Memories of: Hayden Carruth 80th Birthday Tribute Reading

Six years ago today, I attended a marvelous reading at the Great Hall at the Cooper Union, honoring the poet Hayden Carruth. I have added my recap of the event in my "From the Archives" series, and you can read about the evening here.

Update: From the Archives

I have added a new "From the Archives" entry here. A lengthy, yet worthwhile, recap of a Poetry Society of America reading I attended on March 14, 2005 with the "Contemporary Masters" of poetry: Irving Feldman, Jack Gilbert, Maxine Kumin, and Gary Snyder.

From the Archives Update

Read here about my adventures at the first Poetry Society of America Chapbook reading back in December, 2003

Kenneth Koch Anecdote

In early December 1998, I wandered up to Columbia University to see the poet Kenneth Koch during his office hours. Read about my encounter here.

From the Archives Update

My recap of my experience at the 1998 Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival has been updated and is viewable here.

New Feature: From the Archives

I discovered some recent dispatches saved in old e-mails about various poetry events I have attended over the years. It's only a handful (three, so far), but at least one person has expressed an interest in my first person accounts of readings, what he called (I'm paraphrasing) "a voyeuristic look" at a fan of poetry and a collector.

What I have chosen to do, however, is not post the events as they are updated, but to place them in a chronological perspective within the greater context of BillyBlog. The problem is, these narratives predate the existence of BillyBlog. However, I can backdate the post to fit the chronological sequence.

So have I done.

This allows many people, I imagine, who would find the narrative tedious (self-deprecation inserted here), to skip it altogether. To see my recap of the day I spent at the 2004 Dodge Poetry Festival, click here. I do hope some folks enjoy this little exercise.

From the Archives: Contemporary Masters Reading at the New School (Feldman, Gilbert, Kumin, Snyder)

This is part of my "From the Archives" series, which consists of texts from e-mails I sent to friends describing my experiences at poetry events. I may have taken some small editorial liberties with these texts, and I have included related pictures and hyperlinks, but these are all BBB (Before BillyBlog). Remember, for me readings are enjoyable for two separate reasons: the love of poetry, and the mania for collecting. I am who I am. Enjoy!

I apologize in advance for the length of this. I hope you find it worth reading.

I've procrastinated long enough. The following is the dispatch from The New School, West 12th Street, Manhattan, on March 10, 2005.

The event was entitled "Contemporary Masters" and featured four poets reading on back-to-back nights in Washington D.C. and in New York City. We got them the second night.
I was particularly excited about this event as the four poets in question were individuals I had never heard before: Irving Feldman, Jack Gilbert, Maxine Kumin and Gary Snyder. I have always been a fan of Snyder and he is a typical "West Coast Poet," who does not make it East very often. In fact, all of the poets were out-of-towners, so it was good to see some folks we
don't see regularly here in New York (ah, how spoiled we are here: "What? Galway Kinnell, Robert Creeley and Charles Simic AGAIN!? I'll just stay home and watch The Apprentice!" But I digress.)

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not really. It was dark but not stormy. In fact, it was just a bit brisk. Nonetheless, the warmth of Tischman Auditorium awaited.

I arrived early, hoping for a front row seat. They didn't open the
doors right away, so I was left milling about, as some audience members mulled about. Present were your regular reading riffraff (myself included), along with the poet Gerald Stern and some odd-looking fellow in a funny hat.

Some annoying woman came in and was really loud and made a big deal of herself and gave the funny-hat dude a big hug. She then introduced her companion as a sculptor to the funny hat dude. She then introduced Funny Hat to her boyfriend. Funny Hat was revealed to be Gordon Lish. OK, so I've never read anything by Lish, but I recognized his name and guessed if I recognized it, he must be someone significant. He is, in fact, an established literary hyphenate,
novellist-critic-editor. Of course, knowing he was someone of significant literary merit, I re-evaluated his wardrobe and determined that he was not a possessor of a funny hat but, rather, a funky, tan, Tyroleanesque, felt hat, with a smattering of well-placed feathers. Of course, everyone that came up to Mr. Lish had to tell him what a marvelous hat he was wearing.

When the doors opened, I found a nice seat in the front row on the end. Only a few people grabbed front row seats before someone from the Poetry Society placed white "reserved" signs on all the untaken seats. Alas, my neighboring seat remained un-sat-upon, so I have no tidbits of
gossip or interesting conversations to recount. However, three seats over was a college student with a shaggy beard reading Balzac's Le Père Goriot inFrench and he kept closing the book on his nose and inhaling deeply, which I found pretty odd. What is interesting about Tischman auditorium is the acoustics. I was in the front row, but I could hear people talking at the door, seventy-five feet away. Sort of like that spot in that side passage of Grand Central Terminal where you talk in one corner and you can converse with someone in the opposite corner as commuters pass by.

The auditorium filled up rather nicely prior to the reading. Other attendees to note: Sharon Olds, who sat with Mr. Lish toward the back.

Please note, I took copious notes this time around so as to better report the event for posterity. Alice Quinn, New Yorker poetry editor, introduced, noting that these "master" poets are all esteemed writers who just happen to have new books out this year. She said that the poets would start with older work and finish with the newest.

The reading commenced alphabetically with Irving Feldman, native Brooklynite and now Distinguished Professor of English at SUNY/Buffalo. He was fighting a bit of a cold, but still
read directly and was quite good. He read six poems, "No Big Deal," "As Fast as You Can," which is about the Gingerbread man, "The Ecstacies," the first and last sections of a longer poem, "Teach Me Dear Sister," "Leaping Clear," a great New York poem which even mentions bicycling in Bay Ridge along the same route I usually take, and "The Recognitions."

I don't have any further info on these poems, but they were all decent. "Leaping Clear" was my favorite:

Excrescence, excrement, earth
belched in buildings--the city
is the underworld in the world.
They wall space in or drag it down,
lock it underground in holes and subways,
fetid, blackened, choking.

