ZINE: HOTCOUNTRY98
dalton derkson sings the top country hits of 1998 from memory.
HOTCOUNTRY98 by dalton derkson
20 pages, $2 + s/h
Email discordia.sucks@gmail.com to order
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DISCORDIA REVIEW PRESS SIGNS HIGHLY-COVETED COUNTRY AND WESTERN TALENT dalton derkson
April 28, 2025 Montreal, QC—After a fierce bidding war with numerous competing zine publishers, Discordia Review Press has come to an agreement with acclaimed poet dalton derkson to immediately release HOTCOUNTRY98, the artist’s latest collection of surefire hits. Inspired by the #1 singles on the Billboard Hot Country charts of 1998, derkson’s concrete-and-PBR poems riff on the music’s broad sentimentality and downhome sweetness without looking down on it. His voice has been much missed by readers on both coasts and the prairies between.
We reached out to country and western poetry historian Brandon Wheatking to give us the poemslinger’s biography:
dalton derkson and his poetry are one—blending to produce the kind of poems that bridge the gap from heart to heart. As dalton says, "There are three things you can't get away from. Loneliness, that certain kind of woman, and Stampede Wrestling." And so the poems in this zine echo the sincerity of dalton's words and the universal truth of his experience.
When it comes to loneliness, you'd think dalton invented the word. Naturally endowed with a spindly, raunchy, wandering line, dalton's melancholy mood comes through strong on such blues ballads as “husbands + wives” or the old hitchiker’s lament, “nothin’ but the taillights.”
If there's an answer to man's loneliness, it's Woman. A woman can change a man's life completely. This is what dalton says—a bit teasingly—in "this kiss.” This record, on single release, hit the top in the country and western field and also made "Top 20 in the Nation" in the pop field. Of course, you have to take the bitter with the sweet—hence, "honey, i’m home."
How does a young man of 30ish get to be so serious, so soon? In dalton's case, it was a matter of facing hard, cold facts from childhood. Brought up in a derelict wrestling gym near Mortlach, Sask., dalton was one of seventeen children. The derkson family, though of necessity hard-working, always had time to write experimental poems together, and it was at home dalton acquired his love of concrete verse.
At 18, dalton enlisted in the literary salt mines of Hurtin’ Crüe Press. It was while serving "four long, miserable years" in Ottawa that he bought a longarm stapler and taught himself to make zines. It went a long way in combatting blues and boredom, and to dalton it was fun to work out original mistakes now and then.
dalton then enrolled in a British Columbia radio programme, determined to become an announcer. Within 28 minutes, derkson became the most popular jockey in western Canada, and was named the most promising country and western ad reader in four separate polls.
dalton writes nearly all his poems "when I'm on the road, feeling homesick.... When an idea comes into my head, I jot it down. Later, at home, I fish out maybe 40 or 50 scraps of paper and see what I've got."
To read a dalton derkson zine is to know dalton derkson—the man, the lovely dreamer with a stubborn streak of realism which makes for strong and unforgettable conversation in song.
— BW
HOTCOUNTRY98 is available now for $2 by mail order (discordia.sucks@gmail.com), or live at our zine launch with JRG Open Mic on April 29, 2025.
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