The Infamous Ron Whitehead, Kentucky Outlaw Poet

Cajun Mutt Press is extremely proud to announce that the incredibly talented poet, and friend of the late great Hunter S. Thompson, Ron Whitehead has been added to the line-up for a featured spot on our Facebook Page! This is a big event for us, so be sure to catch his poems Tapping My Own Phone this Friday the 28th, and Shithouse Manifesto on October 31st.

Ron Whitehead’s Brief Bio: Poet, writer, editor, publisher, scholar, professor, activist Ron Whitehead grew up on a farm in Kentucky. He attended The University of Louisville and Oxford University. As poet and writer he is the recipient of numerous state, national, and international awards and prizes including The All Kentucky Poetry Prize, The Yeats Club of Oxford’s Prize for Poetry, and many others. In 2006 Dr. John Rocco (NYC) nominated Ron for The Nobel Prize in Literature. He was inducted into his high school’s (Ohio County High) Hall of Fame, representing his 1968 graduating class.

“I have long admired Ron Whitehead. He is crazy as nine loons, and his poetry is a dazzling mix of folk wisdom and pure mathematics.” – Hunter S. Thompson

Now Available From Cajun Mutt Press

Written in Darkness by Anthony Watkins

“This collection of poems reads like old memories. Some good, some not so good, but all real in their own subtle way. Stories of hopes and dreams and childhood fantasies. Peppered with history and imagination. Illuminated photographs in the form of poetry. These words will restore your faith in the human experience.”

—Cajun Mutt Press

Coming Soon From Cajun Mutt Press

Dropping this weekend, the first new book release from Cajun Mutt Press since taking a publishing break because of the virus, Written in Darkness by Anthony Watkins!!! This is a beautifully executed collection of poems, but don’t take our word for it…

“Reading this collection is like finding an album of old photographs. Each one tells a story, often without context, yet they are clearly part of a bigger picture, whole lives well lived. This is poetry utterly without pretense, filled with soul, and veined with wry humour. I believe that poems should be worn and dusty, have miles on them, maybe a little barbed wire. I believe that poems should be real. Like these.”
— Steve Denehan, author of Miles of Sky Above Us, Miles of Earth Below, Cajun Mutt Press, 2019

“This remarkable group of poems reveals a nation, a world, and a life where everything teeters on edge and every object and thought swerves between lanes careening toward the end of the Great Highway. Watkins stares poverty, doom, and death in the face, sometimes in fear, sometimes with courage, but he rarely flinches. This is American poetry in the best possible sense, gritty, real, and almost impossibly tragic.”
— John Sevigny, photographer, author, El Muerto Pare el Santo 2010 (high-contrast images of prostitutes, portraits of Salvadoran gang members and life in San Salvador and Guatemala City)

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 07/13/20

Hidden Waters
On the road there are stairs, twisted like a rope.
Cottonwood kicks up yellow dust interrupting
the breath that scrapes the surface of air with icy
trails, wheezing in circles, barely high enough
for anyone to take notice.

There’s an old Chevrolet with dangling exhaust
pipe, rattling out fumes as it lurches forward with
reluctance, playing it safe between the narrow
arches of towering mountain ranges that hover
over blue-green light,

displaying the mischief of the canyon. I reach out
with hesitation, afraid to let the westerly light breeze
touch my face before it shifts to the south. Black
Stetson and sunglasses guard against the sting as the
violent thrashing of windblown

sands offer solitude before nightfall. There’s darkness
that remains in the memory of it all, momentary
infatuation that cynically interrupts with weakness;
but I’ll take the shadows of fragrant sage over the
patches of hypocritical sunlight shaking

a wagging judgmental finger at the mesa of my spirit.
To me, the precipice isn’t so steep. Fluidity
and commodity rest buried beneath the edges of sacred
Earth. In the grand vision I want to walk through
twisting paths, absorbed by endless

space where there are no signs of printed words, just
hidden waters that remain undisturbed inside old ruins
grafted to the mount by mythical beasts, ancient
superstitions and God’s forgiveness. I want to excavate
the land with my eyes, resting my hands in the cool waters,

long gone and best forgotten.

