Poetry t-shirts

Eleven years ago I walked into a custom made t-shirt store, like most of these stores the sample shirts on the walls was the strange mix of the proudly religious (a picture of Jesus crucified looking like an extra in a horror film...premonitions of the Mel Gibson snuff film), the proudly masculine (Harley Davidson references, etc.) & sometimes a mixture of the two ("Real Men Pray"). I brought with me a postcard of the young Rimbaud & ecstatically left several minutes later with my first poetry t-shirt. Approximately three years ago while browsing e-bay (now that indoor shopping malls are for the most part declining, it seems that most of the former owners of the t-shirt stores have retreated online to do their business) I came across a Mayakovsky t-shirt & immediately bought it. A few months later I discovered Zazzle. Since then I have ordered t-shirts featuring the following poets: Shelley, Lamantia, Alejandra Pizarnik, Odysseus Elytis & Forrugh Farrokhzad. I once attempted to order a Jose Lezama Lima shirt only to receive a vague order cancellation e-mail, no doubt due to our trade embargo.


I am beginning to compile a gift list for X-mas, consisting mostly of books, (who dares claim I don't know the true meaning of the holidays?) as well as a new poetry t-shirt. The last one I bought was the Farrokhzad & that was around seven or eight months ago. It will be a really difficult decision. I currently have eight t-shirts saved on zazzle as in progress designs. After thinking about it I have narrowed it down to the following four choices: Henri Michaux, Cesar Vallejo, Jaime Saenz & Vasko Popa. It will probably be at least another week before I make my final decision (I am currently leaning most towards a Vallejo shirt).