andy who is a bit more than down on his luck appear near the middle of the collection. There is a hobo who manages his way on the rails passing through the suburb of Frisco ten miles north and west of me.
Inside a String is an interesting collection that blends many different styles and takes the reader down several different paths varying everything as reader moves forward time, or in direction, or to understanding.
It is not_Whether we exist It is but the purpose/ It is not that you stand here It is why.
Inside a String seems fairly straightforward at the start, but like the threads of a string it twists and turns disorientating the reader. But like a piece of string it does have a known beginning and a known end. Maybe it's not about the destination, but the trip itself. A conventional collection on the very surface, but really experimental under the veneer of convention.
Inside a String: A collection of Poems, Essays, Lyrics, and Prose by Tom Maclear is a journey through American culture. Maclear is a songwriter, producer, and entertainer who has taken up poetry.
Inside a String is a multidimensional journey. It travels the country from New York to California. It starts in the 1950s and moves through the 1960s and 70s and finally pulls into a stop in the present. It covers the Beats, the turbulent 1960s, the unsettled 1970s, and the ever-evolving present. The journey is also spiritual: beginning with Buddhism, moving to Catholicism, and ending in atheism.
There is a musical journey too. Although not part of the collection music has its role. After the first stanza of "The Village," I was in Beat reading mode. I had the rhythm and pattern of the words that one naturally falls into when reading Kerouac or Ginsberg. I reached over and put on some Charlie Parker to complete the scene.
Yesterday is just a melted muse of lectures... leering at the multitudes.
Charlie Parker soon gave way to Bob Dylan, who gave way to Lou Reed.
There characters in different stages of the collection. A priest at a shelter and Cajun Rouge Andy who is a bit more than down on his luck appear near the middle of the collection. There is a hobo who manages his way on the rails passing through the suburb of Frisco ten miles north and west of me.
Inside a String is an interesting collection that blends many different styles and takes the reader down several different paths varying everything as reader moves forward time, or in direction, or to understanding.
It is not_Whether we exist It is but the purpose/ It is not that you stand here It is why.
Inside a String seems fairly straightforward at the start, but like the threads of a string it twists and turns disorientating the reader. But like a piece of string it does have a known beginning and a known end. Maybe it's not about the destination, but the trip itself. A conventional collection on the very surface, but really experimental under the veneer of convention.
July 4, 2014
Inside A String: A collection of poems, essays, lyrics and prose by Tom MacLear
As a huge fan of the beats (Kerouac and Ginsberg are among my favorites), I felt very much at home in the pages of Tom MacLear’s book. It was like wrapping myself in a cozy, warm blanket.
The reader travels with Tom MacLear from the smoky coffee houses of NYC’s Greenwich Village to the boxcars that inspired Woody Guthrie to Steinbeck’s beloved Cannery Row, each very much a part of those artists who shaped America’s culture.
Along the way, we realize that we are “Inside A String” that ties them all together. This “string” wraps around one of the central themes of MacLear’s musings, that of the delicate balance between the spiritual and the scientific in all aspects of our lives. He shows us that “the ultimate destiny of our existence is to comprehend the ‘meaning of ourselves’ “ and since this existence is one “which we have only borrowed/For a very short time”, there is an urgency in his message to us.
In his opening remarks, Tom MacLear states that “The works contained within are simply one man’s mirror of life as life unfolded before him.” While that may be true, there is nothing “simple” about Tom’s work. It is complex, moving and undeniably profound.
In the first section, “The Village”, MacLear captures the pulse of what was the stomping grounds for the beat poets. It was “A place all its own…Where the eccentricities made sense_where I made sense”. Indeed, reading theses poems, we can see that he “never left”. MacLear evokes the spirit of Bob Dylan, who also realized the “subterranean pulse of a new culture”.
In “Cannery Row”, we revisit the nostalgic undertones which resonated with John Steinbeck and his passion for it. Through the camaraderie that he knew was among its inhabitants, we see how the human spirit can overcome superficialities. The poet “live[s] what was/for that will never change here”. This sense of nostalgia is what we hear “calling for the days that remind us of what we had felt then”.
