The irreverent, tweetable, ludicrous, painful, wondrous work of the
L.A. punk poet--widely available for the first time.
In Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World, David Trinidad brings
together a comprehensive selection of Ed Smith's work: his published
books; unpublished poems; excerpts from his extensive notebooks; photos
and ephemera; and his timely "cry for civilization," "Return to Lesbos"
put down that gun / stop electing Presidents.
Ed Smith blazed onto the Los Angeles poetry scene in the early 1980s
from out of the hardcore punk scene. The charismatic, nerdy young man
hit home with his funny/scary off-the-cuff-sounding poems, like
"Fishing" This is a good line. / This is a bad line. This is a fishing
line.
Ed's vibrant "gang" of writer and artist friends--among them Amy
Gerstler, Dennis Cooper, Bob Flanagan, Mike Kelley, and David
Trinidad--congregated at Beyond Baroque in Venice, on LA's west side.
They read and partied and performed together, and shared and published
each others' work.
Ed was more than bright and versatile: he worked as a math tutor, an
animator, and a typesetter. In the mid-1990s, he fell in love with
Japanese artist Mio Shirai; they married and moved to New York City.
Despite productive years and joyful times, Ed was plagued by mood
disorders and drug problems, and at the age of forty-eight, he took his
own life.
Ed Smith's poems speak to living in an increasingly dehumanizing
consumer society and corrupt political system. This "punk Dorothy
Parker" is more relevant than ever for our ADD, technology-distracted
times.
