Forward By Brian Pulido...

Bet you wish this book of poetry was pretty, warm and cozy. It isn't.
But it is absolutely wonderful.
Why did I choose to publish this work? I'll get to that down the page a little.
The stuff I publish is commercially viable, "safe" but scary. Well, safe scary for the nineties. Evil Ernie isn't exactly "Courtship of Eddy's Father", but I do believe my work to be the "Universal Monsters" for the millennium - and beyond. How is that relevant? Truthfully, this book, Hart's book is not my typical modus operandi. But you know, it's useful.
Really, it hurts to read it. It captures suffering like nothing I've ever experienced in poetry before. And it recalls the deaths of loved ones. It's an easy choice to oppose the pain and suffering of death. To deny it. But it doesn't go away. It's always in the shadows. Like it was for me.
I was a senior in high school when my Mom discovered she had lung cancer. I didn't tell anybody at school. The cancer went away, but it came back after my graduation. This time it wouldn't let go. And it was ugly what that cancer did to her body. There wasn't much left of her toward the end and what was left was always being puked into a bucket I held. And the drugs they pumped her with made her look and act... not like my Mom. My Mother's inevitable death was simply unreal to me. I didn't believe it. Through the entire grotesque ordeal, I was convinced I was watching a disease-of-the-week television movie. This was someone else's life, not mine. After she was pronounced dead thirteen months later on December 28th and the family members were dividing up her personal belongings, it didn't occur to me as real. I didn't grieve. I didn't get mad.
The suffering accompanied me as I carried on with my life. I refused to let it go, as if it were my only recollection of her. For a time it was. That, and the cancer, and her shriveling up, and people buying her extra Christmas presents for her because they fucking knew they'd be returning them anyway. And, and... you get the picture. I was covering my pain with anger.
I went to college, got great grades, but digested enough drugs and alcohol to fuel a pharmaceutical drugstore chain. I covered up the suffering by living the bad boy life. Luckily I didn't hurt others with my reckless lifestyle, but I was hurting myself - with determination. Fill in the blanks if you can relate. If you can't, don't worry, stay tuned.
One night I dealt with my Mother's death. It was late, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" falsely perking up my spirits in the background as I started writing stream of conscious stuff. Poetry. And there on the page, I saw it. My suffering over my Mother's death. Rhyming even. It was an enormous step. Since I was fucking medicating myself for years, I never realized I was still suffering over her death. I cried, I got present to who I was: a frightened boy terrified of death.
Not long after, I started moving beyond my suffering toward life. Love. These days, I see things this way: my Mom died and I'm okay with it. I love my Mom.
I choose to publish Hart Fisher's Poems For the Dead because I see it as a tool - fierce, straight and ruthless. You want to get off it about death? The first step is being present to the pain and suffering.
And this book's got tons of it.
It's absolutely wonderful.

Brian Patrick Pulido
Publisher, Chaos! Comics