THE OFFICIAL BEATLICK WEBSITE Welcome to the Beatlicks website and link to BEATLICK NEWS Poetry & Arts Newsletter. Follow the links at the bottom of this home page to Beatlick News. Scroll the home page for poems and words from: Cheryl A. Townsend / Keith Wilson / Jake Berry / Bruce Hodder / Charles P. Reis / Barry Alfonso / C Ra McGuirt / Jefferson Street Poet James C. Floyd / Bill Peach / Gary Every / Gary Brower / Ameilia Terry / Elaine Schwartz / Beatlick Joe & more! Hey, it's true it's true. We are on the road again and so excited to say so. Here is all our new contact information for submissions and general mail:Write to Pamela Adams Hirst, Beatlick Joe Speer, or submit to BEATLICK NEWS at: 1300 El Paseo RoadSuite G #308
Las Cruces, NM 88001Voicemail: 575-496-8729We will be checking mail and messages intermittently so allow us a few weeks, on certain occassions, to get back to you. Beatlick Travel Report #1
2008 series Beatlick Joe and I have officially moved into our VW van. We're parked on the NMSU campus where Joe is voluneering at the 15th International Mariachi Festival. We walked through the campus at sunset, a magnificent pink and orange display, down to Petes Cyber Cafe and watched the election results. Honestly I have been concerned about the state of mind I would have as we hit the road. I wanted so badly to have my faith in America restored, and last night it was. So we will begin our journey with just a short trip up to San Raphael and Albuquerque NM before we head out for Arizona and Southern California, taking the low route south of Interstate 8. I'm on the lookout for trends towards thriftiness along the way. Hard times are coming and we have pared expenses down as low as we can go. It's a grand experiment to live the good life, more in control of our circumstances, puttering through the more obscure places. Expect a report on Truth or Consequences, NM. Talk about sustainability, a town sitting on vast reserves of restorative hot springs. We found a bath house there where we can park our camper for $100 a month. My jaw dropped when I heard the price. I plan to spend January there and save up some money before we set out for the Salton Sea and Slab City, amongst other intriguing places. Regardz from Beatlick Pamela
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BEATLICK NEWS is published by the Beatlicks Joe Speer and Pamela Hirst. Our publication is a gem of the American underground small press celebrating its 20th year of literary service. This website compliments the hard copies distributed quarterly. Originated in Nashville, Tennessee, 1988, BEATLICK NEWS networks writers locally, nationally, and internationally. From here you can locate essays, poetry, and writing advice by scrolling through this website or clicking on the links to Beatlick News at the bottom of this page. For the convenience of publishers, Beatlick Joe's book "Backpack Slacker: A Flashback of the 60s" can be found at the Beatlick News website, find the link at the bottom of this page.
Note: Apparently there has been so much traffic to our Beatlick News site that Yahoo shuts us down if we get over 40 hits an hour. If this should happen to you, then you will have to wait until the top of the hour before you can access the Beatlick News website. Sorry for that inconvenience.
If you are planning on submitting to BEATLICK NEWS please contact: beatlickjoe@yahoo.com or
publishingpamela@yahoo.com
HAPPY TRAILS!If you are planning on submitting to BEATLICK NEWS please contact: beatlickjoe@yahoo.com or
publishingpamela@yahoo.com
HAPPY TRAILS!
