Reactions to Watts on Writing: a Reader Generated Post

I'd like to begin this post with a big thanks to all who regularly read and to those who contribute via the comments and emails. I think what follows will speak to how fine those contributions are.

In a recent post, I quoted Alan Watts on advice to writers, with a tip o' the hat to Neil Gaiman. Reader reaction to the post was every bit as interesting as the quote itself, setting off a cascade of reaction that expanded and clarified some thought.

I also received a question from San Francisco via Scotland (thanks, Rita!) as to whether Watts really said this at all. As I've not been able to independently verify, I've sent a query off to Mr. Gaiman. We'll see.

If anyone else can confirm or refute, that would be just great.

Always so much harder to prove something didn't happen than it did, said the librarian to the world.

Ed pointed to Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones as another essential source of writing wisdom/inspiration. Here is a set of quotes from Goldberg on GoodReads that speak to the point.

Aditya conjures this great Charles Bukowski quote:

Bukowski explained the phrase in a 1963 letter to John William Corrington: "Somebody at one of these places [...] asked me: 'What do you do? How do you write, create?' You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: 'not' to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it."

Donna sent along this wonder full lecture of Watts on Haiku:



And Pat remembers a great poem by Gary Snyder:

How Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light

Lyle has both a favorite Watts quote and a great Bukowski ancedote, the latter in reaction to Aditya's comment:

One of my favorite Alan Watts quotes, a very brief one, is a quick moment from an interview with Robert Wilson, given at the front of an edition of Zen and the Beat Way. The snippet of dialogue goes as follows:

Robert Wilson: What is Zen?

Alan Watts: [Soft chuckling.]

Robert Wilson: Would you care to enlarge on that?

Alan Watts: [Loud laughing.]

And the Buk:

The item in one of the other comments here about Charles Bukowski ("Don't try") brought to mind another Bukowski moment, of sorts -- in The Poet Exposed (a book of photographs of poets by Chris Felver, who has photographed quite a few), the page for Charles Bukowski has no photo of Bukowski, only a photo reproduction of a short handwritten note that reads "No visitors," with Bukowski's signature at the bottom.

Finally, Merrill's deep reaction to Watts' "bird flying over us" provoked this reaction from me:

Full moon shadow the passing wing

-------------------------





vain mankind--
idling away this night
of winter moon

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Bukowski: Issa's Sunday Service, #59 (and #60)

Charles Bukowski is something of an anomaly; whether you hate him or you love him, it would be fair to say he was a major poetic voice of the last 50 years, particularly in the populist sense. This ambivalence is exemplified, I believe, in this week's Issa's Sunday Service cut, "Bukowski" by Modest Mouse.

There's no denying it, Buk was no picnic to be around. There is also no denying that beneath the crustiness, irascibility, and drunkenness, there was a tenderness that shone through the brutal honesty on more occasions than his detractors would allow. Here's a little number where he sidles up to his subject, drifts back, and brings it home:




me and Faulkner
sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme over and over again, it's
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them, it's done by everybody
because everybody is of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before them
over and over again because
that is their personal tiny miracle
their bit of luck

like now as like before and before I have been slowly
drinking this fine red wine and listening to symphony after
symphony from this black radio to my left

some symphonies remind me of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people now long dead were able to
transgress graveyards

and traps and cages and bones and limbs

people who broke through with joy and madness and with
insurmountable force

in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles

and even now after decades of listening I still am able to hear
a new work never heard before that is totally
bright, a fresh-blazing sun

there are countless sub-stratas of rising surprise from the
human firmament

music has an expansive and endless flow of ungodly
exploration

writers are confined to the limit of sight and feeling upon the
page while musicians leap into unrestricted immensity

right now it's just old Tchaikowsky moaning and groaning his
way through symphony #5
but it's just as good as when I first heard it

I haven't heard one of my favorites, Eric Coates, for some time
but I know that if I keep drinking the good red and listening
that he will be along

there are others, many others

and so
this is just another poem about drinking and listening to
music

repeat, right?

but look at Faulkner, he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place

so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives
once more: the classical composers of our time and
of times past

it has kept the rope from my throat

maybe it will loosen
yours

Originally published in "Third Lung Review"

Though not known as a poet of double meaning or ambivalence, those last two lines give one pause, eh?