Next was Jack Gilbert, who was very frail and ancient (he is 79, I learned later, but Kunitz, at 95+ is sharper and more spry). With Einstein-like hair and big bushy eyebrows and a scraggily goatee, he looks like a senior poet. Gilbert currently lives in Western Mass. He had a volume
problem, and the mike was on the fritz, but I could still hear well enough. It was a bit sad, as he kept losing his place and had to pause for some time to recallibrate his reading. However, he did it adeptly, repeating lines in such a way that it was poetically and theatrically consistent. He
read 8 poems, He started with an amazing work called "Don Giovanni on His Way to Hell." Next he read "A

Brief for the Defense," which was recently praised in a review of his new book in the L.A. Times. Note the last two lines of the excerpt are amazing:

from the L.A. Times:

"In the magnificent opening poem, "A Brief for the Defense,"
he faces the intractable question of balancing joy with an
acknowledgment of suffering. In this meticulously crafted
argument, delight is a duty:

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.

I frantically scribbled down those last two lines. He struggled through the next poem, "The
Forgotten Dialect of the Heart." [Hear him read it here.] He followed with works entitled,
"Pewter," "On Growing Old in San Francisco," "More Than Sixty," "By Small and Small," "Nature of Presence," and "She Might Be Here Secretly." A moment of levity occurred when the microphone "popped" in the middle of "More Than Sixty," startling us all. Gilbert looked up, tapped the mike and commanded it: "Behave!" He then apologetically added, "I am trying." He then resumed from the beginning of the poem.

[On a side note, check out this memory here of a reading Gilbert did in 2007]
[LISTEN: More side notes: Jack Gilbert reading

"A Brief for the Defense" (mp3)
"More Than Sixty" (mp3)
"By Small and Small" (mp3)

Next up was Maxine Kumin, who also surprised me as very aged. I was expecting someone younger than the hunched 79-year old woman who was present before us. Nonetheless, her bright eyes and strong voice gave a very good reading. I reminded myself that these elder poets had not only read the night before, but had flown from a different city to do so. Maxine read 11 poems beginning with an early work "Morning Swim":

Morning Swim

Into my empty head there come
a cotton beach, a dock wherefrom

I set out, oily and nude
through mist, in chilly solitude.

There was no line, no roof or floor
to tell the water from the air.

Night fog thick as terry cloth
closed me in its fuzzy growth.

I hung my bathrobe on two pegs.
I took the lake between my legs.

Invaded and invader, I
went overhand on that flat sky.

Fish twitched beneath me, quick and tame.
In their green zone they sang my name

and in the rhythm of the swim
I hummed a two-four-time slow hymn.

I hummed "Abide With Me." The beat
rose in the fine thrash of my feet,

rose in the bubbles I put out
slantwise, trailing through my mouth.

My bones drank water; water fell
through all my doors. I was the well

that fed the lake that met my sea
in which I sang "Abide With Me."

She then read "Looking for Luck in Bangkok," "Praise Be" ["about a foal that arrived much later than expected. It was Kumin's habit to sleep in the barn when a foal was due, and she lay on a mound of sawdust that positioned her to look directly into the foaling pen. I slept on that pile for twenty-one days, she marveled ruefully"--lifted from the blog of Kingdom Books], "The Rendezvous," which is a poet taking on the Aleutian legend of a woman encountering a bear in the woods, and then a double-villanelle, "The Nuns of Childhood: Two Views" ("The first and last one I'll ever write,") she composed with Poetry magazine editor Joseph Parisi.

She then read "The Long Marriage," "Oblivion," which was bit of a catalog of suicides by poets and writers, "New Hampshire, February 7, 2003," "Fox on his Back," which was an homage to Theodore Roethke, a marvelous poem called "Widow and Dog," ("That summer it just seemed simpler to leave the window/by the bird feeder open . . . once in a thunderstorm a barred owl blundered/into that fake crystal chandelier she had always detested.") "Summer Meditation," and then the title poem of her new book Jack and Other New Poems:

Jack

How pleasant the yellow butter
melting on white kernels, the meniscus
of red wine that coats the insides of our goblets

where we sit with sturdy friends as old as we are
after shucking the garden's last Silver Queen
and setting husks and stalks aside for the horses

the last two of our lives, still noble to look upon:
our first foal, now a bossy mare of 28
which calibrates to 84 in people years

and my chestnut gelding, not exactly a youngster
at 22. Every year, the end of summer
lazy and golden, invites grief and regret:

suddenly it's 1980, winter batters us,
winds strike like cruelty out of Dickens. Somehow
we have seven horses for six stalls. One of them,

a big-nosed roan gelding, calm as a president's portrait
lives in the rectangle that leads to the stalls. We call it
the motel lobby. Wise old campaigner, he dunks his

hay in the water bucket to soften it, then visits the others
who hang their heads over their Dutch doors. Sometimes
he sprawls out flat to nap in his commodious quarters.

That spring, in the bustle of grooming
and riding and shoeing, I remember I let him go
to a neighbor I thought was a friend, and the following

fall she sold him down the river. I meant to
but never did go looking for him, to buy him back
and now my old guilt is flooding this twilit table

my guilt is ghosting the candles that pale us to skeletons
the ones we must all become in an as yet unspecified order.
Oh Jack, tethered in what rough stall alone

did you remember that one good winter?

I've included two poems of hers because she was/is quite good and her poems are memorable.



Last was Snyder, who really read remarkably. He started off, much to my delight, with two poems by Robinson Jeffers. Gotta love those California poets. [And another oxypoet, too!] He began with some remarks about how wonderful it was to be reading with the other poets, and then read Jeffers' "Eagle Valor, Chicken Mind."

Eagle Valor, Chicken Mind

Unhappy country, what wings you have! Even here,
Nothing important to protect, and ocean-far from the nearest enemy,
what a cloud
Of bombers amazes the coast mountain, what a hornet-swarm of
fighters,
And day and night the guns practicing.

Unhappy, eagle wings and beak, chicken brain.
Weep (it is frequent in human affairs), weep for the terrible
magnificence of the means,
The ridiculous incompetence of the reasons, the bloody and shabby
Pathos of the result.

Anyone familiar with Snyder and Snyder's voice can see how similar this poem from WWII is to the Snyder persona.

Snyder looked pleased with himself and said, "One more from Jeffers, and read "Ink Sack":

Ink Sack

The squid, frightened or angry, shoots darkness
Out of her ink-sack; the fighting destroyer throws out a
smoke-screen;
And fighting governments produce lies.
But the squid and warship do it to confuse the enemy, governments
Mostly to stupefy their own people.
It might be better to let the roof burn and walls crash
Than save a nation with floods of excrement.

