Set for release on
October 28, 2006 is a 96 pages book by John
Black und J. D. Black entitled "Black Velvet
Elvis" (ISBN: 0889842779).
Synopsis from the publisher:
"In this brilliant and unusual first book of
poems, J. D. Black salutes The King not only
with the occasional electric guitar but with
stranger and more delicate melodies as well, a
few strummed out on the dulcimer, others twanged
along the nerves. Black reveals himself as a
master of difficult forms extending from
rondeaux and villanelles to mischievous haiku.
But it would be mistaken to see him merely as a
skilled traditionalist.
Amid the high polish of the poems rough
surprises abound. The menacing redneck Len
surfaces in several 'vignettes', his beery but
robust visage scarcely contained by the strict
sonnets through which he elbows. In these sly
poems, Len, resplendent in his white Cadillac or
cursing the 'sumbitch step daddy' of his
squeeze, contrasts sharply with the sad
diminished figure of Elvis, moping in a Quebec
'Gas-Bar de la Nuit'.
Black moves expertly from witty light verse to
elegies as graceful as they are moving. In 'Last
Train Out' the sense of loss of a Holocaust
survivor is evoked through an abandoned stamp
album. In 'Canis Lupus', the wolf hidden inside
the dog is unleashed. This is a dazzling
collection of superb craft and subtle mischief
by a poet whose work has for too long remained a
private delight.
"Source: Elvis
Club Berlin / Updated: Oct
11th, 2006