©2020 Theresa C. Gaynord All rights reserved.

Theresa likes to write about matters of self-inflection and personal experiences. She likes to write about matters of an out-of-body, out-of-mind state, as well as subjects of an idyllic, pagan nature and the occult. Theresa writes horror, as well as concrete gritty and realistic dramas. Theresa is said to be a witch and a poet. (within the horror writing community).

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 07/10/20

Lust in Contagion

His heart was carved
out of modern cowboys.

She smiled her pirate grin
under the mask,
hoping both of them
wouldn’t disappear—

but their bodies did
under blue cotton bedsheets
rivaling horizontal clouds.

(They were not causal visitors;
no worries. They lived together
for many years)

but in these times of
#AloneTogether,
boring couple routines
should be suspended—

The living room
shouldn’t become another law firm;
where does the poetry go?

She grabs his smart tie
after the last virtual meeting of the day:
“There’s more work to do…in here…

Outside clothes are shed,
gloves are peeled off;
a sexy, communal hot shower
before the big event—

“And when we get
behind closed doors”
we’ll let our hair hang down*

*–From Behind closed doors (1973), written by Kenny O’Dell

©2020 Carrie Magness Radna All rights reserved.

Born in Norman, Oklahoma, Carrie Magness Radna is an audiovisual cataloger at the New York Public Library, a singer, a lyricist-songwriter, and a poet who loves to travel. Her poems have previously appeared in the Oracular Tree, Tuck Magazine, Muddy River Poetry Review, First Literary Review-East, Mediterranean Poetry, Shot Glass Journal and The Poetic Bond VIII, and will be published in Nomad’s Choir, Polarity E-Magazine and Cosmographia’s “The spirit, it travels: an anthology of transcendent poetry” (July 2019). She won 12^th prize of the 2018 Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards for “Lily (no. 48 of Women’s names sensual series),” and 3^rd prize for “The tunnel” (category: Words on the Wall: All-Genre Prompt) at the 69^th annual Philadelphia Writers’ Conference (2017). Her first chapbook, Conversations with dead composers at Carnegie Hall (Flutter Press) was published in January 2019, and Remembering you as I go walking (Boxwood Star Press) was published on August 23, 2019. Her latest poetry collection, Hurricanes never apologize, was published by Luchador Press in December 2019. She lives with her husband Rudolf in Manhattan.  

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 07/08/20

A SENTIMENTAL WANDER

After the self ripped
away from the side
of the container

Yes,
“…the pain of water is infinite.”
Gaston Bachelard
WATER AND DREAMS, p. 6

two urinals
too tall
for my aging self

Jesus!
Penis!
hanging between

underneath
which urinal
Goldilocks’ toupee

at the urinal
in a half-empty bathroom
checking his smartphone

is his grunting
at the middle urinal
part of a conversation?

lime green Splash Hogs
in the Airport Restroom urinals
saving the memories

guys, c’mon, should we
double the diameter
of the urinals?

He is not tall
But he spreads his legs wide
On tippy toes
At the narrow urinal oval

the most favored urinal
the one with the most paint worn
away underneath

tried both urinals
oh, Goldilocks
my height in between

oh museum installation
you have neglected
the lower urinal
and the stalls are locked

jury duty
even the urinals
are numbered

©2020 Alan Bern All rights reserved.

Retired children’s librarian Alan Bern’s poetry books: No no the saddest and Waterwalking in Berkeley, Fithian Press; greater distance, Lines & Faces, his broadside press with artist Robert Woods, linesandfaces.com. Alan has had poems, stories, and photos published in a wide variety of online and print publications, from which his work has won awards and been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Alan performs with dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space and with musicians from Composing Together, composingtogether.org.