Snyder looked slyly at the audience as a slight ripple of nervous shuffling whispered through Tischman. Simply, Snyder stated, "Nineteen Forty-four."

He then commenced with his poems, "Right in the Trail," a poem about bears, with a nod to Kumin, "Ripples on the Surface," "Danger on Peaks" and then some wonderful poems modeled on the Japanese style Haibun. He defined these as poems "with a block of prose, nailed down by haiku." I found most of these in his new book Danger on Peaks. They were "One Day in Late
Summer,"

This present moment
that lives on

to become

long ago

"No Shadow," "Shayndel," "One Thousand Cranes," "For Anthea Corinne Snyder Lowry, My Sister," "Loose on Earth," "Falling from a Height, Holding Hands," and "A Turning Verse for Billions of Beings."

Most amazing, I thought, was "Falling from a Height, Holding Hands," which was prefaced with Snyder's explanatory note that it referred to the photo from the World Trade Center on 9/11 when two people were seen jumping from one of the towers, hand-in-hand:

Falling from a Height, Holding Hands

What was that?
storms of flying glass
& billowing flames

a clear day to the far sky -

better than burning,
hold hands.

We will be
two peregrines diving

all the way down

All in all, quite a wonderful reading. I've since read an article on Gilbert in this month's Poets & Writers and feel sort of silly not really knowing who he was, and how significant a figure he has been.

Hope you found this interesting,

Bill

[It was interesting to note that the signing afterwards was not mentioned here, until I realized that the e-mail I copied this from was sent to a poet and blogger, Gina Myers. Back then, I guess, I thought that my systematic depiction of my signature-obtaining mania might be off-putting to a poet and writer I had never met.

However, I tracked down the original e-mail sent to my friends who live vicariously through my escapades. So, after that last Snyder poem, my original e-mail continued...]

So the reading ended and I went to work. Initially it didn't look good. I approached Gilbert with books and he said that he would wait to get to the reception to sign. My heart sank. I then went over to the line by Snyder's chair, and smelly Doppelganger said he wasn't signing. I packed up and headed for the reception in the lobby. I spotted Irving Feldman sitting in the back corner. I dropped the bag and scrounged through the stacks for the Feldman pile.

He started signing, then a family friend approached. For some reason, Don Peterson is the name seared into my brain. Don is a composer/musician who lays claim to having invented the six-mallet style of playing some instrument. It's not the xylophone, but some similar instrument I guess. He introduced his blonde cellist wife. They chatted and chatted about where they lived in the city, then talked about how much the musician appreciated the friendship Irving had with the musician's dad, who was at the center of some political ousting at a university. Irving tells him to get such and such a book which has poems about the terrible terrible tragedy of this guy's father and how the administration fabricated some elaborate scheme to strip him of his tenure, etc etc etc.

[Two years later, I think I have found the right person here. I know I researched this back in '05 to no avail, but I believe now, the gentleman was actually Rob Paterson, whose blog and website
bear striking similarities: aside from the Don/Rob Peterson/Paterson issue, his biography states that he "pioneered the development of a six-mallet marimba technique," and that he is married to a violinist who is certainly blonde. I don't know how I mixed up the violin and the cello, and I don't recall what they looked like, but it seems like a match. And, this is one of the sexiest pictures I've ever seen with a violin. Paterson was raised in Buffalo, where Feldman teaches, and his father was a sculptor and painter. I'm unable to get any further, but I'm 94% certain this was the same guy.]

Meanwhile, during this whole conversation, I am standing there, signus interruptus, with a few books still in need of inking. Peterson, or whatever his name was, looks at me and says, "I'm sorry to interrupt you," and I say "Not a problem, don't worry." And Irving says, in an irritated way, "Don't apologize to him!" Meaning me. I guess talking about the injustice of it all put him in a bad mood. I felt that he was annoyed that I just didn't leave. Oh well. He sat back down and signed the other books. I mean, I only had 4, for goodness sake.

So, the PSA had a table set up in the reception area and there was a mob around everyone. Maxine Kumin had the smallest mob, so I went to her first. I approached and she eyed me warily along with my stack of (only) five books. I asked her to inscribe the first one and she said, "Look," with a tone of annoyance in her voice, "I have a problem with my writing hand and I can't be doing a lot of scribbling here."

I had never had such problems with two poets right in a row like this before. Had I lost my boyish charm and innocent touch? Should I shave the beard? I said, "That's okay, I understand," and she continued to sign. I then interjected, "I understand that you don't want to sign them all, which is fine. I ask that way specifically so writers don't think I'm some sort of book dealer." Always divert a writer's wrath onto the undesirables: those who are looking to profit from a signature. She immediately chimed in, "Did you see that one earlier? He must have had a dozen books!" Wide-eyed, I replied, "Really? No!" She finished and said, "SO, what are you going to do with your collection?" She seemed skeptical still, so I simply replied, "I guess my two daughters will inherit them when I'm gone." She looked at me and kindly said, "Hopefully that won't be for a long time." Whew. Maxine was tougher than I thought. Feisty New Englander indeed.

Next, I approached Gary Snyder, as the line for Jack Gilbert was still so long, much to my surprise, as I consider Snyder an icon. Snyder was sitting beside a rolling storage box that was improvised as an extension of the table. No respect for those Californians here in New York! Snyder saw me and my stack of books and smacked the cart and said "Lay 'em right here!" He signed six and we chatted about Jeffers. He beamed, "He is wonderful, isn't he!?" I mentioned Occidental and got the standard "beautiful campus" remark. I then thanked him for signing the books that I mhad mailed him many years back. We parted amicably.

Then, I got in line for Jack Gilbert and he signed 4 books. I thanked him and said how much I loved the line at the end of "A Brief for the Defense". He smiled and said, "I'm so glad you liked that line. It's one of my favorites and no one ever mentions it."

Snyder was still mulling about so I invested in a little extra and bought a copy of his new book from the PSA table and grabbed two more anthologies from my bag. I approached him again and asked if he'd sign the copy I just bought plus two more. He couldn't find his pen anywhere. I lent him mine, while nervously looking around for Nobelist Derek Walcott, who infamously tried to steal my pen several years ago at the 92nd Street Y.