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The Beatlicks: Joe Speer and Pamela Hirst of Las Cruces, NM
Remarks from Joe's fellow WalMart associates upon his departure: Joe, Best Wishes & Good Luck in your future...Dianne Joe, Gonna miss you...(illegible) Good-bye and Good Luck: To the coolest guy I've ever met--Take care out there, man. Hit a man up when you swing back through, Joe. And check your e-mail!...Scott Good Luck, Joe...Bryce Joe, Good luck to you. Have fun and best wishes. Milo Have fun & take care. Diana Joe, Hope you have fun in all your travels. Be safe and know this. YOU WILL BE MISSED!...Julie Joe, Have fun & be safe. Nice knowing you...Amanda-Photo Lab Joe, I'll miss working with you. I always kinda liked the days you worked better than the ones you didn't. I hope you're safe and stuff and have fun and some time you should write me a letter or somehting. I would write you back but I'm not sure that I could if you're traveling all over. I'll miss you. Hope I'll meet up with you again some time like if I ever get to be a rock star I would most definitely let you in for free and stuff. Tell your girl friend she's nice. I like her and it was nice to meet her and all your friends...Amanda Joe, It won't be the same without you. Have a great time traveling...Jon Best of luck to you...Ana Joe hope you have a great time and be safe on your road trip...Kendall Joe, you're a good co-worker. Enjoyed working with U. Good luck & Best Wishes. We'll miss you...Ernestina. Joe...Have fun & be safe...Maria Take me with you...Anonymous
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 | THE TWENTY-FIVE CENT XMAS The year I was born was a bad one
no star appeared in the East
rather my natural father
disappeared in the West
like a meteorite
that left us
in a crater of poverty
my mother on crutches
from childhood polio
working as best she could
I almost died in hospital
as my head wouldn’t close
then war began--
another surprise attack with only twenty-five cents
for our first Xmas
my mother bought me
the gift of a rubber bib
which I tried to swallow
when she left the room
turned blue
till she returned
threw it in the trash
mirrors reflected no future
years later I told her
I liked to keep an open mind
sometimes had the blues
but would never
wear a bib GARY BROWER PLACITAS, NM ------------------------------------------------ INSIDE BEATLICK NEWS: Find the link to BEATLICK NEWS and all the stories mentioned in this purple text at the bottom of this page. There's an icon for "Backpack Slacker: A Flashback of the 60s" a book by Beatlick Joe. James C. Floyd, the Jefferson Street Poet, of Nashville, TN, is featured at the end of Calendar Events. Get great writing advice from writer/editor Kevin McIlvoy. Just click on his icon on the navigation bar at the BEATLICK NEWS site. That link is at the bottom of this page. | | | POETRY & PROSE: (click on "archive" icon) for "Breach of Promise to an Imaginary Friend" the latest from Barry Alfonso, Pittsburgh, PA; and "I'd Rather Die," by BEATLICK JOE SPEER, Las Cruces, NM. Also included Gary Every, Gary Brower, Ameilia Terry, C Ra McGuirt, and Bill Peach. | | | REVIEWS: Cheryl A. Townsend, Bruce Hodder, Charles P. Reis. | | | FEEDBACK: Letters from Harry Wilkens, Geneva; Peter Schwartz, Waterville, ME | | | BEATLICK NEWS has a link to all the writing advice from Emma J. Wisdom, a premiere Nashville, TN, publisher. Check out her latest submission: "What If"
| | | Below: Find links to some of our favorite people. Follow the links below: OASIS - NMSU sustainability program - is our new link, plus a link to vintage books. 4NTV has some Beatlick Video, Wayne Crawford's site holds poetry and fiction, Josie Kuhn features some of her music, and of course BEATLICK NEWS! |
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GUITAR When I was young and hauling a boatload of dreams, apparently I decided I was going to become Bob Dylan #2 while I hitchhiked Europe. What else can explain boarding the S. S. Montreal with only a tiny knapsack of clothes and a big honkin guitar? By the time we docked in Liverpool I’d survived a hurricane on high seas, was mesmerized by northern lights, and battered by an intense shipboard romance, lost in the chaos of disembarkation because I forgot to pack a pencil and a piece of paper. The knapsack made a good pillow for train stations and hostels, but no sad chords complemented the songs of despair that I was too depressed to write. So after three days, I ditched the guitar in Charing Cross and began my ramblin’ grand tour with a railpass and a sad thumb. Now, when my wife and I travel to Europe, we each check a suitcase of clothes, we haul a computer and a heavy carry-on of pills over our shoulders, and one of us has the itinerary in a jacket pocket.
Apparently, my cells have decided that I am old.
It must be, for I meet people I know all the time in the Pepto Bismol aisle of Walmart. I’m no “Freewheelin” Dylan now. I guess I never was, but I’ve still got a barge-load of dreams. I should try to look her up, the girl I knew for a week, long before Google, but maybe she’s not real . . . anymore. I’m sure I lived through the hurricane, and twenty years ago I saw the northern lights and remember the event as seeing them “again.” But Mary . . . Mary Yvonne . . . Mary Yvonne “Something” . . . something that makes my breath catch, like a name or word you know you know, “Blowin’ in the Wind”
on the edge of your mind.
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