Zombie Logic Press Never Quit Rockford Poetry
Zombie Logic Press Never Quit Rockford Poetr About five years ago I was called to the house of the publisher of one of the region’s largest independent newspapers to talk about poetry. The publisher is a poet, and he had a project he wanted to talk about. It turns out he wanted me to write a history of poetry and literary figures along the Rock River in Wisconsin and Illinois. It was sort of an ambitious project, and I said it might be easier to start with a history of Rockford poetry. He agreed, and I set out to research the story.
As with many things in Rockford, problems arose immediately, the greatest of which was blatantly obvious: there is no real literary history in Rockford, and there certainly wasn’t any current scene when I set out to write that piece.
For a few weeks I did my best to pursue leads, sending out a survey to local literary figures asking them what poets, venues, and publications they recalled being significant in the Rockford literary scene. And to be fair, there were a few flashes, a few false starts, and a couple of brief moments when it seemed like something might happen. But it never did. Everyone knows scenes fall apart faster than the Hindenburg, but in a city of 150,000, why wasn’t there even one success story? I shelved the story. The publisher never asked again, and when I see him now we never talk about it.
Then in 2013 I had emergency heart surgery. And while in the hospital bed it occurred to me one of the things I’d like to do with whatever time I have left on planet Earth is to publish and promote the best writers I can find in my hometown. The first book, Iced Cream, by my friend Jesus Correa, appeared the next summer after we returned from a vacation in the Gulf Shores. Early the next year The Zen of Beard Trimming by C.J. Campbell appeared, and a couple of weeks ago our third book in The Rock River Literary Series, The Blood Dark Sea by Outlaw Poet Dennis Gulling, was released. For a while every time I left the house someone was pitching a book idea to me, and the next two books in the series are already planned.
Sometimes I wish the media, civic groups, and some of the champions of the city who complain about negative press from the national media would give us a shout out once in a while to help us promote our books to a national audience, but they almost never do.
Nonetheless, Zombie Logic Press never quit Rockford Poetry.
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