The Bookstore --> Scott Holstad

Scott Holstad's latest perfect-bound book is The Napalmed Soul, published by Chiron Review Press. You can find out about it from its home page.

Scott's latest chapbook is Hang Gliding on X. It has its own home page, and can be ordered from Lummox Press, PO Box 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301 for only $5.

In 1994 Scott Holstad released Binge, from Undulating Bedsheets Productions. To order, send $2 to Undulating Besheets Productions, PO Box 25760, Los Angeles CA 90025. For a sample poem from Binge, check out the book's web page.

1994 also saw Scott Holstad release Distant Visions, Again and Again. To order it, send $3 to The Poet Tree, 82-34 138 Street, #6F, Kew Gardens NY 11435. For more information on Distant Visions, Again and Again, check out its home page.

Scott's second book, Industrial Madness, was released in 1991 by Sivullinen. You can order it for $3 US from Sivullinen, c/o Jouni Waarakangas, Kaarelantie 86 B 28, 00420 Helsinki FINLAND. Industrial Madness also has its own web page.

In 1993, Sister Moon Press released Junction City by Scott Holstad. You can order it by sending $3 to Sister Moon Press, PO Box 40371, Phoenix AZ 85067-0371. For more information, check out the Junction City home page.

Never-Ending Cigarettes, released in 1999, is a mass-market paperback that has received praise from Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gerald Locklin. Edward Field said this about it:

"With his scruffy, rambling and streetwise poems, Scott C. Holstad is in the forefront of an important movement transforming American poetry. He shakes free of the literary stodge and makes reading poetry the fun it's supposed to be."

Never-Ending Cigarettes is available from Barnes and Noble. It also has its own home page.

In 1995, Places became Scott Holstad's first perfect-bound book, and was nominated for the 1996 Pulitzer Prize. Check out the review from G.P. Lainsbury at the University of Calgary:

Holstad's poems are predominately voice driven--and that voice is often filled with the anger of moral outrage. Poems such as "let's give ourselves a round," "this is what we are" and "just for kicks" express the poet's disgust with his fellow American's penchant for mindless violence and excess. But sometimes Holstad's poems are just plain angry. In the poem "smoking" the poet, having recently quit after ten years on the weed, expresses a desire to "file [his] teeth / on your forehead."
Places also announces some new directions for Holstad's work--some poems that reveal a quieter, more contemplative aspect of his voice. In "You Are," the poet compares his lover to "the steam / of the teapot" in the morning, "the hiss of / water kissing the / shower curtain, / . . . the soft curve / of fresh clothing / falling onto tired limbs." Similarly, the poem "In Defense" speaks of the poet's fears as a gift which he exchanges for "cotton candy at / the circus, John Cage / exhibits at the museum, /lying in each other's / arms under the light of / the full moon . . ."
But this is not to say that Holstad has gone soft--not by any stretch of the imagination. These poems provide relief from a vision of the world which might otherwise prove too bleak for most readers, the world of "Stripper," which culminates with "another / hot hand job in the old / man's perspiring Caddie." Ultimately, for Holstad, as for Bukowski, "The poem is the / crutch, the gun, the / good drink. Need I say more?

Places is available from Barnes and Noble. It also has its own home page.

Shrapnel was released in 1999 by Budget Press. You can order it for $2 from Budget Press, 2764 Caminito Cedros, Del Mar CA 92014. For a sample poem, check out the book's home page.

Shadows before the Maiming is Scott's latest perfect-bound book, available from Barnes and Noble. Leslie Blanchard of A Writer's Choice Literary Journal said this about it:

Interior workings of one man's Mind, a man of OUR time. Many people (mostly those that don't access the internet) feel that poetry is dead. A past life form. Poets like Scott breathe vitality into the new, the next, the "our" generation of poets- which is alive and flourishing due to the networking we writers and poets are doing via the internet. Scott is an important part of the structure we're creating on the web.

Shadows before the Maiming also has its own web page.

Street Poems was Scott Holstad's first chapbook. It, too, has it's own web page. As supplies are now quite limited, you should e-mail the author if you want a copy.

In 1992 Big Head Press released Dancing with the Lights Out, a chapbook of poetry by Scott Holstad. Sadly, it is now out of print. We recommend Bookfinder.com if you wish to search for a copy.