David Trinidad

New Playlist holds a variety of poetic forms: odes, found, haiku, prose, list, collages, one-liners, sonnets, and more. With his trademark wit and inventiveness, David Trinidad “plays” with these forms as if they were toys. He creates a Wikipedia cento in which each line illustrates how little is known of sixty-five ancient Greek poets. He gives us an itinerary of “Things to Do” in ten 1970s disaster films. He catalogs Sylvia Plath’s recipe cards and all the references to beer in a book by Bernadette Mayer. His subjects are as “fun” as his forms: pop singer Dusty Springfield, Marcel Proust, Basho, Hollywood movies and actresses, old cartoons, a prom dress thief loose in a girls’ dorm. But “play” does not preclude seriousness, as Trinidad addresses physical scars, encounters with homophobia, and the wonders and wounds of childhood.

This suburban California coming of age navigates Trinidad’s personal history in the shadow of Hollywood, against the dramas of the 1960s and ’70s.“Trinidad’s pieces teach us how memory and history are forms of yearning, and about what can and cannot be recovered.” —Amy Gerstler “This is the writing of a poet who loves the world into language.” —Aaron Smith Poet David Trinidad’s past is rich fodder for a collection of memory pieces that wind the reader through the underbelly of 1960s and ’70s America—and Southern California, more specifically. In Trinidad’s recollections, the proximity to Hollywood both glamorizes and condemns the bustling suburbs. Stains of the Manson murders and adoration for The Boys in the Band are documented with the same care as fascinations with Barbie dolls and twelve-cent comic books. The struggles of an awkward gay teenager meld into the weighty anecdotes of a young man who befriends famous writers, acts as a historian for familial legacies, and confronts the limitations of desire. The title piece, “Digging to Wonderland,” presents a young David Trinidad and his friend Nancy as they tunnel into the ground of her backyard, in search of the next great adventure. Ultimately, we witness a childhood spent under the threat of annihilation: “So the ‘twinkly lights’ in the hills above Chatsworth were actually missiles armed with nuclear warheads. And without knowing it, I grew up under their spell.”

This two-part collection by the beloved, award-winning poet looks at mortality, celebrity, pop culture, poetry, dreams, and otherworldliness in often disarming ways."Bedrock at Night" (think The Flintstones) is the title poem of the first section, with tributes to Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Hollywood idols, and more. The second part is an extended Neruda-esque ode to a life cut short: that of singer Buddy Holly. The Young PoetI want what you haveonly I want itnowwhen I'm youngnot when I'm oldlike youDavid Trinidad is known for the masterful use of popular culture in his poems. His work is also associated with the innovative formalism of the New York School. Originally from Los Angeles, Trinidad lives in Chicago, where he is a professor and Director of Graduate Programs in the Creative Writing Department at Columbia College. Swinging on a Star is his fifth poetry collection with Turtle Point Press. He has also published two collaborative works with the press.

A daring collaborative celebrity autobiography by two of America's finest poets, D.A. Powell and David Trinidad

Vivid and protean, David Trinidad's poems delve deep into the surfaces of things. At first, a reader might think this is a book about collecting dolls and rock song titles, with a sonnet completely composed of monster's names, capped by Greta Garbo arranging trolls under her couch. But it is a book about domestic life, a book about how to live, a book about a special kind of bliss, the bliss of invention, and collecting, and above all valuing the bits and pieces of popular detritus, whether that be Nick at Night, songs from 60s girl groups, or Barbie's pocketbook, that constitute our lives. Plasticville is about a special kind of solace: counting up what you have. Trinidad's pastiche of simple, declarative sentences masks a delicately calibrated formal poetic construct. His ultra subtle terza rima, his blended rhymes, and his surefooted diction guarantee that the poems never miss a beat. Trinidad's warm intelligence makes poetry that is deft but true, dazzling but vulnerable, and plastic but classic. "The poems in Plasticville bring to mind the assemblages of Joseph Cornell, the collages of Kurt Schwitters. This is a poet who is able to imbue the commonplace with meaning and feeling while never compromising the integrity of his 'found' material. A fascinating and singular book." Bernard Cooper "Reading Plasticville is intensely pleasurable, it appeals to one's ever-present childhood, though it mysterious emotional content is not just childlike and not just happy. And there is an unwavering light in all of Trinidad's work that turns individual words into objects, new facts." Alice Notley

A groundbreaking deconstruction of the classic 1950 film All About Eve, Phoebe 2002 is a collaborative epic poem/essay that zings in and out of the scenes and makes a thousand connections within the world of popular culture. Drawing from high and low sources, the poets relate All About Eve to such epics as Paradise Lost, The Faerie Queene, The Iliad and The Odyssey, as well as to other movies (Valley of the Dolls, Rosemary's Baby, Silence of the Lambs) and television shows (Gilligan's Island, The Twilight Zone, Scooby-Doo).~The figure of Bette Davis assumes heroic proportions as she descends into a Dante-esque Inferno (a drunken party) and goes on to do battle with husbands, directors, studio heads and archrival Joan Crawford. At the same time, Davis's character, Margo Channing, must contend with nefarious Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), a young fan who attempts to usurp her success as an actress. The poem builds toward the pivotal "powder room scene," where Eve's true nature is revealed and culminates in her winning a coveted Best Actress award. The authors identify Eve's sin (hunger for fame) as the root of the power- and award-mongering prevalent in contemporary American culture. ~Inspired by nine muses (Dunaway, Taylor, David, Crawford, Head, Breckenridge, Susann, Sexton and Plath) who make appearances throughout, Phoebe 2002 is a treasure trove of poetic forms woven seamlessly into a text that pushes the limits of poetry and film criticism. "The result," writes poet D.A. Powell, "is an utter triumph, a contemporary Satyricon." The authorial trio of Phoebe 2002 has dared to imagine the all and about of All About Eve (a film with a few things to say about ambition), and the result--full of obsessive details, zany tangents, cinephile gossip, rejuvenated poetic forms, literary "visitations," and true confession--is an audaciously original work to which the only fitting response is wild applause. --Jeanne Marie Beaumont, author of Placebo Effects by Lynn Crosbie, Jeffery Conway and David Trinidad. Paperback, 7 x 10 in./650 pgs / 0 color 0 BW0 duotone 0 ~ Item D20146