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| New York poet Todd Colby's writing pops with explosive power, as in Rimbaud crossed with Johnny Rotten. —Salon.com |
| Colby's poetry has reached an active yet sublime sophistication. His punk-rock surrealist vision is continually crossed w/ antagonistic humor but it ultimately bows to charmed romance. This book moves like a collection of scratches in duty to a profound and unified line. He really just wants your love. And with Tremble and Shine he fucking well deserves it." —Thurston Moore |
| I've always thought of Todd Colby as a talented and evocative poet. These new poems have a sense of defiance which is a unique quality in poetry today. —Jim Carroll |
| I don't know anyone who writes like Todd Colby, his voice is a singular stew of punk, language and American rage resulting in the strangest beauty. Like a side show performer at Coney Island, Colby swallows, chews, and metamorphoses the freaky and absurd into the miraculous. Tremble and Shine is Colby at his best. —Brenda Coultas |
| From poems, to fiction, to reportage, Todd Colby's third book by Soft Skull Press combines selections from his first two books--Ripsnort and Cush--along with new poetry and prose. Sort of a 'best of' collection, as well as a launchpad into palpable, demanding, and joyful new directions, Riot in the Charm Factory displays the kinetic, frenetic word-smithery of one of today's best poets under the age of 35. Explosive, visceral, hilarious, ultra-modern, and rock-and-roll: discover the high-octane delivery of a great new voice, that actually has something to say." —BookSense | |
Tremble & Shine
Poems
Todd Colby
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| Paper | 5 1/2 x 7 | 130 pgs. | ISBN: 1-932360-30-1 | List: $13.95 | 07/1/2004 |
Available on Powells.com, Amazon.com, from your local BookSense store, and bookstores everywhere!
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About the book: Tremble and Shine is Todd Colby's first full-length collection since his new and selected Riot in the Charm Factory (Soft Skull, 1999). These new pieces shift between poem, fiction, and reportage, from the grinning skull of Edgar Allan Poe to Lenny Bruce's adenoids with a music that is entirely Colby-the riffs and beats of a loud live show, the rhythms of the cement mixer, the eternal pound. Irreverent, dark, and acidic as they are, each of Colby's poem might also be read as a prayer.
In "Dear Reader" Colby promises to "punctuate my spasms with gasps of chrome breath, / breathing metal, exhaling oxide, making squirt what cannot / be washed and|or left in an empty chair. /...I will do everything in my power to help you see things my way." In Tremble & Shine, one of Soft Skull's original poets comes through with a collection of lyrical and roughhousing poems that address everything from the acid-trip qualities of camping to the need to righteously rock, against all odds.
About the author: Todd Colby is the author of Riot in the Charm Factory: New and Selected Work (Soft Skull Press, (Oct 1999) and the editor of Heights of the Marvelous: A New York Anthology (St. Martins Press, 2000). He has appeared in numerous poetry anthologies, including Short Fuse: A World Anthology of Poetry, The Portable Boog Reader, Word Up: Spoken Word Poetry in Print, Verses That Hurt, Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza, and Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café. Colby has performed his poetry on PBS, MTV, and Canada's Much Music Network. He has produced many collaborative books and paintings with the artist David Lantow and was the lyricist and vocalist for the now-legendary New York band Drunken Boat.
This author is on tour: Book Launch party at the Bowery Poetry Club on June 19th. See our Events page for details!
From the book:
Dear Reader
Were you not washed up, shoeless, dressed in clean sheets
like an unfortunately beveled haircut, a wax mustache, or a bar of soap
carved into the spooky shape of a shrunken head. Oh were you not
thick as a chopstick in a plum, stopping only to grouse
or meander into the flux of nubs, wetting them, it seems.
I punctuate my spasms with gasps of chrome breath,
breathing metal, exhaling oxide, making squirt what cannot
be washed and/or left in an empty chair. Everyone knows,
Dear Reader, that tattoos are for others, the people
who look out from their eyeholes at the flesh marked by the sign
that says tribe or trouble or what-an-asshole. Cool cucumber
sandwiches will be served on the verandah, I hope you will
attend my bash so I can scratch your back with my new invention.
I will do everything in my power to help you see things my way.
I can't say anymore than this, as it is a secret until I reveal it.
Until then, let your sad pony's cracked hooves serve as your scratcher.
I alone remain humbly yours.
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