Postcards from Pottersville
Adventures from the Underground

When we think of underground writers, we think of the ones who crossed over into the mainstream, like Patti Smith or Kathy Acker. Richard Brautigan or Charles Bukowski. You can't know about someone you've never heard of.

But there are other writers who have had long, productive careers in the underground and not crossed over. Some of them didn't want to, some would, but only on their terms, and some might yet, but haven't, so far. They might cross over posthumously.

Some might die forgotten or underappreciated. Known only to their peers, in an obscure and little-valued bailiwick of which they were masters, or captains. Like the captain of a ship.

Or the captain of a huckleberry party, as Emerson called Thoreau, a self-published writer, who didn't amount to doodly squat in his lifetime.

Jack Saunders, a 30-year veteran of the small press, little magazine, mail art, zine, and literary web site on the Internet wars, has assembled an anthology of underground writers in the latest volume of the Postcards From Pottersville series, which he calls Adventures in the Underground .

He has included roots musicians, folk artists, and independent filmmakers who share the do-it-yourself ethic that inspired the civil rights movement, environmentalism, women's lib, gay pride, the peace movement, clear on back to the Merry Pranksters and Ken Kesey's bus, Furthur, with Colored Power written on the side.

Huh? What'd he say?

As Bob Dylan said, “Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is. Do you, Mister Jones?”

Some people get it and some people don't.

The underground lives!

Reviews

Long-time readers of this blog may remember Jack Saunders, who edits, and contributes several items to, this anthology. Jack has been writing for 35 years, is working on his 275th book (or was, when Postcards vol. 3 was published), and serialises the books he writes, on a daily basis, on the web. One of nature's eccentrics then: by rights he ought to be English, but he ain't.

Postcards calls itself an anthology of art and literature, and it contains essays, interviews, poems, and short fiction. Also a few photographs and drawings.

The title of the book suggests that all the contributors come from the 'underground' -- which I take to mean a sub-division of the book world which isn't entirely accepted and respectable in the eyes of the literary establishment, but which isn't obviously commercial or genre-based either. Of course I may have got that entirely wrong, but that's the way I read it. In his introduction, Jack Saunders suggests that underground writers are the people who are 'out there banging their heads against the brick stone wall of the world's indifference.' Which I like.

I hope the other contributors won't all jump on me together for saying so, but I found Jack's own contributions the most interesting. It seems to me that Jack understands the writing business with painful clarity. Here is just a sample:

You'd better get your reward out of doing the best you can with what you have to work with and knowing that, whatever happens, you do not quit, turn bitter, or sell out. You might wear down. Attrition might get you. You finally might just not have anything left. You might exhaust yourself. Short of that, I don't see anything that will stop you.

I warmly recommend this collection to anyone who has ever had a rejection slip. You will learn, for instance, that submitting poetry for publication is an even more thankless task than sending out fiction; you will also come across some sound common sense, wisdom, and good humour.

Publisher is the Pottersville Press, who request that you buy the book from them if poss. They are supporting local artists by publishing their work.

Michael Allen, Grumpy Old Bookman (http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/2007/07/short-reviews-and-mentions.html)