Snyder inscribed the new book: "For Bill Cohen, 'Honor the Dust,' " and then signed the other two anthologies. One was my Milosz-edited Book of Luminous Things. I showed him the "William Cohen, Occidental College '89" bookplate and explained how I had sent this off to Berkeley and it had taken a year but Milosz had finally sent it back. He then said that I'd be surprised by the boxes of things that people send him, that it takes forever to go through them all. He handed me back my pen and said "Nice pen," --it's a silver Caran D'Ache ballpoint. And we parted ways.

Thus endeth the signing. In all, I got the Snyder book and 18 anthologies signed by the four poets (26 signatures in all). I'd list all the books I got signed, but it would bore you. My friend Brian had 3 books in the mix, each of which garnered at least one signature.

On the way home, I opened the Snyder book and admired the inscription. Then I turned the page to discover, alas, it was a third printing, not a true first edition. Oh well, every signing can't be perfect.

From the Archives, P.S.A. Chapbook Reading, December 5, 2003

This is part of my "From the Archives" series, which consists of texts from e-mails I sent to friends describing my experiences at poetry events. I may have taken some small editorial liberties with these texts, and I have included related pictures and hyperlinks, but these are all BBB (Before BillyBlog). Remember, for me readings are enjoyable for two separate reasons: the love of poetry, and the mania for collecting. I am who I am. Enjoy!

The following is the text of an e-mail to two friends about the Poetry Society of America's inaugural reading for its first Chapbook Contest winners, in which the winners read with the judges who selected their work.

Subject: PSA reading
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003

Good day gents:

Last night I attended:

Poetry Society of America Chapbook Reading
The Poetry Society of America presents a poetry reading of this year's prize-winning chapbooks with the winners, Paul Killebrew, Dawn Lundy Martin, Tess Taylor, Kerri Webster (bios of the four winners here), and the judges, John Ashbery, Eavan Boland, Carl Philips, and C.D. Wright.

It was a groovy reading.

First Ashbery read from Chinese Whispers, the introduced Killebrew who was good, read from his chap [entitled Forget Rita], then a poem called "John Fuckin' Ashbery" that went over well. Then Eavan Boland read. She stunk. Irish Potato Famine. Big deal. Way too serious.

[Note from the future: I'm guessing I was a bit too harsh on Ms. Boland at the time. However, these were my thoughts shortly after the event. I didn't want to self-censor myself here, although my lack of any constructive criticism is telling, for sure.]

Then Tess Taylor. She was mediocre and rather overdramatic.

[Again, perhaps my demeanor was tainted by these poets' successes vis-a-vis my relative lack of accomplishment.]

Then Carl Phillips, best of the established poets.

[Another interjection, the poetry establishment, I'm sure, would object to Phillips being regarded as better than John Ashbery, who is poetic royalty. Even I, in retrospect, raise my eyebrows at this statement.]

He was funny, ending with a hilarious homoerotic poem about cowboys. His poet Kerri Webster was very good with a series of poems loosely based on Joseph Cornell's work. Finally C.D. Wright, who was forgettable and her choice Dawn Lundy Martin, a short-haired African-American young woman whose sexual imagery was too violent and stark for my liking.

[Another interjection from the future. I'm a bit disappointed in my recollection of the reading. As you will see when I post the 2004 and 2005 recaps later on --sadly, I missed the 2006 event--I was still a bit short-sighted when it came to appreciating a good evaluation of these readings. My apologies to any of the poets who may be off-put by my retroactive dismissal of their work. This year, it seemed, I was more about the signing afterwards, than the reading itself.]

The reception was chaos. I pounced on Ashbery who signed Wakefulness, Girls on the Run and And the Stars Were Shining. Then I got Boland to sign her contributions in the Pinsky-edited America's Favorite Poems and my anthology First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems That Captivated and Inspired Them. Then I nabbed Carl Phillips, who was very flirty with me as we talked about the National Book Award reading I saw him at a few years back. He signed his contribution [the poem "A Mathematics of Breathing"] in The Best of the Best American Poetry, and his pages [the poem "Alba: Innocence"] in the volume of Ploughshares guest edited by Yusef Komunyakaa and [the poem "Of That City, the Heart"] in The Paris Review (#148, Fall 1998). I thanked him for signing them and told my J.D.McClatchy story about his empathizing with my mania for obssessive collecting. Phillips recalled a story McClatchy tells about how, as a young poet, J.D. asked W.H. Auden to sign a book and Auden had J.D. turn his back and used his back as a table to lean the book against.

I then went out to the foyer for a glass of wine. There I got C.D. Wright to sign her entries in Pinsky's The Handbook of Heartbreak: 101 Poems of Lost Love and Sorrow, my NEA Writing America booklet (now signed by poets from 12 of the 50 states, one of my favorite items) and above Ferlinghetti in my United States of Poetry book. Wright was kind of cold and dismissive.

Then I spotted David Lehman and had him sign my Best American Poetry 2002. I had my printout (23 pages) listing all the items I had with me and every poet appearing in them. It came in handy, but alas, Vijay Seshadri and Marie Ponsot had already signed what I had with them as contributors. I did also get Alice Quinn, The New Yorker poetry editor to sign her forward in First Loves. We chatted about the project. How the editor [Carmela Ciuraru] had asked several poets to write the intro, but they all wanted to contribute instead (it's a book with poets introducing poems that inspired them as young writers), so Alice ended up writing the forward. She recommended, if I liked this book, which I do, to check out something Richard Howard did with the poems of Elizabeth Bishop. But I can't seem to find it on the net (the title eludes me and I can't track it down). More later. [I later grabbed a copy online, it is called Preferences: 51 American Poets Choose Poems From Their Own Work and From the Past (1974).]

Anyway, I caught John Ashbery again and had him sign my friend Brian's Strand anthology [The Contemporary American Poets] (merry holidays!) and then went back to good old Carl and had him sign 3 more Best American Poetry volumes, flirting shamelessly. Yes, boys, I've resorted to whoring myself for signatures.

In addition, I purchased the 4 chapbooks ($20 for the set, nice little "first book" items) by the new poets, all of which I got inscribed.

