Poe Ballantine

New Yorker Cartoonist Shannon Wheeler leads off the Winter/Spring and Summer/Fall 2022 volume of Gobshite Quarterly, because we can all use a laugh. Contemporary;Literary;Poetry;Translation;AnnualThis issue also contains: Contemporary & Literary Essays by Jenny Forrester (who wants to show you her guns), M. F. McAuliffe who ties the pictures on our pianos in with the pictures on the news & local & hate crime vandalism. Mark Sargent dreams of NBA overtime, and of having to drive all over Greece to find somewhere to watch it, & Transit cofounders Adrian Martin & Carles Matamoros discuss a new European noir classic... Poetry includes Croatian poets Tomislav Marijan Bilosnic, Marija Dejanovic & Monika Herceg, New Yorker poet J. Randall Brett, Greek poets including Vasileia Oilonomou, Eleni Tzatzimaki, Petros Skytios, Constantina Kontopoulou, French poet Ivan de Morbison, Lithuanian poets Kestutis Navakas, & Rimas Uzgiris; Estonian poet Triin Paja, Aruban poet Arturo Desimone, Welsh bard Dafydd Ap Gwylym, Australian poet Veronica O'Halloran, Washingtonian poet Armin Tolentino, Minnesotan poet Holly Day, Floridian poet Kirsten Aysworth, & Oregon Book Award winning David Biespiel, & fellow Oregon poets Casey Bush, Juleen Johnson, David Elsey, Ann Farley, translators Paul Merchant & Michael Filetra, Emmett Wheatfall & Dan Raphael. Stories about basketball and car crashes incl. contributions by New Yorker Tanni Haas, Oregonian Joy McDowell, Nebraskan Poe Ballantine, & Croatian Josip Razum. Graphix & Comics by Melbournian artist Michael Fikaris, by Mr. God Is Disappointed in You himself, New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler. Languages in this issue include English, Spanish, Croatian, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Greek, Icelandic, Irish Gaelic, Japanese, Kiswahili, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Tagalog, Ukrainian, Welsh, in parallel text Comin' at you multilingually, local news that stays news from everywhere...

Gobshite Quarterly Summer/Fall 2018, #31/32 features: Every Edge a Centre is an ongoing series of mythopoetic reasoned rants and essays: Nebraska novelist & O. Henry nominee Poe Ballantine looks back at a 1960s relationship with a legend in "Every Edge A Centre: Another zucchini bar, Ken?" (in Eng./Sp./Croat.); Adelaide-based poet & essayist Judith Steele writes about escaping the age of Trump, even in the Outback, in "Every Edge A Centre: Travelogue Monologue, Flinders Ranges, So. Oz." (in Eng./Sp./Croatian); Germ. film scholar Janina Bocksch & Barcelona-based Oz essayist & cineaste Adrian Martin write about Charles Laughton's classic noir & chess in "Night of the Hunter: Black is to Move" (in Eng./Span./Croatian). We have two comics: Award winning Little Beirut, Oregon poet & artist Leanne Grabel graces us w/a life of Dorothy Parker for children of all ages, "A Sad Story About a Big Brain: Illustr." (in Eng./Span./Icelandic/Croatian). Rotterdam-based illustrator T nia Cardoso collaborated w/ writer Joana Vardona for the comic book "Garandinha"--excerpted (in Eng./Portuguese). & we have an Indonesian Dragon fr. Japanese artist Midori Oki, & Croatian illustrator Dusan Gačic has a very pictoral "Diary" (in Croat./English). Bestselling Swiss novelist Christoph Keller, who divides his time betw. St. Galen & N. Y. C., offers us 5 Jazz flash fictions inspired by jazz classics & the lives of the musicians who wrote them ("Solo Flight"/"Blood Count"/"New Rhumba"/"My Friend Mindy"/"Sound Seekers"). Fr. Bowling Green Ohio, Michael Lohr gives us orig. bad boy & eternal rock-'n'-roller Edgar Allen in "The Ghost of Poe" (in Eng./Icelandic/Finnish/Sp.). Little Beirut writer Davis Slater observes a very very very angry carney in "9 Kinds of Sucker" (Eng./Span./Croat./Japanese). & we've got poets fr. all over: Greek poet & editor Dinos Siotis ponders paradoxes of "Faith" (in Greek/Eng./Lithuan./Span./Japanese). Croat. editor & poet Ivan Herceg visits "Limbo" & thinks "About Impossible Faces" (in Croat./Eng./Span./Lithuanian). Award winning Croatian poet Lana Derkač comes to a "Conclusion" & makes an appointment with "Doctor January" & enters a "Covenant with Dust." Also fr. St. Galen, Clemens Umbricht visits "The Room of False Things" & hangs "Untitled" on a wall & gets lost in "Rain-washed Amsterdam" & then takes "A Stroll in July" (in Germ./Eng./Croat./Spanish). Award winning Slovenian poet & E. R. doctor Veronica Dintinjana goes to midnight mass to visit the "Cathedral Lions" & then loiters "Outside the City Gates" (Slovenian/Eng./Lithuan./Russian/Croat./Spanish). South Oz expat Jan Herschel has lived on the Left Coast since 1982, & makes a wistful wish in "Add to Cart" (Eng./Span./Russian/Icelandic/Finnish). Adelaide poet Judith Steele, winner of the Red Earth Poetry Award discovers "Quiet" (in Eng./Russian/Croat./Spanish). Little Beirut drive-by poet Pecos B. Jett tells us the one about "Snoring Beauty" (in Eng./Jap./Russian/Finnish/Spanish).

