Paul Zarzyski -- Musings from Planet UniPoet:

No poet worth his Margarita salt will ever cop to that ol’ saw one picture is worth a thousand words, even if he does experience now and again its scintilla of truth. You’ve caught me at a rare/weak moment, however—on the Margarita wagon, so to speak—because I just can not poetically convey the breadth of creative joy that Gordon Stevens and Lee Ray imbue through their cover photo and graphics to Renata Bratt’s (www.renatabratt.com) 2006 CD GREAT BIG TATERS.

Give this a good long gander, folks. How can you not take an instantaneous shine to this musician’s spirit? And now that I have your humorous attention, dig this: Renata Bratt and Paul Zarzyski a year or so ago didn’t even know we shared this planet together. Moreover, I’d written and published in my 2004 collection, WOLF TRACKS ON THE WELCOME MAT, the poem Potatoes, likely in the same time frame as Renata was contemplating the above record. Furthermore, what were the odds of my crossing trails—at the Elko National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, no less—with Gordon Stevens (proprietor, producer, and player extraordinaire) of Open Path Music (www.openpathmusic.com) studio? What were the odds that we’d record together not one but a brace of spoken word CDs—ROCK ‘n’ ROWEL and COLLISIONS OF RECKLESS LOVE? Or the odds of one of the co-producers being Renata Bratt’s husband, Lee Ray? And of our deciding to cut Potatoes long before I even laid eyes or ears on GREAT BIG TATERS—of us actually deliberating for weeks over music possibilities for this zany poem until, finally, the only non-musician in the pro-tuberant brainstorming bulbous bunch, shouts CELLO! Whynotta Renata?! Talk about your match made in Idaho. Not to even mention the Wisconsin connection—Wisconsin where the poem itself originates, where the state food is the bratwurst, the brat, as in Renata Bratt! I mean, we ain’t talkin’ mere happenstance here. We’re talkin’ cosmic big medicine, huge juju from the musical universe! In other words, not just any slip-through-the-conveyor-belt-crack number 2 spuds, ladies and gentlemen, but rather GREAT BIG TATERS, Triple A-number-1 Bakers! ROCK ‘n’ ROWEL T-bone-complemented, carbohydrate-laden Potatoes!

CD artwork by Walter Piehl (www.walterpiehl.com)

Postscript Testimonials:

“Nobody does cowboy poetry quite like Paul Zarzyski. With his latest release, ROCK ‘n’ ROWEL, the Polish-Hobo-Rodeo-Poet again brings a contemporary edginess to the traditional genre. Initially, you must listen to keep up as he recites his verse. Later, you’ll want to listen again and again to simply appreciate his mastery of the language and its rhythm.”

Fran Devereux Smith—Western Horseman

“Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’ve watched way too many silver-screen horse operas—from Shane to J.W. Coop to McCabe & Mrs. Miller, from Lonely Are The Brave to Lonesome Dove to Dances With Wolves—but Renata Bratt’s GREAT BIG TATERS lopes me back to my favorite Great Big True-Gritters. Because her verve roams the whole soulful open range of creativity. Because her bow arcs star-to-star, vista-after-big-two-hearted-vista, across musical frontiers. In the keenly enunciated words of The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling, imagine if you will Annie Oakley meets Pablo Casals.

The Western Folklife Center is Podcasting "Potatoes" from ROCK 'n' ROWEL. To listen, click here. To purchase ROCK 'n' ROWEL and COLLISIONS OF RECKLESS LOVE, visit the Western Folklife Center Gift Shop.