Interview/Review for "November Rust
Interview/Review for "Naderia"
Interview at Askcherlock.com
Interview at IntoViews.com
Interview at Pinnacle Writing
Standing On Lorimer Street Awaiting Crucifixion
Alpha Beat Press, 31 Waterloo Street, New Hope, PA 18938
This is Julian Gallo's first poetry collection and let me tell you that he can write. Especially in his longer poems like "Brooklyn Rain". In part two he starts out: "I wonder how many dreams will be hung/off the old parachutte jump in Coney Island/or off the trees in the churchyard on Stuyvesant Street". That's just one nice line from this haunting and power-packed poem. It makes me feel like I know New York even though I have never lived there. It also reinforces the fact that everywhere you go people are people. They do the same horrible things in New York as they do in Mississippi. Gallo's poem "Generation Exit" is also a killer. Being a member of Generation X myself, I'm glad Gallo wrote this poem. In these poems you'll find hints of Ginsberg and it's obvious that Gallo has been influenced by the man. However Gallo definitely has his own voice here. He's building on what Ginsberg did, pushing it even farther. I strongly recommend that you buy this collection.
Dan Crocker
Ism - Issue # 2
1996
The Terror Of Your Cunt Is The Beauty Of Your Face
Black Spring Press, 1999
Julian Gallo is a writer who wields his pen like a surgeon's knife, applying and cutting words and remarks here and there. He lets loose his thoughts with a steady stream of unconscious thoughts, colorful metaphors and beautiful turns of phrases. "A Dream" reads: You are standing under an awning and the rain that is falling is made of glass. You hold out your hand to show it to me uinder the light. It glistens and I can hear it sing. They sound like a choir of angels to me; that is until you opened your palm and dropped the crystalline flakes into the gutter. Suddenly, they sound like the screams of the damned." Something is slightly amiss in Gallo's world. There is a sadness that he effectively puts into words that sing. "Just Thinking" reads: I'm lost in a Cy Twombly landscape, feeling my way through child-like freedom only to be stymied by adult realities. The trumpets are deafening and the red carpet has been unfurled before garbage. Take tentative steps, small, tentative steps, or else track dirt all the way home." You sense a loss of innocence in his poems. The title of the chapbook originally put me off but now I understand it. The terror of sexuality is overcome in the virginal youth and he seccumbs to the woman's beauty. He is no longer innocent and the world is a sadder, dirtier place. Powerful poems. Definitely check this out.
Ralph Haselmann Jr.
Blacklisted Reviews
1999
Street Gospel Mystical Intellectual Survival Codes
Budget Press, 2764 Caminito Cedros, Del Mar California 92014
2000
A small chapbook of 13 poems. Some about New York. Some about a woman. The city glimpses are more personal and sometimes less accessible to me that the ones his woman moves through in such fresh and quirky snapshots as "Interesting": She says/she likes/flowers because/they never/scream when/they die. My other favorite moment here is "Quirks": She shaves/her legs/and I/am amused/by how/she taps/the razor/against the/floor because/she thinks/it will/kill the spiders. Available from Budget Press, 2764 Caminito Cedros, Del Mar California 92014.
Michael Kriesel
Katnip Reviews
2000
Street Gospel Mystical Intellectual Survival Codes
Budget Press, 2000
Gallo's latest chapbook winds it's way through the streets of New York City, past subway stations, porno theaters and whores, lit by the Brooklyn moon. As he passes mimes, dogs digging through trash and Jehovah's Witnesses, he ruminates on the irony that confusion illuminates, the introspection one can only achieve by killing bugs, all set to Charlie Parker and Lucky Strike cigarettes. Reading this chapbook, I've been transported to a rainy New York night, smoking a cig in real time as the city passes by me in slow motion, everything translucent and unambiguous.
Johnnie B. Baker
2000
Scrape That Violin More Darkly Then Hover Like Smoke In The Air
Black Spring Press, 2001
This is a fine looking chapbook that opens up to reveal the maggots squirming around in the dirt, for the poems are unpleasant and abrasive, rarely soaring to heights of poetic beauty. This is not to say that the poems aren't good. They are. They are just dark in their own way. Julian Gallo happens to be a poet who pokes through the falsehoods of daily living to reveal the guts working beneath the surface. For this, he is a brave poet, following his own muse. His poem, "Even Pavlov Couldn't Imagine This" decribes the horror and cravings of drug addiction aptly. Powerful stuff if you like your coffee black.
Ralph Hasselman Jr.
Blacklisted Reviews
2001
Scrape That Violin More Darkly Then Hover Like Smoke In The Air
Black Spring Press, 2001
This is a decent chapbook by a writer I never heard of. It is full of a lot of free verse/free form poetry. Most of the poems are short and to the point and almost remind me of being in a dream-like state with their sometimes bizarre or off-the-wall description of things. This is from "The City": The nature of life/The city hangs there/like black cloth/awashed with pedestrian/subject matter./Why on earth are all these people milling around? If you are looking for something different, give this chapbook a try.
Cari Taplin
Katnip Reviews
2001
A Symphony of Olives
Propaganda Press
2009
Julian Gallo’s chapbook, A Symphony of Olives is published by Alternating Current'sPropaganda Press. Isn’t the title marvelous? It is brought by the poem’s title in the collection and is also in the line of another poem. Mr. Gallo lives in New York City as a writer/musician and painter with many previous books published such as Standing On Lorimer Street Awaiting Crucifixion published by Alpha Beat Press in 1996 and novel November Rust published by Lulu in 2007. This particular collection of poems runs from light-hearted to critical and ranges from personal relationships to whimsical scenarios. Below are a few of my favorites:
Afternoon Delight
Like a red-eyed scavenger you
devoured my thoughts one by one.