Poe Ballantine's second volume of true American stories follows in the tradition of 'Things I Like About America', his first travel-come-memoir. As he wanders from town to town, from motel to boarding house, bus station to bar, old job to new - and as he counts, for the hundredth time, the handful of dollars in his pocket and wonders where he can get a cheap meal - Ballantine manages to capture in words an America so downtrodden, funny and surprising that it's hard to forget.

Poe Ballantine's second collection of personal essays follows in the tradition of Things I Like About America. Stories range from "The Irving," which details Ballantine's diabolical plan to punch John Irving in the nose after opening for him before an audience of 2,000 people that launched the literary festival, Wordstock; to "Wide-Eyed in the Gaudy Shop," which tells how, in Mexico, the narrator met and later married his wife, Cristina; to "Blessed Meadows for Minor Poets," the devastating tale of how after years of sacrifice and persistence, Ballantine finally secured a contract with a major publisher for a short story collection that never came to fruition. Ever present in this collection of essays are the odd jobs, eccentric characters, boarding houses, buses, and beer that populate Mr. Ballantine's landscape and make his stories uniquely his own. The title story, "501 Minutes to Christ," was included in the Houghton Mifflin anthology, Best American Essays 2006.

In this follow-up to God Clobbers Us All, "it's impossible not to be charmed by Edgar Donahoe (Publishers Weekly)," and he's back for another misguided adventure When Edgar is expelled from college for drunkenly bellowing expletives from a dorm window at 3:00 am, he hitchhikes to Colorado and trains as a cook. A postcard arrives from Edgar's college buddy, Mountain Moses, inviting him to a Caribbean island. Once there Edgar cooks at the local tourist resort and falls in love with Mountain's girl, Kate. He becomes embroiled in a love triangle and his troubles multiply as he is stalked by murderous island native Chollie Legion. Even Cinnamon Jim, the medicine man, is no help. Ultimately it takes a hurricane to blow Edgar out of this mess.

Set against the decaying halls of a San Diego rest home in the 1970s, God Clobbers Us All is the shimmering, hysterical, and melancholy account of eighteen-year-old surfer-boy orderly, Edgar Donahoe, and his struggles with romance, death, friendship, and an ill-advised affair with the wife of a maladjusted war veteran. All of Edgar's problems become mundane, however, when he and his lesbian Blackfoot nurse's aide best friend become responsible for the disappearance of their fellow worker after an LSD party gone awry. Ballantine's own brand of delicious quirkiness and storytelling is smooth and compelling, and God Clobbers Us All is guaranteed to satisfy Ballantine fans as well as convert those lucky enough to be discovering his work for the first time.