Totals for the night: 10 poets, 21 signatures.

Plus, I hit 12th Street Books before the reading and found a nice hardcover copy of e.e. cummings' 95 Poems ($7.95) and a 1st edition of Sandra Cisneros' Loose Woman ($5.00).

Not a bad night,

Bill

p.s. Doppelganger was there. Baseball hat. No leg cast.

From the Archives: Louise Gluck and Mark Strand at the Russian Samovar (April 29, 2003)

This is part of my "From the Archives" series, which consists of texts from e-mails I sent to friends describing my experiences at poetry events. I may have taken some small editorial liberties with these texts, and I have included related pictures and hyperlinks, but these are all BBB (Before BillyBlog). Remember, for me readings are enjoyable for two separate reasons: the love of poetry, and the mania for collecting. I am who I am. Enjoy!

This was originally titled "How I Pissed off the Poet Laureate"

April 29, 2003, 6:50pm Russian Samovar W. 52nd St---waiting for a reading to begin---Louise Glück & Mark Strand---nice pair o' poets ~!~ Should have something to say. Should say. Dinner, bag of Arare [Japanese rice crackers] & red bean dessert treat ....

Let's see how this goes-- I left behind tons of stuff. We shall see. We shall see.

8:50pm PacificW36 [Meaning, on the W train between Pacific Street and 36th Street] Train luck galore-- the reading was okay. Glück was good at first, but I am certain she will never read there again. She read two poems, both with multiple parts. They were good, but she lost confidence as the reading progressed. The Samovar is not a silent hall. It is upstairs at a restaurant --- a Russian restaurant with noisy patrons. So, as L.G. read, there was an occasional buzzer sound...My guess is that it was the kitchen buzzing up a dumbwaiter or something. I was in front. I could hear it. I'm guessing Louise could too. Plus there is the hum of downstairs conversation, maybe a phone ringing, & distinct, the shooka-shooka-shooka of a martini being rigorously & expertly shaken. I watched her sit down, a grim look on her face. The man next to her bent his ear, she whispered to him. He patted her arm reassuringly.

Then Strand, who gave me a candy before the reading. A friend of his arrived, seated near me, explained that someone had given her the candy & she had no desire to keep it around--Mark peeled the foil and eyed the chocolate ball suspiciously, then bit, then consumed. Later, they offered me one & the plastic container got passed around. It was tasty. I was going to put the wrapper here -> but it was too big, so next page it is.

It is Austrian! Was delicious!

Anyway, Strand was good, read some new work, one called "2002" about Strand not waiting for death. Death waiting for him.

I am not thinking of Death, but Death is thinking of me.
He leans back in his chair, rubs his hands, strokes
His beard and says, “I’m thinking of Strand, I’m thinking
That one of these days I’ll be out back, swinging my scythe
Or holding up my hourglass to the moon, and Strand will appear
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
O let it be soon. Let it be soon.

[This poem subsequently appeared in his book Man and Camel.]

He read something from Blizzard of One & then a 7-part piece he did for a classical chamber music piece --Haydn? [It was, in fact, Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ. You can read about this piece further in a review of Strand's book Man and Camel, in which this work appears. The review is here, in the blog One Poet's Notes]

Hmmm. L.G. looked scrunched & unhappy the whole time. I approached her post-Strand for signings. She signed/inscribed 2 of her books to me (Vita Nova & Meadowlands, then Writing America [NEA-published pb from a few years back... I've never seen another and mine is signed by Robert Pinsky, Linda Pastan, Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, Alberto Ríos, Mark Strand, J.D. McClatchy, Phillip Levine, Charles Wright, Louise Glück and John Haines, each writer representing a state.], my spare copy of CAP [The Contemporary American Poets] & her ed. of BAP [The Best American Poetry] (93). 5 signs in all. I had more, but....


But she was in a bad mood, remember? I was saying, please sign, blah blah then:

BC [duh, me] - I've been in New York for 7 years, this is the first chance I've got to hear you read.

LG - Well, I'm sorry this was your introduction to me.

BC - What do you mean?

LG - It was dreadful! The sound was bad, there was too much noise, I couldn't hear myself think!

BC - It wasn't so bad.

LG looks at me like that was an underhanded remark. I recognize this, stammer:

BC - I've been to several readings here and there have been much wor---(I catch myself)

She is regarding me with a you-better-quit-while-you're-ahead look, a there's-nothing-you-can- say-that-will-make-me-feel-better look.

BC -Thank you for signing my books.

LG - (A look that acknowledges my thanks, while letting me know she is done with me)

Strand, however, was jovial & inscribed a pb copy of his Selected Poems (top on a stack of 5) "Could you inscribe it?" I asked.

Strand replied, "Inscribe it, eh? It's worth less that way."

I coyly respond, "Oh, I don't know about that!"

Then, he blank-signed the CAP anthology on the title page, BAP 2000, First Loves, and BAP 93.

Hey, I'm out of practice, 2 poets, 11 signs. not too shabby.

And I score points for getting home, pulling in 95th St at 9:20pm!

++++FIN++++

I recreated the journal entry as it was written, without the candy wrapper, of course, which is taped to the page of the journal.

Think Louise will remember me? It is doubtful she'll ever do the Samovar again.

From the Archives: Hayden Carruth, 80th Birthday Tribute, October 17, 2001

This is part of my "From the Archives" series, which consists of texts from e-mails I sent to friends describing my experiences at poetry events. I may have taken some small editorial liberties with these texts, and I have included related pictures and hyperlinks, but these are all BBB (Before BillyBlog). Remember, for me readings are enjoyable for two separate reasons: the love of poetry, and the mania for collecting. I am who I am. Enjoy!


Subject: HAYDEN CARRUTH
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 12:20:49 -0400

Well, as a reading went, it was successful. As a signing, not so.

I am now a member of the Poetry Society of America, by the way. Woo hoo! The reading started late, about 15 minutes so, and everyone came out but Mr. Carruth, who then emerged very slowly, shuffling with a cane. He did not look good. It was an interesting exercise to compare him to Richard Wilbur. [I had seen Wilbur read earlier in the month at the Guggenheim.] They are both 80 years old, but Wilbur acted 10 years younger and Carruth acted 20 years older. It did not bode well for signing.

