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Splake: Poetry on Location
DVD Video $20
P. O. Box 508
Calumet, MI. 49913
The name t. k. splake is instantly recognizable to those who have any association with the small press, be they poets, authors, artists or merely readers. splake (lower case by choice) is heralded as a man adept with word and 35 mm camera, and he has used both to document the life he leads in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan, a rugged land with much history. A purist at heart, one who loves the feel of pen and paper in hand, the scratch of felt tips upon long yellow pads, he was long coming to the Internet and the digital way of doing business. But come he did finally and, with the Protean flair typical of splake, he soon threw himself into the fray with both feet -- not to mention a substantial amount of cash from the retirement check.
It followed, then, that splake would eventually take to the Digital Highway to make his case in both word and moving picture. In recent times, he has taken up digital videography and has produced several digital DVDs. It took a couple of efforts to get it just right, but with his latest production, SPLAKE: Poetry on Location, he has arrived. Pop open the snazzy DVD case (designed, as was the layout of the disk, by Mike Edwards) and one is taken on a trip through many locations prominent in his world, most accompanied by splake reading one of his many poems.
While some of the locales involve the kind of ruins splake favors for his photographic expeditions, places where ghosts of the past seem to speak in every broken item, every piece of torn wallpaper and graffiti clad wall, there is some stunning natural scenery in the video, especially the rushing Montreal Falls. We are also treated to the sight of splake reeling in a small trout from the waters made famous in Lac La Belle Morning, and we see the old graybeard daredevil risks life and limb by climbing high up the mast of a piece of abandoned dredge machinery on Torch Lake.
If you're a fan of splake's poetry and photography, this is a must-have item. It can be ordered from the heading address with checks or MO payable to t.k. splake. (Other splake books are available here.
~ Jim Chandler
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