By Ron Kolm
The Jersey Slide
Danny Shot kicks off his amazing new book of poems, The Jersey Slide, by obliquely mentioning the East Village Father of us all, Steve Cannon. Though his book lists New Jersey in the title, Danny Shot is a major poetical force in both New Jersey and New York, and beyond. He has had work published in The Red Wheelbarrow and in The Gathering of the Tribes, which he helps edit, as well as in many other places.
He is political in the best possible way. In the poem “Wreckage” he mentions that “Our country has gone crazy” and “We need to hear each other’s pain.” He says, “I hear America breaking piece by piece.”
But he still has fun, too. In the poem “That was fun,” he writes:
And he ends that poem with: “Rock on!”
Part III starts off with sad family history, which he shares with us. In the poem “Raging Bull” his father almost gets into a fist fight with a neighbor. It ends with his father sitting in a chair in the darkness smoking cigarette after cigarette. In another poem in this section there is a homeless man nicknamed Jesus. We also learn, in this section, that Danny has a relative who perished in Auschwitz. This section is very moving, and the information it contains about his family and relatives is profoundly informative.
The book ends with a section entitled Coda.
The first poem in this section mentions both Steve Dalachinsky and Cannon, two East Village spoken word icons. He also lists St. Mark’s Booksstore and the Sidewalk Café, two important stopping places in my life, and I miss all four of them as well.
RON KOLM is a writer, bookseller, publisher, and more. He earned two degrees in history and channeled his historical bent to documenting New York City’s downtown poetry scene by collecting posters, small press and hand-made artifacts, and other downtown-alia. His archives were purchased by NYU’s Fales Library. Ron is author of The Plastic Factory, Welcome to the Barbecue, Divine Comedy, and many other books; editor of several anthologies; co-organizer of the downtown