Writing From The Edge: Tony O’Neill and Tommy Trantino
Scheduled for Thursday, Jun 21st (7pm) Macnally at Robinson Booksellers, Prince Street, NYC — this is an historic appearance by Tommy Trantino (pictured), the prison author whose book Lock The Lock (Knopf, 1974) was lauded by luminaries such as Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Kurt Vonnegut and William Burroughs. Trantino was convicted of the 1963 murder of two New Jersey police officers and spent many years on death row before his sentence was commuted to life. It was while in prison that he turned to art as a means of self-preservation, and his art and writing exudes a powerful influence on the underground writing scene. Tony O’Neill’s work has been championed by such important names in the American underground as Dan Fante, Dennis Cooper and John Giorno. He is the author of Digging The Vein, Seizure Wet Dreams and his latest, Songs From The Shooting Gallery: Poems 1999 - 2006. Tommy and Tony will read selections from their work as well as taking part in Q&A.
First posted: Monday, April 23rd, 2007.
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Should the Tedesco and Voto families come to applaud Trantino at this “historic appearance”? Maybe I should be there as well as I was Gary Tedesco’s girlfriend. In addition to cold-bloodely torturing and murdering two innocent police officers, this man has destroyed whole families. Why would anyone want to hear what he has to say? I don’t care if he’s found Jesus, Buddha, or Allah; it doesn’t change who he is and what he did. Those poor young men have been dead for almost 44 years and still he lives on. Now people can lionize him as an artist. He’s still just a murdering monster.
/ Posted by Adrienne Carchia on April 24th, 2007 at 2:28 pm / Permalink /It does say there’s Q+A.
/ Posted by A. Stevens on April 24th, 2007 at 7:04 pm / Permalink /Yes, there will be. His answer will be that he was high and drunk, celebrating a robbery he and his partner had committed and either a. he was too drunk to remember or b. his partner, Frank Falco did the actual shooting. Of course, eyewitnesses saw him do it. Then he’ll tell you how remorseful he is. See, now you don’t even have to ask him.
/ Posted by Adrienne Carchia on April 25th, 2007 at 4:57 pm / Permalink /Tommy has served his time, 38 years in all and well as several years on death row. I organized this event to celebrate the man who wrote one of Americas greatest and most under-recognized books of art and poetry, “Lock the Lock”. I do not believe that any man should be denied forgivness. Or if he should be denied forgivness, I do not believe that any mans actions should exclude their art from public consumption. Nobody is saying that we should not read the works of Ezra Pound because he was a Nazi collaborator. Tommy crime was commited 4 decades ago, he was caught, sentenced and released after serving his sentence.
Nothing Tommy Trantino may have done in his life can change the fact that “Lock the Lock” qulaifies him as one of America’s most important living poets.
/ Posted by Tony O'Neill on April 27th, 2007 at 1:12 pm / Permalink /I think if somone has served their sentence - and Tommy Trantino has certainly served his - and has evolved to the position where they can show utter remorse and regret, then a humane society has to reognise this fact. Obviously this is an easy thing for me to say and, of course I’d feel differently if it were my loved ones who had been senselessly killed, and I abhor violence, robbery etc, but impartiailty tells us that forgiveness has to exist in society for us to progress. And I’m not even a Christian. Aside from this fact, the world of film, arts,literature is full of people who have served time for crime. An obvious example might be certain cast members of ‘The Sopranos’ who have been known to serve time for armed robbery.
/ Posted by Ben Myers on April 27th, 2007 at 1:59 pm / Permalink /