On this day in 2021

On this day in 2021, Sreemanti Sengupta in Kolkata, India, received her copy of Thunder on the highway by Gary Cummiskey, published by Dye Hard Press.

Thunder on the highway was limited to 50 numbered copies.

 

Gary Cummiskey reading at Off the Wall

 

Please enjoy this recording of me reading my poetry at Off the Wall on April 7. I read a selection of poems from my collections Thunder on the highway, Somewhere else and Outside the cave.

The recording can only be kept up for a limited time so you may want to downloadd it for future use.

https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/YzcNoVvVbBvIG55-Pi3JKHOAHjL7s0m_HaLt81dIsYov0-nehXLvb3dF89aFO4Ra.GCLtPCwqOAtVAHR2?startTime=1744047157000

Passcode: E@%g5PDH

I telephoned God awaits you!

Sloow tapes in Belgium has released a 40-minute cassette tape of me reading my poetry, titled I telephoned God.

The poems read are from my selected poems volume Outside the cave, but also from Thunder on the highway, Animal eyeball (a collaboration with UK artist Paul Warren), and my latest collection Somewhere else.

The cover shows three collages by French poet and collagist Bruno Sourdin.

To order, please visit Sloow Tapes.

Outside the cave and Thunder on the highway arrive two years later!

Good lord - copies of Outside the cave and Thunder on the highway sent by airmail to Pravasan Pillay in Stockholm two years ago have finally arrived! Maybe the SA Post Office is trying to come back to life!

Outside the cave in Leicester

Well, the new year is certainly starting with some good news --  Outside the cave and Thunder on the highway have now reached poet and publisher Adrian Manning in Leicester, England! It's great news that outgoing international mail is finally reaching its destination - without needing the expensive services of couriers! Now I am just hoping that incoming internal mail will start coming through.

Outside the cave in France again

This morning Benoit Delaune in France received his copies of Outside the cave and Thunder on the highway by Gary Cummiskey and published by Dye Hard Press.

Outside the cave in England

Nice to see that artist Paul Warren, in Daventry, England, has received copies of Thunder on the highway  and Outside the cave - granted, one swallow doesn't make a summer, but at the same time I am praying that this means the South African Post Office is upping its game.

 

Copies of Thunder on the highway still availilable

 

There are still seven copies left of Thunder on the highway, a chapbook of short poems by Gary Cummiskey. 24 pages.

ISBN 978-0-9869982-7-0

It is a limited edition of 50 numbered copies.

The South African Post Office is now delivering locally. For delivery by the post office the cost is R70. You will receive a tracking number and will have to collect it from your local post office.

Should you want it couriered to your door, with 24-hour delivery, the price will be R140.00.

Please send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Dye Hard Press in the Cape

 

A Facebook post by René Bohnen: I have come to love all couriers. Today's delight from Dye Hard Press. I had to start with the darling tiny chapbook. Gems in there! I still maintain that Gary Cummiskey comes up with some of the most brilliant titles: Outside the cave (conjuring up all sorts of intertextual images) and Thunder on the highway. I still have all the A4 size collections from those long-ago Braamfontein days too: I think the first one I got was When Apollinaire died. [a chapbook published by Gus Ferguson's Firfield Press]. I attended an Alan Finlay launch a few years ago somewhere in Queen Street, I think (it was pushing from the riverbank) Now happily reading these poets again! Also looking forward to the novel set in 1990's Yeoville.

Thunder on the highway ... after nine months

A copy of Thunder on the highway, which was sent nine months ago to Sreemanti Sengupta in Kolkata, India, finally arrived yesterday ... 

 

Thunder on the highway in Kolkata

 

Thunder on the highway has finally reached poet and publisher Subhankar Das in Kolkata, India - that certainly makes me feel more hopeful about the other copies I sent overseas months ago!

Only 10 copies left: Thunder on the highway by Gary Cummiskey

There are only 10 copies left of this limited edition poetry chapbook, Thunder on the highway, by Gary Cummiskey. Email dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Robert Berold on Thunder on the highway

Poet and publisher Robert Berold has this to say about Thunder on the highway: 'I've enjoyed your little book, read it 3-4 times (not a long read). the whole thing works -- images, tonal shifts, line arrangements.'

Thunder on the highway in France

French poet and collagist Bruno Sourdin writes: 'This morning in my mailbox, Johannesburg sunshine. Sent by Gary Cummiskey. " Waking at night,/ reaching out -/ nothing ′′. Thank you very much, Gary.'

Thunder doing the rounds

And now Musawenkosi Khanyile in Cape Town has received his copy of Thunder on the highway too!

'A lovely book to touch and to read'

Nice to see that Silke Heiss has received her copy of Thunder on the highway - a lovely book to touch and to read, she says.

