JOE PACHINKO POETRY READING

POETRY READING: Joe Pachinko Airs His Dirty Laundry in the Urinals of Hell


SANTA CRUZ, CA… “Forget the academics. If you want to read a near-perfect portrait of what real life is like, of what real human need and deprivation is all about, then hunt this title down,” says Seth Flynn in a review of Joe Pachinko’s “The Urinals of Hell “ (Superstition Street Press, 2003) for Las Vegas City Life. Pachinko will be reading from “The Urinals of Hell” and other poems while making his debut at the Wired Wash Café at 7:00 p.m. on December 10th.

The Oakland based writer has been referred to as “the love-child of Charles Bukowski” combining the dark urban surrealism of the streets, satirical attacks on the current state of literature, wistful drug- and alcohol-induced fantasies, hopeful words of love and lust, and hilarious, bizarre combinations of images guaranteed to make any reader, listener, or passer-by feel something, whether they be amused, inspired, or offended.

You don’t have to be a poet to appreciate the works of Joe Pachinko, in fact he would rather not adhere to the label of “poet.” Over a cup of Joe, he emphasizes, “I don't consider myself a poet, I believe it’s up to the reader/listener to decide whether something is poetry or not.” His affiliation to the poem is similar to the late Charles Bukowski, one of the most widely read contemporary American poets of the century; he would rather not compromise his art into a bland classification. Joe begins to unravel that “bestowing the title on yourself is suspect-like somebody walking around shouting ‘I’m a genius!’ If someone else calls you one, that’s their business. I’d describe my poems as being anti-poem-fauxetry.”