The reading commenced with some words from Alice Quinn. Then David Budbill read. He was very funny and animated. Then Marilyn Hacker. She was good, but nothing to write Toronto about. Then Sam Hamill read. Sam is HC's publisher at Copper Canyon Press (they'll sell you signed Carruth broadsides, by the way, for $45). [Not anymore. But you can still buy Copper Canyon broadsides here]. Sam was rather dull. Then Galway Kinnell read and he rocked. He talked about the only time he and Hayden had ever had a tiff, when Hayden visited a few years back and "he was chainsawing like crazy in my apartment. HA! Did I say chainsawing? I meant chain-smoking! Although, in Hayden's case, chainsawing wouldn't be out of the question,." At this point, the audience was laughing and Mr. C, who was pretty much immobile, shook with laughter. It was the first sign of emotion, nay, the first sign of life, he showed since taking the stage.

Then, Joe-Anne McLaughlin-Carruth read. She's Hayden's wife and was extremely eccentric. She had what can best described as a "squeaky" voice and she read a poem she had written about Hayden's two previous wives. It was just so off the wall, I don't think anyone got it. Bizarre! She had fire red long hair and wore this weird outfit with long opaque sleeves. Then Grace Paley, who didn't come, didn't read. The Adrienne Rich told anecdotes and read. She was swell. Then Jean Valentine read from Hayden's letters, namely letters he had written to Jane Kenyon when she was dying. They were truly marvelous. The high point for me at least.

Then Hayden got up and shuffled slowly to the podium. There was a long ovation. He responded by taking the two microphones and bumping their heads together in applause, then remarked on how they looked like alien antennae. He then rambled a bit, somewhat coherently, about how old age had made him forgetful and said, "Can you imagine, coming to a reading at a place like this and forgetting to bring a book?" He then turned around to beseech his friends for help. He got a book from Galway, The Norfolk Poems of Hayden Carruth. "A rather pretentious title," remarked Mr. C. He then a read a poem about Adolf Eichmann that was very very good. Then he apologized for his voice, which sounded like a chain smoker's voice, because his throat had been damaged by a heart attack he had a few years ago. He then proceeded to read a second poem, then stopped, I think, midway and apologized that he could not go on because of his voice. That was that.

People applauded, and stood. I said to [my friend] Pam [who had accompanied me to the reading] that Hayden would probably not be signing, especially as I noticed that as he read, his hands shook terribly.

Then it was showtime and there was chaos. I can tell you this, Adrienne Rich disappeared without a trace. Not bad for a woman who has difficulty walking. People went up on stage and Janet [my other friend who had joined me] prodded me to go up there. It didn't look initially like he was signing, then it did. But I made a call that I would later regret. I figured if he's up there, he's not going anywhere fast, I'll save him for last. Despite the presence of a lovely helper, it was a challenge. I had 21 books for 7 people, and I tried to divide the labor effectively. I approached David Budbill first, and he signed The Best American Poetry [BAP] '89. As he finished, who should be on stage with him (I was below the stage on the floor), but El Doppelganger, smelling much better than Sunday (or not smelling at all, I should say), and he introduced himself to Budbill as "Frank". I prefer Doppelganger. And yes, he wore a baseball cap. I then got Galway Kinnell to sign BAP 01. Meanwhile, Pam was waiting to get Ms. Hacker. Doppelganger was hot on my heels with Galway as well. I kept going back and forth between my bags and the stage so as not to confuse myself. Pam got Marilyn H to sign (not inscribe and date) the Ploughshares. Then I got her to sign BAP 95 and 98, and the Academy of American Poets 50 yr anthology. We then figured on getting on stage for Mr. C. We waited and waited. Jean Valentine walked by. Doppelganger was four or five people ahead of me. HC signed some things, but I saw no other dealers there. Then he posed for photos and then Sam Hamill said "Sorry, we have a dinner to attend. No more autographs." Doppelganger looked disappointed, but packed up his stuff. I figured as much. Then I saw Sharon Olds with Gerald Stern and Grace Schulman (I felt so knowledgeable). I got a slight consolation prize as Sharon signed her page in BAP 01. "This is a nice pen!" she exclaimed. I would have had shots at Stern, but my master list killed the printer paper at R, so I didn't have it to tell me Stern was in Jorie Graham's Ecco anthology, which I had with me. A cursed book, it seems, as I missed Galway on that score too. I also missed that Olds was in BAP 99. Meanwhile, Pam was getting Jean Valentine's signatures in my BAP 89 and 96, and in [my friend] Brian's Poets for Life. We somehow missed Hacker in that book too. Sorry Brian.

As we left, HC was in the lobby with Sam Hamill, who was being very protective. I heard him say sternly that Hayden was not signing any more because he was tired. I would have taken a shot, but I was intimidated by the fact that Sharon Olds, Marilyn Hacker and Gerald Stern were standing by and I didn't want to look like a scoundrel. Brian, on the other hand, I explained to Pam, would have not cared and succeeded in either getting everything signed, or having Sam Hamill chase him from the building angrily.

All in all: here's the score sheet. Out of 6/21/28 (6 poets, 21 books, 28 signatures possible), we hit on 4+1/8/9+1. The +1 is Olds, as a bonus. But Rich and Carruth were goose eggs and accounted for 15 of these signatures and 9 of the books that went untouched.

But, what's important here is the poetry, and the fact that I may have witnessed Mr. Carruth's last appearance, most definitely in NYC. It would not surprise me if the next time I hear his name in conjunction with a reading, it will be for a tribute at the 92nd Street Y.


As a postscript, Mr. Carruth is a lot sturdier than I thought. God bless him for that. He celebrated his eighty-sixth birthday this past August 3.

Here follows a review of the event from the Poets & Writers website:

HAYDEN CARRUTH AT 80:
POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK CITY

postmark 10.19.01

An audience of over two hundred people attended a birthday tribute to the poet Hayden Carruth on October 17 in Manhattan. The event, which was sponsored by the Poetry Society of America, Poets House, the NYU Creative Writing Program, the Academy of American Poets, the YMCA National Writer's Voice, and Copper Canyon Press, was held at the Great Hall of Cooper Union on the corner of Twelfth Avenue and Seventh Street. Carruth, who turned 80 in August, recently published Doctor Jazz: Poems 1996-2000 (Copper Canyon, 2001).