A review of Thunder on the highway by Gakwi Mashego

Those who have attended the same poetry readings with me where I get to recite will tell you there is a poem I love to read. I have read that poem so many times I sometimes think under the right conditions I can blurt it without referring from the notes - but I insist on reading it because I love how it is written. It's an insightful but tragic piece by artist Gary Cummiskey titled 'And We Watch'. It is one of few painful post-'94 poems I know because it unashamedly peels scabs from festering wounds; just as they are about to heal. That might be the poem I love to read in many poetry readings but it's not the only poem by Cummiskey that I adore; actually I love far more poems than I can admit here. Let me just share three lines from 'And We Watch' so you can get to understand why I think Cummiskey is one of the best poets of our generation - I'm not sure what generation is that, but if you are living today, best believe I'm talking about your time:.

'And we watch the township lesbian being gang-raped, this will cure her and teach her to appreciate cock.../ And we watch the drunken mother hysterical because while she was busy getting laid outside the shebeen her child was butchered for muti.../ And we watch the torture and beatings continue in Harare.../ And we watch the girl in the backroom sticking a knitting needle up her hole/'.

I'll stop right here. And now you might have a clue why this poem speaks to me - not because it speaks about Zimbabwe but it speaks about human rights. It is taken from a collection titled 'today is their creator'.

But today's review is not for 'today is their creator' but for a collection so disarmingly pretty I jest that it is the Mona Lisa or something Pablo Picasso could have offered the world. In the past Cummiskey has given the world plenty of words to ponder and when I finally got my hands on this tiny chapbook which can be read in one five minutes sitting I really felt something - you know that kick in he gut. Interesting enough, I might not be able to write a thousand words about a book with 78 000 words but under the right influence I can write a thousand words about a chapbook with a handful of poems of which none goes beyond seven lines. Yes, you heard me right, seven lines. And you thought you know a sonnet. But Cummiskey has a way of impregnating his sonnets with so much va-va-voom they read like brides awaiting a suitor. You just have a feeling they are whispering 'take me somewhere'. They read like blurbs.

'At the stop

street

a leaf

lands

on

my windscreen'

And you start re-enacting the scenario. Yes, because six out of ten people have had similar experiences. And it brings back memories flooding of what happened next the last time it happened to you: you probably moved a wiper or thought of a parking ticket. And believe me I didn't quote the poem I published the whole poem.

'Listening to

Amy

Winehouse,

sipping

morning coffee'

Damnit! So I am not going to quote more than these two nameless poems because as I say, if I went further I will have quoted the whole chapbook with its 12 pages. Yes, you heard me right, twelve pages like Jesus Christ's disciples or a dozen of eggs. This is classical Cummiskey; no-holds barred, honest to god, undiluted, bitter like bile and sweet like honey. Well, I don't intend to write a poem of my own but I am afraid this review has already amassed more words than the whole 'Thunder on the highway' book.

Now I know Cummiskey's work intimately. And it's just that this is not the space for such a comprehensive overarching review. Actually under the right influence and proper nudging I can give you 5 000 words on Cummiskey's work if you promise you'll read and comment on. I can now relate a poem he recited some time ago which every time I think about I paraphrase. It had something to do with the poet hearing water splashing loudly from a flat above his own; and noticing that they were gushing from a bathtub the poet said his first thought was that the lady upstairs was making love to a crocodile. That's an anecdote I live with. It was a poem once recited to applause and gape.

So, about 'Thunder on the highway' I can't even say go grab yourself a copy because I'm not sure there is a copy for you to grab. The one I have is 17 of 50; like a Picasso or a Rembrandt bought at an art auction. This is my Picasso and maybe the poet can get you yours - I wouldn't know but try him. As a poet Cummiskey never disappoints, he paints with ink and is not afraid to say exactly how he feels - which reminds one of bards Vonani Bila and Alan Finlay on his 'found poems'.

Thunder in Pretoria

 Okay, so a posted copy of Thunder on the highway reached its destination in Pretoria three weeks later, which is not bad considering Pretoria is only 45 minutes' drive away. But I am chuffed to see it has pride of place on the same shelf as William Burroughs and Gregory Corso.

Thunder on the highway by Gary Cummiskey: a limited edition

Thunder on the highway is a chapbook of short poems by Gary Cummiskey. 

24 pages. 

ISBN 978-0-9869982-7-0 

It is a limited edition of 50 numbered copies. 

Thunder on the highway is available directly from Dye Hard Press. For postal delivery by the post office the cost is R70. You will receive a tracking number and will have to collect it from your local post office. Should you want it couriered to your door, with 24-hour delivery, the price will be R140.00.

Send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Thunder on the highway in Cape Town

 

Bruce Fereday in Cape Town has received his copy of Thunder on the highway - and he was struck by the similarities between its cover and the City Lights edition of Gregory Corso's Gasoline.