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| Kissed by a Fat Waitress (Paperback - New) |
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Full blurb:
Dan Fante’s new collection of poems begins with a quote from Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame “(Love)… is never stronger then when it is completely unreasonable.” And so the tone is set for an honest and intense collection of over 80 poems, illustrated throughout by Allen Berlinski. Described in the New York Times Book Review as “an authentic literary outlaw like Bukowski” , Kissed by a Fat Waitress finds Fante living up to that mantel. With titles like ‘for the comb-over lady’, ‘Iraq’, ‘here ya go pop – this one’s for you’ and ’28 years sober’, these poems are Fante at his most personal, political and dare we say it, hopeful? Try getting this book anywhere else a) in the UK right now and b) at this price. I don't think so!
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First page first lines:
From ‘mom at eighty-nine’
Today
at the home
I read her some of my new stuff
while she squinted at me - straining to hear
My savvy mouth
sputtering out
chain-saw syllables
beneath those perfect and unspoiled steel-grey eyes
This ancient ex-editor
Who’s read more and knows more about writing and poetry
Than I’ll ever hope to know
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Category: Poetry collection
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Author: Dan Fante
Dan Fante interviewed by BTD’s ed:
Q: For those who haven't yet read 'Kissed by a Fat Waitress', what can they expect from your latest collection of poems?
A: Readers can expect honesty. And intensity, I suppose. I'm always told that my stuff is intense. They're recent collected poems, so, in terms of where I'm at, they're pretty current.
Q: What poem, novel, play and song do you wish you'd written?
A: ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ by Eugene O'Neill. Damn brilliant play. ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’ by Hubert Selby Jr is the novel that changed my life. Brilliant. Lucille by Little Richard was an amazing rocket from Mars to me when I was twelve. Richard was sooo out there. So extreme in 1956. He rocked my world. Poetically I like Hank Bukowski as the best contemporary poet. But there's a line from W.B. Yeats that kills me: It goes like this:
...and bending down beside the glowing bars
murmur a little sadly how love fled
and paced upon the mountains overhead
and hid his face amid a crowd of stars
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Publisher: Sun Dog Press
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Reviews:
“Dan Fante has to be the angriest and edgiest writer the United States has ever produced. To read his novels, plays, short stories, and poetry is to dance on the knife’s edge of an alcohol (or sobriety)-fueled rage aimed right at the heart of all that’s unfair, mean-spirited, hypocritical, and just plain ugly in American society… All of which makes Kissed by a Fat Waitress, the author’s latest collection of poems, such a revelation—for into this work more light is allowed to shine than perhaps in all of Fante’s previous books combined. This is not to say that Fante has gone soft. Kissed by a Fat Waitress is still packed with more vitriol than most poets emit in a lifetime of writing. Targets for this rage include foolish editors, Hollywood producers, bad women of many stripes, the city of Los Angeles, John Fante (Dan’s now famous late father), and especially the author’s own broken, booze-addled past. … What makes this book truly different from Fante’s earlier work though, is the inclusion of many frank and vulnerable love poems to his wife and young son… It is these duelling contrasts of the old Fante anger and his new found, well, happiness, that makes Kissed by a Fat Waitress such a fascinating and satisfying work. – Rob Woodard, 3:AM Magazine.
“Dan Fante’s style is raw, insightful and deftly realized.” - Time Out
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| Book code: BTD016 |
| Price: GBP £ 10.00 |
| USD $ 14.95 |
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