Marilyn Hacker, Galway Kinnell, Joe-Anne McLaughlin, Adrienne Rich, Jean Valentine, and other friends and peers of Carruth read his poetry, which is collected in nearly 30 books published during the last half-century, and shared memories of their personal relationships with the poet.

"The only way to pave a road is to pour asphalt," the poet David Budbill remembered Carruth saying, in reference to the work ethic of a writer. Poet and founding editor of Copper Canyon Press, Sam Hamill, captured the range and quantity of Carruth's poetry by noting that it moved "from the epigrammatic to the epic."

Jean Valentine read from letters that Carruth had written to Jane Kenyon in 1994, a year before her death from leukemia, in which he describes the joy of watching a rogue mushroom grow in his house-a pleasure, he noted, surpassing that provided by many an abstract painting.

After reading a selection of his poems, Adrienne Rich spoke of her connection to Carruth: "I don't know how I would have written poetry without a sense of Hayden as a reader."

From the stage radiated an undeniable warmth, and the real celebration was not so much about any particular Hayden Carruth poem, but rather about the intertwining of individual lives as the result of a sense of community nurtured by poetry.

In fact, no poems were read from his newest collection, and when Carruth finally stepped to the podium he thanked his friends for "reading these poems of mine, most of which I didn't remember." Then, realizing he had forgotten his own books and had nothing from which to read, he turned to Galway Kinnell and borrowed a copy from him. The simple act captured perfectly the way these writers had sustained one another for many years.

Of course, in New York, events are still shadowed by the tragedy of September 11, a point acknowledged by Galway Kinnell who said, "For me, in these sad and difficult weeks, this is a bright moment."

-Andy Carter

And finally, read a post here from earlier this year about the poster I had brought to the reading to be signed, and how I did get it signed, but not at the reading.

From the Archives: Success at Columbia (Meeting Kenneth Koch, December 2, 1998)

This is part of my "From the Archives" series, which consists of texts from e-mails I sent to friends describing my experiences at poetry events. I may have taken some small editorial liberties with these texts, and I have included related pictures and hyperlinks, but these are all BBB (Before BillyBlog). Remember, for me readings are enjoyable for two separate reasons: the love of poetry, and the mania for collecting. I am who I am. Enjoy!

The following is an e-mail to Hubert, a friend and fellow book enthusiast in California.

Hubert,

Just had a nice little encounter with Kenneth Koch up at Columbia University.


Stopped by during his office hours and was very polite. He was quite surprised, "no one's ever come to my office before to get books signed."

He was meeting with a student when I arrived, so I waited. He poked his head out and called me into his office, would've loved to go through those books in there!

The person he was meeting with packed up as I stood around. Then he asked me to have a seat while he made a call to his barber to set up a haircut appointment (Friday 4:30). Then I handed him books, a couple I picked up today because [my friend] BGM advised not to go with just anthologies. Sound advice, indeed.

He inscribed Straits (poems, 1998) and Making Your Own Days; The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry (1998, and a rather nice little nonfiction poetry book/anthology---check it out). He inscribed both "To Bill Cohen with best wishes Kenneth Koch New York 12/98"

Then I gave him the Lehman book [The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets] and above his portrait on the title he drew a balloon and inside it wrote "Hello, Bill Cohen" and signed it with NYC 12/98 just below the portait. Very cool. Very very cool.

Then he signed my Contemporary American Poets anthology which is looking more and more amazing (everyone on one page).

Then I asked him if he wouldn't mind signing his pages in my Best American Poetry anthologies, prefacing it with some poets object to doing so. He assented and signed on his page in 5 of those anthologies. He asked why some poets objected to signing them, and I kind of grunted and said "Because they think I'm a book dealer. Those guys ruin it for the rest of us who just enjoy getting autographs from poets we admire." That seemed to satisfy him. I will admit that since I started reading Lehman's book, my appreciation for both Koch and Ashbery has expanded greatly.

I thanked him profusely and then departed. He asked me if anyone was waiting for him in the hallway, I said "No," and he laughed and said "Thank God!" and started to pack.

Then, at the elevator, a young woman came up the stairs, saw me and stopped. She asked me if I was Professor Koch. Ha ha.......I wish.

Anyway, rather productive little jaunt....possibly seeing Ashbery on Saturday at a little dive in South Manhattan. Wish me luck!

Bill

From the Archives: Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival, 1998

This is part of my "From the Archives" series, which consists of texts from e-mails I sent to friends describing my experiences at poetry events. I may have taken some small editorial liberties with these texts, and I have included related pictures and hyperlinks, but these are all BBB (Before BillyBlog). Remember, for me readings are enjoyable for two separate reasons: the love of poetry, and the mania for collecting. I am who I am.


[Note: It is interesting to contrast this e-mail from 1998, with my recap from the 2004 festival here. You can really sense a difference in the approach, as well as the experience from six years of signings. In 1998 I was much more taken by the surroundings whereas, in 2004, Duke Farms doesn't score much time in the description. The difference between being on the East Coast for only a year and a half and experiencing Autumn for the second time, and the same outlook six years later.]

Here's the e-mail from Monday, September 28, 1998:

Hi, this is a mass mailing for those interested. On Saturday, I attended Day Three of the four-day biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. The festival was featured in the Bill Moyers' PBS special The Language of Life several years ago.

On Saturday, I left the house at 6AM, and by 7:30 was on a bus to Stanhope, New Jersey and the tiny historic village of Waterloo. Arriving at 8:30, I ran over to the church and caught the last fifteen minutes of Marge Piercy.

Then I wandered. What an amazing place! The leaves are just beginning to turn. It was a mild day in the low 70s, and the hazy sunshine dissolved into brilliant blue skies by 2 pm.

I wandered around until 9:30, during which I ran into the poets Mark Doty and Jane Hirshfield, who was literally thrilled when I pulled a "Poetry In Motion" subway poster out of my bag for her to sign. She was quite lovely and kind. The poem on the poster, "The Groundfall Pear" in its entirety reads: "It is the one he chooses/Yellow, plump, a little bruised/on one side from falling./That place he takes first."


