|
Loose Change by Tina FulkerA tribute selected and edited by Richard Peabody A Bogg free-for-postage pamphlet (32pp) TINA FULKER I first encountered Tina's poems in Bogg, and it was John Elsberg who was responsible for my eventual correspondence with her. I printed some of her poems in Gargoyle and looked for her in every British publication I encountered. John had known her for years, having first corresponded with her back in 1972 when she was a teenager editing Moonshine. And looking back at her involvement in the small press scene even at that young age, you can already spot the name poets and writers who were drawn to her--Paul Berry, George Cairncross, Andy Darlington, John Elsberg, Pete Faulkner, Paul Lamprill, Steve Sneyd, and Dave Wright. In November 1980 I published a collection of her poems entitled Jukebox (a number of those poems are included in this chapbook). She'd had a couple of chapbooks out previously--Skylight and Mascara--but nothing really substantial, so the need was there. Our first meeting took place in May 1981 in front of the Virgin record shop at Marble Arch in London. Tina came to the U.S. in March 1984, did a mini reading tour in the Washington area, including gigs at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland (where she read with Bill Holland and Arthur and Kit Knight), at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore (where she read with Leslie F. Miller and Jean McGarry), in Brad Strahan's Visions series at the Art Barn (where she read with George Myers Jr., Rick Wilson, and Greg Nelson), and at Irene Rouse's book shop in Alexandria, Virginia. She won over everybody she met, stayed with, or read with, and we managed to drag her into the Sonic Images recording studio to do an interview and to put some of her poems down on tape, with instrumental backing by Zenon Slawinski, John Ramo, and John Mogayzel. David Minckler filmed the entire session. We released the result, a half-hour audio cassette--Tender Hooks--in 1986. The planned video was never completed because we were always hoping to get Tina to come back to this side of the pond but sadly never got the chance. However, people in Ohio saw part of the video in 1986 on "Wordsworth," a public TV show. Tina was interviewed by Grace Cavalieri for her "Poet and the Poem" radio show, and left a lasting impression. Another interview appeared in a short-lived local magazine called Alph-Null. The transcript of the video interview was printed in Gargoyle #27. For a long time it appeared that Peter Townshend, the Who's guitar
genius who'd become an editor at the British publisher Faber & Faber,
might publish a collection of Tina's prose, but it never happened.
In
recent years, Tina worked as a part-time children's librarian, read stories
to school classes, and took courses in Contemporary Studies at London
University. The last letter I received from her, in March 1992, mentioned
her hope for a possible return trip to the States that would include
visits to San Francisco and D.C. in September of that year. We miss you Tina. We always will.
* I am a river that's overflowed If you wish to obtain a copy try: Bogg Publicatons Or |