City Shamans audio recording by Larry Winfield
Reviewed by David Gecic

Originally published in Letter eX (December 1992)

"Will poets and penthouses ever meet?" is the opening line of the first poem on Larry Winfield's tape, City Shamans. Perhaps it is an effort such as City Shamans which will bring performance poetry into new markets, out of the saloons, and into the penthouse. Many people express the desire to expand poetry into new places and many people have considered using formats similar to Mr. Winfield's. Most of these efforts either fail completely or never get off the ground. City Shamans is not among these. Instead, it is one of the finest examples of poetry on tape, surely one of the best of the year.

Mr. Winfield has been active as a performance poet; he has hosted both the Gallery Caberet and The Underground Wonder Bar poetry venues. He also published four chapbooks between 1988 and 1990, which sold well at bookstores across the city of Chicago. City Shamans is a much more ambitious project. Anyone who is familiar with the sensuous style which is one of Mr. Winfield's earmarks will be pleasantly surprised by the material on this tape. Yes, that kind of material is here but Mr. Winfield goes to much greater depths than I have heard him do previously. Here he mixes words, music, and sound into a hard-hitting collection.

The first three poems on the tape, "Sunday," "Berlin," and "L.A." weave a tight, insightful commentary on our modern world. These pieces go well together and are the strongest section of the tape. The blues poem which appears on side two gives the image of a struggling artist who has come to the feet of the master, not to beg but to steal. Mr. Winfield has done all the vocals, mixing and production of this tape himself. He has done an excellent job; however, the pauses in between each piece are sometimes too long and there is a long section of blank tape at the end of side one where another piece could have been included. The clarity of the sound and smoothness of the mixing are excellent, however.

The last piece on the tape, "City Shamans," lacks the quality that the rest of the tape offers. It appears to be a collection of random images designed to be in some way a shamanistic experience. It may be a shamanistic experience, however it communicates little if anything to the listening audience.

In addition to distributing his tape to bookstores, Mr. Winfield has also placed it into many record stores. Will the Chicago area record store of the future have a poetry section? It it does, I'm sure that City Shamans will be a centerpiece.