You sometimes sit with
predatory hands, waiting to snatch any
Word that can be used against me.
You hear me but you never listen;
for that would take too much effort.
You are not what I always thought you were.
No, you are just one of the rubber gloved elite,
an aging debutante peering at the faded portraits
through your own weathered prism.
Interesting juxtaposition of the title to the poem itself! The lover sounds like a buzzard in the beginning and at the end is an aging debutante, opposites are engaged throughout the poem giving light to the conflict in the relationship yet the title indicates affection. Very clever surprise.
Rules Of The Game
And I try to teach myself many things.
A professor of the self, incessantly searching
for the right way, the only way, in fact
for me to get on with things.
Apart from the myths of today’s age.
Apart from the standards someone else has set.
Apart from the rules of the game
that I don’t want to be a contestant in.
It’s not an easy thing when you tell someone
that you don’t feel like playing.
They will try their best to make you play,
for they will not tolerate any insubordination,
any insurrection of any sort.
There are rules to this game and you must abide by them
or else be disqualified and forever withheld the dice.
It never occurs to them that you never wanted the dice
in the first place.
It never occurs to them that
one is just simply not willing to play.
You must conform, must be part of things.
Nothing else is tolerated.
They want you to play so they can try to beat you.
They want to win and badly
for this kind of success is most desired.
Otherwise they may have to face the extreme
Failure of their own.
This could just as easily have been titled “Society” don’t you think? I have always felt the way the poet describes himself here, I’m sure most of you have as well. Whether it be office politics, family or friends’ gatherings, there are unspoken rules to be followed and those who do not follow are immediately punished. I like that the ending says the game really has nothing to win which is obvious to all but the rule-followers who refuse to face reality.
Silence Over A Bridge
All of this of course is silence over a bridge.
Or a papal bull.
Or a royal decree.
All of this is everything
and nothing.
Oil. Lather.
A codex of blood
written on towels.
A piece of a symphonic bible
kept hidden in jars
under the sink.
All of this of course is bullshit,
designed to project something
lost in childhood reverie
which itself was lost
with dust bunnies under the couch.
Sexuality is the power you weild
Designed to ensnare the more
deceived among us.
But I am not fooled.
I know better.
It is
nothing more than the tap of phlegm
in old rusty spittoons.
I like all the strange imagery: “codex of blood/written on towels” and “symphonic bible” and then it shifts to the poet revealing these words as “bullshit” and that all things people use to fool one another is “nothing more than the tap of phlegm/in old rusty spittoons.” It’s a strange poem and that is why I like it.
Blogspot.Poethound.com
April 2009
Divertimiento
Propaganda Press 2009
Julian Gallo’s collection of poems in Divertimiento detail interpersonal relationships and the less savory moments of encountering old flames, friends, and even strangers.
Cracks In The Paint
Will you be there for me
when the sun disappears behind
tenement water towers;
when the moon sneaks out quietly
from behind factory windows;
when the street lamps ignite over slick,
glistening streets;
Will you be there for me
when pimps release the whores for
nocturnal bliss;
when the nuts and wackos comb
cardboard tenements for smack
and a kiss from dirty chapped lips;
when the dogs pick through the trash,
eyes looking straight
into the urban abyss?
Will you be there for me
when the sun reappears to shine upon
the carnage you leave in your wake?
For I am still waiting,
huddled in the doorway
counting the cracks in the paint
one less button on my coat
one less beat of my heart.
Most poems asking the universal question of emotion “Will you be there for me?” often use much more sentimental imagery often paired with hope. Here, Mr. Gallo takes a twist in using imagery from the grittier sides of life, “nuts and wackos,” and “pimps” who release “whores” while the person in question is described as leaving carnage in their wake. It makes me wonder about the character of the person he is hoping will be there when it is his turn and the imagery leads me to believe that the person will not be there when the time comes.
Auteur
Narcissism in overdrive—
amazing the lengths some people
will go to make absolutely certain that
things, people & events
will completely revolve around
themselves.
You are merely a prop
in a film
they are making that
no one is
watching…
I share this poem because we can all relate to such people. Plainly spoken, Mr. Gallo points out that whoever you are, no one is watching you as closely or cares as much as you do about your life. Frankly, it’s a poem I’d like to leave lying around for certain other people to find, how about you?
A Sort of Mirage
Shadows in ink.
On such evenings I’m
too tired to applaud the maestro
but a fresh mate’ soothes nevertheless.
War has not been declared
and there is not one fraction
of my life left behind.
There are lots of commas
and etceteras lying about the hallway
waiting to be used, waiting to be set
free
to dance across the page.
They seem to comfort each other
after these outbursts;
a sort of mirage
these words I cannot grasp
I like the idea of “lots of commas/and etceteras lying about the hallway” as though all that is unsaid is hanging in the air waiting to land as words on the page. I like the imagery in this poem and the message that all that could be said has not yet been officially declared. I think that is what most writing is: That which is officially declared.
If you enjoyed this sample of poems, you may purchase Divertimientofor $3 (plus $2 US shipping or $3 out-of-US shipping) from Alternating Current (alt-current.com). You can also mail payment to:
Alternating Current
PO Box 398058
Cambridge, MA 02139
Blogspot.poethound.com
2009