“Let me stay here
as I come home
to the place
I had never left”
He reminds us that “All that is in our past/Is everything we are today”.
Finally, Tom MacLear hopes that each artist creates what he or she does “In the hopes and belief/That some good may come from/What they have stirred inside another”.
He can rest assured that he has done so with this collection, and brilliantly.
As a huge fan of the beats (Kerouac and Ginsberg are among my favorites), I felt very much at home in the pages of Tom MacLear’s book. It was like wrapping myself in a cozy, warm blanket.
The reader travels with Tom MacLear from the smoky coffee houses of NYC’s Greenwich Village to the boxcars that inspired Woody Guthrie to Steinbeck’s beloved Cannery Row, each very much a part of those artists who shaped America’s culture.
Along the way, we realize that we are “Inside A String” that ties them all together. This “string” wraps around one of the central themes of MacLear’s musings, that of the delicate balance between the spiritual and the scientific in all aspects of our lives. He shows us that “the ultimate destiny of our existence is to comprehend the ‘meaning of ourselves’ “ and since this existence is one “which we have only borrowed/For a very short time”, there is an urgency in his message to us.
In his opening remarks, Tom MacLear states that “The works contained within are simply one man’s mirror of life as life unfolded before him.” While that may be true, there is nothing “simple” about Tom’s work. It is complex, moving and undeniably profound.
In the first section, “The Village”, MacLear captures the pulse of what was the stomping grounds for the beat poets. It was “A place all its own…Where the eccentricities made sense_where I made sense”. Indeed, reading theses poems, we can see that he “never left”. MacLear evokes the spirit of Bob Dylan, who also realized the “subterranean pulse of a new culture”.
In “Cannery Row”, we revisit the nostalgic undertones which resonated with John Steinbeck and his passion for it. Through the camaraderie that he knew was among its inhabitants, we see how the human spirit can overcome superficialities. The poet “live[s] what was/for that will never change here”. This sense of nostalgia is what we hear “calling for the days that remind us of what we had felt then”.
“Let me stay here
as I come home
to the place
I had never left”
He reminds us that “All that is in our past/Is everything we are today”.
Finally, Tom MacLear hopes that each artist creates what he or she does “In the hopes and belief/That some good may come from/What they have stirred inside another”.
He can rest assured that he has done so with this collection, and brilliantly.
January 24, 2015
Given To Me For An Honest Review
Inside A String: INSIDE A STRING: A collection of poems ... by Tom MacLear is a must read. It is a book of poetry and essays that will keep you turning the pages until the end. After you finish reading the book you will end up with a smile and you'll find yourself with hope for the future. At one time we enjoyed an Era of Peace and Love. The late 60's represented that time. In the book you'll find a poem, "Love Revealed", which describes the feeling American had during the Viet Nam War era. Although this is the first book of poetry by Tom MacLear, he wrote it with so much expertise. I gave it 5 stars but wanted to give it more. It would make a great gift and would look good in anyone's bookshelf. I highly recommend it to everyone. I look for more from Tom MacLear.
Inside A String: INSIDE A STRING: A collection of poems ... by Tom MacLear is a must read. It is a book of poetry and essays that will keep you turning the pages until the end. After you finish reading the book you will end up with a smile and you'll find yourself with hope for the future. At one time we enjoyed an Era of Peace and Love. The late 60's represented that time. In the book you'll find a poem, "Love Revealed", which describes the feeling American had during the Viet Nam War era. Although this is the first book of poetry by Tom MacLear, he wrote it with so much expertise. I gave it 5 stars but wanted to give it more. It would make a great gift and would look good in anyone's bookshelf. I highly recommend it to everyone. I look for more from Tom MacLear.
February 19, 2015
(I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review)
To be honest, I am not really a fan of poems and essay but surprisingly I enjoyed this collection. It's a light read and surely enjoyable. I want to keep this review short and simple because that is what this book is, short and simple but an enjoyable read.
To be honest, I am not really a fan of poems and essay but surprisingly I enjoyed this collection. It's a light read and surely enjoyable. I want to keep this review short and simple because that is what this book is, short and simple but an enjoyable read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews