Todd Moore, The Founding Force of Outlaw Poetry, and Dennis Gulling's The Blood Dark Sea

Most people don't know this, even people sort of well-versed in the history of the small press, but Outlaw Poetry was started right here in the Rockford area. Belvidere to be exact. By an English teacher at Belvidere High School named Todd Moore. I read with Todd Moore several times, including one time in a basement in Stillman Valley with another legendary small press poet, Lyn Lifshin. he is one of the few poets I ever sent a fan letter to, and my geographical proximity had nothing to do with that. He was a revered small press poet, and probably had a better chance being recognized in Los Angeles than here in Rockford. Like virtually every small press poet I wrote to, including Charles Bukowski, he turned out to be friendly, encouraging, and took time to answer my questions about what it meant to be a small press poet.

he made an impression on a great many prospective writers, including one of his students, Dennis Gulling. So much so that Dennis became a sort of protege of Todd Moore, and began writing his own impressive Outlaw Poetry during high school. For nearly thirty years he has been quietly compiling some of the most impactful poetry of anyone writing in the Midwest. Because of his reclusive nature this has gone unnoticed to many. But those who know speak the name of Dennis Gulling with a respect and appreciation for his canon of work.

Now, for the first time, his poetry has been collected into a full-length book of poems, The Blood Dark Sea. The selections were made by Dennis Gulling himself, and compiled and published by Zombie Logic Press, also of Rockford, Illinois. I am, in fact, the editor of that book, Thomas L. Vaultonburg, and I can report the more I read these poems, and I believe I may have read them more than anyone else on Earth, besides Dennis Gulling, the more I am convinced this is a tour de force of not only Outlaw Poetry, but poetry itself. 

I start out this sequential set of poems from The Blood Dark Sea with the poet's own ode to his mentor, Todd Moore. 

SOMETHING FOR TODD

The words poured off him like water

Through a broken dam

I was sucked

Into the flood

Clear and cold

Held under by its weight

And I’ve been

Drowning ever since

Diving deeper

Into the darkness

HOW I LOST $10

Bill Quincer banged on

My back door with a towel

Wrapped around one hand

Said he’d cut off

A finger with his band saw

And wanted me to drive

Him to the hospital

On the way over

He took a bloody handkerchief

From his shirt pocket

Held up the finger

And said

What’ll you give me

If I walk into the emergency room

With this thing up my nose?

 TRENCH COAT

The guy in the trench coat

Paced back and forth

Outside Goodman’s Cafeteria

With his hands pushed

Deep in his pockets

Putting his face to the window

Every few minutes

Until he fell back suddenly

Into the shadows

As a guy in a leather jacket

Came out the door and started

Down the street

Trench coat stepped out

Of the darkness

And said a man’s name to his back

Leather jacket turned around

And his eyes got big

He made a run for it

While a pointy bulge

Appeared in trench coat’s right pocket

Something popped

And leather jacket was pasted

To the air just for a second

Then he started walking

Like the sidewalk had melted

Did that for a few yards

Then stopped in his tracks

In front of Greenberg’s Variety

His legs jackknifed at the knees

And he went over sideways

Between 2 parked cars

Trench coat’s giggle

Was broken glass in the night

He danced a little jig

Then walked the other way

SHE SHOT HIM

She shot him

In the head 3 times

Then chopped his fingers off

With a hatchet

And put them in her purse

Beside chewing gum

Kotex and keys

Later

At the Hoot ‘n’ Holler Café

She dropped a thumb

In an ashtray

Next to a smoking butt

And laughed

All the way out the door

EVIL

A voice in his head

Told him his index finger

Was evil

So he took a ginsu knife

And cut it off

Then he left the house

Until the evil could

Run out the open end

His wife came home

From the grocery store

And dropped her bag of stuff

When she saw all the blood

On the kitchen counter

Then noticed the finger

On the floor pointing toward

The front door like it was saying

He went that-a-way