From there I attended a discussion entitled "Poetry and Politics" featuring Chilean Poet Marjorie Agosín, renowned Chinese dissident poet Bei Dao, Malaysian poet (and UCSB professor) Shirley Geok-lin Lim, supertranslator Eliot Weinberger, the marvelously gifted W.S. Merwin, and the reigning dean of American Poetry, the 93-year old Stanley Kunitz. 'Twas a fascinating discussion and I was the first audience member to ask a question. I had with me a copy of my friend Brian's book Poetry and Politics: An Anthology of Essays, which featured an essay crafted from a lecture Kunitz gave in 1970. I asked him if he still felt it was no longer possible for someone to be both "a reactionary and a poet". The moderator clarified for the audience by verifying with me, "So you're quoting Stanley Kunitz to Stanley Kunitz?" And Mr. Kunitz, responded well in kind, not only remembering the lecture, but quoting directly from it. Quite a marvelous panel!

Afterwards, I was sitting in a shaded area nearby and Ms. Lim approached me and we discussed more of what was said. We chatted for a good 15 minutes, and when we were talking about "reactionary" vs."revolutionary" poets, I brought up Bukowski, and Ms. Lim, not what you would expect in a Bukowski fan, showed me a poem in one of her books called "Romancing Bukowski".

Further wanderings allowed me to meet Lucille Clifton, Denise Duhamel, and Alicia Ostriker.

At 11:30 a.m., I sat down against a tree overlooking the scenic Braw Pond, complete with geese, and a breathtaking view of the Fall foliage. It was a bit secluded as I jotted in my journal as the acorns rained down with each breeze and a couple of curious chipmunks busied themselves nearby.

At noon, I heard New York poets, Denise Duhamel, William Wadsworth, and Samuel Menashe read their work. Quite fun.

Watch: Denise Duhamel reads
"Kinky" (excerpt) (1.5 MB)
(QuickTime required)

Samuel Menashe reads
"Salt and Pepper" (2.1 MB)
(QuickTime required)

More wanderings, more meetings. Karl Kirchwey, another New York poet, ventured to sign a couple of anthologies for me while his three-year old daughter climbed his legs and struggled to put a large rock in his jeans pocket.

At 1:30, Bei Dao read with Eliot Weinberger. Wonderful to hear the poetry of a foreign language in its true form.

Just before 2:00, I caught Amiri Baraka leaving the restaurant and chatted him up briefly. His reading was PHENOMENAL! The way he mixes music and poetry is earth-shattering and he received a thunderous standing ovation from the crowd. Always great to see a living legend in action. [This was four years before his controversial recitation of a post-9/11 poem at the Dodge Festival.]

Watch: Amiri Baraka reads
"Wise, Why's Y's" (Africa section)
(Real Player required)



After a brief break with the Paul Winter Consort Musicians, Galway Kinnell and Sharon Olds had "A Conversation in Poems" during which they movingly alternated reading theirs and others' work.



From there I went to an open reading and read my beloved own poem "My Ballet Class In Heaven":

MY BALLET CLASS IN HEAVEN

is the title of the child’s drawing

above a co-worker’s desk.

It strikes me as odd.

My morbid mind runs amok

in the dense foliage

of twisted possibilities.

I picture a boulder crushing

a schoolbus

filled with screaming ballerinas.

Or

St. Peter calls

and says, “The Big Guy

wants to be reminded

of the simple, joyful things

in life.

Can you spare a few hours

to do the Nutcracker

for all the Angels?

Or

is it just

a bunch of kids

eating ice cream

from bottomless schooners

and grinning

fantastic

chocolate-smeared smiles?

After reading that to a receptive crowd, I caught up with W.S. Merwin again. And then broke for dinner.

Then, I sat and watched Coleman Barks recite Rumi with Paul Winter et al. They were rehearsing for the reading later in the evening.


At 6:30, I saw Kurtis Lamkin performing with the kora, a twenty-one stringed West African harp-lute used by troubadours to accompany compositions.

Watch: Kurtis Lamkin performs
"jump mama"
(Real Player Required)

[The photo on the right is not Lamkin, but does illustrate a musician playing the kora.]


At 7:00, Jane Hirshfield read, although she was a bit disappointing. Too serious, too intense, too homogenous in her reading. [I have since come to appreciate Ms. Hirshfield more, as indicated in my dispatch from the 2004 Dodge festival.]

Watch: Jane Hirshfield reads
"The Poet"
(Real Player Required)




At 7:45, Galway Kinnell read superbly.

Watch: Galway Kinnell reads
"After Making Love We Hear Footsteps"
(Real Player Required)

At 8:15, Adrienne Rich, wonderful to see her finally.

And at 8:45, Coleman Barks read some new Rumi, with the Winter Consortium.

Watch: Coleman Barks reads
"New Year's Day Nap"
(Real Player Required)

At 9:30, the festival ended and everyone went to a wine and cheese reception. I ran into Samuel Menashe (who I heard at Noon). He was a bit drunk, but we chatted for a bit.

At 10:15, I wandered over to the Gazebo where there had been open readings all day. The bus back to the city left mysteriously at 11, instead of 10 or 10:30. I met a nice couple from Hoboken and two other poets, and we sat around, talking story, and at their request, read my controversial "Casual Sex Fridays" much to their delight. [Inappropriate poem for BillyBlog, but I will share with anyone who is interested, just e-mail me.]

The bus left at 11. I was exhausted. I arrived at Port Authority at 12:15 a.m. And the trains finally deposited me in Bay Ridge at about 1:30 A.M. What a day!

You all know I collect books and signatures, so it will not be a surprise if you learned I went with a few books. More precisely, 17 books in all (plus a poster). I did not think I'd get everyone to sign everything, so I was thrilled to succeed almost entirely. I had 13 anthologies with me,
which made it a bit easier. In all, I had items in which 16 poets appeared. All but one, Robert Pinsky, signed for me, and I accumulated a grand total of 43 signatures in all.

Yes, Mom, your Marge Piercy book was the first one signed.

Even without all the signing, the festival was sensational, and I will never forget it. I recommend to all who are interested to start saving now for the next one in September 2000. I know I'll be there.