THE JOURNEY BEGINS



Founded in 1988 for the promotion and editorial assistance to Biker Poets for their literary studies, creative writing, poetry, and arts endeavors, RHP later expanded to include all Scribes & Poets of the Wind and Road not just Biker Poets & Writers, thus opening the vista to be more inclusive (1992). RoadHousePress has published and/ or edited chapbook series, magazine and newspaper columns (such as Don Clady's Connecticut Cruise News' Poets' Corner), newsletters, our own RoadHousePress Review ,  RoadHousePress/wordpress.com, RoadHousePress Literary Review, RoadHousePress Group(Facebook), and a work in progress, the series -- Biker Poetry Comes of Age (A Historical Perspective). Several excerpts from this series were a regular feature on the now defunct, motorcyclegoodies.com out of Arizona.  Our latest project was the publishing of:  VERSE AND STEEL - A BIKER POETS AND WRITERS ASSOCIATON ANTHOLOGY (c)2010  ~ AVAILABLE AT WWW.LULU.COM (see the excerpt below).


VERSE AND STEEL:  AN EXCERPT FROM THE INTRODUCTION


"While Verse and Steel is a book of poetry, stories, and photographs, it is not just any kind of poetry, or any kind of story, and the photographs are not just snapshots. The collection of poems, stories and photographs in Verse and Steel are the heart and the soul of Biker Poets/ Writers/ Artists bursting out from the constraints of social and academic profiling. The stories are Biker Stories. The photographs capture, in the blink of an eye, the shadow of memories rolling along the pavement, tattooed on the skin, engraved in history, as Biker Bard and Bike ride through towns, cities, hillsides, and lives; leaving the gravel split, the campfire’s embers to turn to ash, and citizens peering through their windows to catch a glimpse of the thunder-rider flashing chrome in the gleam of their envious eye.

 
The difference between the Biker Poetry in Verse and Steel and other collections of poetry is much like the difference between donning a brand new stiff leather (not yet seasoned by near fatal slides on the road or the fierce pelting of rains) and slipping into a well worn “leather” (such as in this anthology) – A leather jacket where each crack in the sleeve has a story, a poem, a picture, a memory from road after road of a journey that never ends. The Biker Bard’s pen is dipped in grease and oil, etching the coffee-stained edges of life, the spilt and dried blood of the heart, often leaving ink-blots when their pens pause to remember the taste of the road, the burn of the sun, or the haze of a horizon that never seems to move closer.
 

Verse and Steel embodies the Spirit of the Road; a Spirit driven by the force of the Wind; but it is held up by the Steel Pony that carries the Biker Poet over city blocks, highways, back roads, or map-less dirt trails to yet another horizon. This Spirit can take the form of a poem, a song, a vignette, a photograph, etc., but no matter what the form, Verse and Steel packs the reader on the back of a Steel Pony, letting them rest against the sissy-bar, or hug tight around the images, or in some cases…grab the throttle, stand on the pegs, and jump the words into a roar of straight pipes blasting down the literary landscape.
 
Verse and Steel is not a history of motorcycling, or even a history of Biker Poets, but it is very much the coming of age of Biker Poetry. Biker Poetry is not static rhyme sitting on a page to be interpreted, or meter counted; it is blood pulsing, heart pounding, or the whisper of a breeze, or the brotherhood and sisterhood of Old Skool rules bonding reader and rider, or New School rides at break neck speeds – or the tick-a-tich-ticking of an engine cooling; it is LIFE bursting through the constraints. Biker Poetry is best described as a genre of perpetual motion… a magnetic draw that pulls you into the ride of Verse and Steel...."
 ~  MarySusan 

Road Map