Way, Way Off the Road

by Doug Holder
Hugh Fox

ISBN: 978-1-4116-9224-4

Publisher: Lulu.com

Rights Owner: Doug Holder

Language: English

Country: United States

Paperback book $24.50 Add to Cart

Printed: 280 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, black and white interior ink

Description:

Several years ago the “Ibbetson Street Press,” published a Hugh Fox poetry collection: “Angel of Death.” I had never actually met Fox in the flesh, but I was aware of his substantial contributions to the small press over the past 40 years. Fox was a founding member of the “Pushcart Prize,” a founding board member of COSMEP, (a seminal small press organization),edited the groundbreaking anthology “The Living Underground,” to name just a few achievements. Fox is full of anecdotes about many of the stumblebums, poets, poseurs, players, publishers, editors, with all their infinite variety, on the small press scene. I am glad this manuscript has seen the light of day. And when you read it hopefully you will see the ”light” too. Doug Holder/Ibbetson Street Press

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Biographies & Memoirs

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[ No Rating ] 7 Jun 2006 (updated 7 Jun 2006)

by Doug Holder

Search The Somerville News
ERA the Norton Group

June 05, 2006
Off the Shelf by Doug Holder

Fox’s memoir takes us outside

Way, Way Off the Road. The Memoirs of the Invisible Man. Hugh Fox. Edited by S.R. Glines. $15. ( Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143)

Hugh Fox, in his memoir of the small press movement, “Way, Way off the Road,” quotes the poet Charles Plymell:

“…the generation that came after the Beats, was overpowered by the Beats themselves. All that media hype. My god, the media fell in love with them. They were practically rock stars. And the post-Beats, the Hippie-Yippies, whatever you want to call them, were lost in the Beat’s shadow. They were and still are invisible!”

Off the Shelf by Doug Holder

Plymell defined the group of poets Fox feels he was part of. Fox was solidly in his 30’s, a nerdy academic, equipped with a PhD and a foundation grant, when he picked up a copy of “Crucifix in a Death Hand,” by the “dirty old man,” of poetry Charles Bukowski. Fox was thrilled by the Buk’s use of language and felt a new door was opened for him outside the stagnant air of the academy. Fox wound up doing a critical study of the man. Here is an account of his first meeting with Bukowski:

“So I’d gone over and found him in this motel-hotel place in Hollywood. You know, the usual tattered, potted palms out in front, everything kind of run down.”

Fox told Bukowski that he wanted to do a critical study of his work. Fox was sick of Eliot and Pound, and wanted a taste of the wild side. Here is Bukowski’s response according to Fox:
“ …nothing wrong with Eliot and Pound, they’re some of my best friends, he answered, got up and started emptying the wall of bookcases that contained all of his printed work, all the books, all the magazines. Went into a closet and started taking out suitcases and throwing the books and mags inside.”

Bukowski said: “Ok I can trust you. I’m gonna give you the whole schmear. And if you find any duplicates, keep them.”

This is an iconoclastic, zany and compelling memoir.

Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update

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