Otherwise, My Life is Ordinary

By Bobby Byrd
Paperback: $15.95

Spoken plainly, all of us get born, then we go away. What shall we do in the meantime, huh?

Description

Byrd’s poems are always talking to somebody. The living and the dead. Like the legendary Japanese poet Basho or his neighbors down the street. His dead brother.

Growing up in Memphis, #3:

In 1952 Dewey Phillips invented Elvis.
It happened on the radio.
Rock n’ Roll saved my life.
In 1960 the bad guys sold Elvis into slavery.
Don’t let anybody tell you different.

This morning I made love with the lettuce picker:

Every year the lettuce picker plants her seeds in October.
Lettuce loves this time of the year in the Chihuahua Desert.
October passes and November comes.
The lettuce grows leafy and happy.
The lettuce picker slips out to the garden in the morning.

I will not tell you how old I am.
I will not tell you how old she is.

But her legs are white, her rear end
is clad in purple pajamas
and is raised like a flag planted
in the dirt
for the preservation of love.
Today is Sunday, the day of Sabbath.
A day to remember ourselves.
A day to worship all that is holy.
This is what we do when we make love.

Poet, essayist, publisher, and ordained Zen priest Bobby Byrd, with his wife Lee, received the Lannan Fellowship for Cultural Freedom in 2006. He has published numerous books of poetry, most recently White Panties, Dead Friends & Other Bits & Pieces of Love (2006). With his son John Byrd, he is co-editor of Puro Border: Dispatches, Graffiti and Snapshots from the U.S./Mexico Border and the crime fiction anthology Lone Star Noir (Akashic Books).

About the Creators

Bobby Byrd

Bobby Byrd was a beloved poet and publisher. He and his wife, Lee Byrd, cofounded Cinco Puntos Press in 1985 and published hundreds of award-winning books before selling the press to Lee & Low Books in 2021. The pair garnered many accolades, including Cultural Freedom Fellowships for Excellence in Publishing from the Lannan Foundation. Bobby was the author of nine adult poetry books, including The Price of Doing Business in Mexico (Cinco Puntos Press/Lee & Low Books). Bobby died in 2022.

Reviews

  • "[Bobby Byrd's] poems aren't obscure or difficult in the way that much contemporary poetry is intentionally obscure. Byrd means to communicate. He wants to be understood and to reach readers. . . . Byrd is in your face. He'd like to shock you and offend you and then be your best friend, even if you are from Austin, New York, or Memphis, three American cities that he revisits in Otherwise, My Life is Ordinary . . . he has taken ordinary things and people -- beans and plums, the bitchy waitresses, and the haunted widow -- and turned them into something extraordinary. --Jonah Raskin"

    - The Rag Blog
  • "Byrd writes poems like a novelist. Epic ones. His lines are full of fiction, bullshit and beauty."

    - Eileen Myles, author of Chelsea Girls
  • "A hymnal to life. He adds to the joy in this new sunburned collection that digs its toes into the El Paso grit but stretches its mind into the stars. I love this book."

    - Luis Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway
  • "These poems devastate me with how fearless and funny they are. The big notions are contained in our smallest everyday interactions and Bobby Byrd will not let anyone forget it."

    - Connie Voisine, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award Poetry
  • "With poems like 'Poetry is Waiting for me in the Other Room,' and 'I Make a Good Pot of Beans,' [Bobby] Byrd demonstrates his expertise at making the ordinary into something extraordinary. This poet is a master craftsmen and it shows in every poem. --Mike Sonksen"

    - Cultural Weekly

Paperback

  • ISBN 9781935955757
  • Price $15.95
  • Publication Date May 20, 2014
  • Trim Size 9 × 6 in
  • Weight 0.5 lbs
  • Page Count 88
  • Interests

  • Imprint Cinco Puntos Press
  • Audience Adult
  • BISAC Category 1 RELIGION / Buddhism / Zen (see alsoPHILOSOPHY/ Zen)
  • BISAC Category 2 FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Friendship
  • BISAC Category 3 POETRY / Subjects & Themes / General
  • Themes Fiction, Poetry
  • Reading Levels

  • Guided Reading Adult
  • Interest Level Adult
  • Reading Level Adult
  • This Book is Included in These Collections:

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