Social Yet Distanced: A View with an Emotionalorphan and Friends

Social Yet Distanced: In The Streets With A. Razor Part II

A. Razor was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1963, and brought to California at the age of one. Raised with a strong desire to read and write, but an even greater desire to survive his circumstances, which has aided his experience and longevity so far. He began writing and publishing in Los Angeles, around 1980 in various underground zines and publications. Expanding outward from there, he was discovered by Drew Blood Press, Ltd. in 1984, where he published 11 chapbooks up to 1995. He has read his work at many readings and spoken word events over the years and been published in many types of publications, ranging from those that are considered reputable to those that are of ill repute. He has fought hard to live and express his art in many different ways and in many different places. He became a member of the Hollywood Institute of Poetics in Los Angeles, CA in 2009. He has participated recently in the Poets In Prison panel at Beyond Baroque and the 2011 ALOUD reading series held at the Downtown Los Angeles Public Library. In 2012 he teamed up with Iris Berry to launch Punk Hostage Press, on which he released six titles of his own work and edited 10 more titles from as many writers, Danny Baker, Iris Berry, C.V. Auchterlonie, Carolyn Srygley-Moore, Rich Ferguson, Dennis Cruz, Frank Reardon, Alexandra Naughton, SB Stokes and Hollie Hardy. He collaborated on book cover designs with graphic artist Geoff Melville for many of these books. His writing has always explored the world that he has sought to be a part of and to rebel against at the same paradoxical moment. He has traveled extensively, seeking and enduring everything from homelessness and imprisonment to serenity and peace.

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Books by A. Razor: Better Than A Gun In A Knife Fight , Drawn Blood: Collected Works on D.B.P.,Ltd. 1985-1995, Small Catastrophes in a Big World, Beaten Up Beaten Down, Half-Century Status , Days of Xmas Poems, and Puro Purismo

Paul Corman Roberts Talks Bone Moon Palace, and Poetics with Dr. Fran Lock and an @emotionalorphan.

"Paul Corman-Roberts 2nd full-length collection of Bone Moon Palace will be released by Nomadic Press July 3rd of 2021. Previous collections include The Abomunauts Are Coming To Piss On Your Lawn (Howling Dog Press, 2006), Neocom(muter)(Tainted Coffee Press, 2009), 19th Street Station (Full of Crow Chap Series, 2011) and We Shoot Typewriters (Nomadic Press, 2015.) His short story “The Deathbed Confession of Christopher Walken” shortlisted for subTerrain Magazine’s 2010 fiction contest. A three-time Pushcart and Best of Web nominee, he currently teaches workshops for the Older Writer’s Lab in conjunction with the San Francisco Public Library as well as the San Francisco Creative Writing Institute. He sometimes fills in as drummer for the U.S. Ghostal Service."

Bone Moon Palace, like the ghost ship that its title poem commemorates, offers escape "not from everyone else but from everywhere else, a hiding place to be alone in sometimes." In these poems, you'll find community and solitude, candor and empathy, history and etymology. You'll find our oligarchy decoded; our mammalian nature disrobed. You'll find cold full moonlit nights and Darth Vader unsheathing his box cutters and so many beautifully-turned phrases: words tilled like soil to harvest a fresh poetic perspective. Enter the palace and behold, then, Corman-Roberts veering nimbly between jester and sage—dispensing "truth like smoke / disguised as tomfoolery."

Soma Mei-Sheng Frazier, 2017 San Francisco Library Laureate, author of Salve and Collateral Damage: A Triptych

Paul Corman-Roberts’ imagination is a responsible spirit leading people to their sharpened teeth. His imagination is my friend.

Riffs to live by wreathe poem after poem. Stowaway poems in this time of epochal shifts in the direction and velocity of social freight. You can find Corman-Roberts underneath cracking thousands of wishbones with all phantoms and phenomena that hegemony would have you ignore. Here is a tally for lovers of poems to enjoy.

Tongo Eisen-Martin, 8th San Francisco Poet Laureate, author of Heaven Is All Goodbyes and somebody is dead already

Paul Corman-Roberts’ words create a lush, lyrical roadmap to navigate a world where one can feel lost in a sideways sanity. With heart, hope, and humor as his magnetic north, Corman-Roberts leads us along roads teeming with ghosts, shape-shifters, poisonous CEOs, and investment bankers. Rather than imposing upon us a “one-way ticket to the abyss,” replete with Eden-less days where memes are the new media and democracy is pummeled by “thugocracy,” Corman-Roberts offers us a proverbial light at the end of our journey—that poetry can offer sanctuary, and that even amidst a crumbling empire, we “still need to be held / need to be cuddled / even in the squalor of our own dust.

Rich Ferguson, L.A. spoken-word performer, Beat Poet Laureate of California (2020–2022) and author of Everything is Radiant Between the Hates (Moon Tide Press, 2021)

A. Razor has experienced a second birth and an allowance of past and present works to converge. Razor gives us silhouettes of words dancing under dim street lights and first-hand experiences in the grips of self-destruction. He shows us the beauty there is after the vultures circle. ~ O.R.

Buy Now Puro Purismo

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https://www.amazon.com/Puro-Purismo-Razor/dp/194021310X

A. Razor was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1963, and brought to California at the age of one. Raised with a strong desire to read and write, but an even greater desire to survive his circumstances, which has aided his experience and longevity so far. He began writing and publishing in Los Angeles, around 1980 in various underground zines and publications. Expanding outward from there, he was discovered by Drew Blood Press, Ltd. in 1984, where he published 11 chapbooks up to 1995. He has read his work at many readings and spoken word events over the years and been published in many types of publications, ranging from those that are considered reputable to those that are of ill repute. He has fought hard to live and express his art in many different ways and in many different places. He became a member of the Hollywood Institute of Poetics in Los Angeles, CA in 2009. He has participated recently in the Poets In Prison panel at Beyond Baroque and the 2011 ALOUD reading series held at the Downtown Los Angeles Public Library. In 2012 he teamed up with Iris Berry to launch Punk Hostage Press, on which he released six titles of his own work and edited 10 more titles from as many writers, Danny Baker, Iris Berry, C.V. Auchterlonie, Carolyn Srygley-Moore, Rich Ferguson, Dennis Cruz, Frank Reardon, Alexandra Naughton, SB Stokes and Hollie Hardy. He collaborated on book cover designs with graphic artist Geoff Melville for many of these books. His writing has always explored the world that he has sought to be a part of and to rebel against at the same paradoxical moment. He has traveled extensively, seeking and enduring everything from homelessness and imprisonment to serenity and peace.

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https://www.nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/sc20329.htm

Books by A. Razor: Better Than A Gun In A Knife Fight , Drawn Blood: Collected Works on D.B.P.,Ltd. 1985-1995, Small Catastrophes in a Big World, Beaten Up Beaten Down, Half-Century Status , Days of Xmas Poems, and Puro Purismo