---------------------------------------------------------


This week's featured poem from the Lilliput archive has the unique attribute of meaning something different then when it was originally published in #90, back 13 years ago this month. The difference isn't in the meaning - it means exactly what it meant back then. The difference is to whom it means.

Let's call it a generational thing.

Let's form a circle, old and slightly less old, and belt out a few choruses of something that isn't "We Won't Get Fooled Again," but very much like it.

Something perhaps by Brecht.

With more spittle and less, well, synthesizer.

You know what, it's Bastille Day coming up this week, my nomination for campfire song for the disaffected follows the poem and makes this week's Litrock a two-fer.

First, Mr. Solarczyk's bit of prescient nostalgia:

Post-Politics

Dreaming we'd dreamt
a new dream
we slunk off at dawn
ashamed we'd been
dreaming at all.

Bart Solarczyk

#60 on the Class War Hit Parade:

evening--
he wipes horse shit off his hand
with a chrysanthemum

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don


PS

there are countless sub-stratas of rising surprise from the
human firmament ...

Bill Griffith's Bukowski; or Why Rex Morgan Doesn't Cut the Cheese

Click on images to enlarge

If ever there was a poet's comic, aka cerebral as all get-out, it's Bill Griffith. Griffith is so good that, a number of years back, he got run out of my hometown newspaper during one of their dismal annual polls in which Rex Morgan, Cathy, Marmaduke, and unending, sadly shrunken reruns of Peanuts somehow continue to cut the mustard.

I'm sure Griffith considers it a badge of honor. His local fans are reduced to electronic subscriptions to keep up with the zany Zippy's hip happenings. Above is a small collection of strips that are Charles Bukowski related. His work is endlessly rewarding, the artwork the finest of any daily strip comic being done today .

He has a sensational, subversive sense of humor; check out his 6 part "Understanding Zippy in 6 Easy Lessons." Still not sure? Perhaps "The Heideggerian Disruptions of Zippy the Pinhead" by Ellen Grabiner will convince you.

Then again, there is always Rex Morgan.

**********************************************

in ceremonial robe
he's fallen down drunk...
blossom shade

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Steve Richmond: Gagaku Meat

Where does one begin? For those of you relatively recent to the small press scene, the name of Steve Richmond may be unfamiliar. Steve was, in his day, one of the small press giants; a close friend of Bukowski, published by da levy of Cleveland among many, many others, Steve was part of the original mimeograph small press revolution of the 60's which grew out of the Beats into one of the great counterculture movements in US history.

Steve Richmond was a haunted man. He choose to make his demons manifest and they weren't nearly metaphoric enough; somehow, they were real. Most famous for his "gagaku poems," which often portrayed nastily-clawed creatures that tormented and hounded and delighted him, they were all composed to the strains of the form of ancient Japanese court music known as gagaku. There are precious few of these poems around, though there are still a collection or two to be found for purchase. I published four gagaku poems in the early 90's. In the interest of the spirit of the mimeograph revolution, here they are:



gagaku

-------------------they're driving
--------------------knapsack
----------around their neck with the bully
---------------------------------part of the knapsack
hanging over the back of their
----------------------front seat
-----------------and swinging at rear seat ass level

they are not so easy to describe

---------------you
--------------------gentle
--------------------reader
--try describing your own
--------------------demons
-------------------------sometime

Steve Richmond

gagaku

he's writing too much
---------but everyone leaves him alone
with his fine obsession

any obsession where one human
leaves all other humans
------------at peace
--------------is a fine art

Steve Richmond

gagaku

-------accused of
-------------self indulgent narcissism
------------------I
----------------admit it

demons clap
they like me honest

Steve Richmond

gagaku

bah
the music is
-over

Steve Richmond

These examples only give you the merest hint of the power of his work. It was mesmerizing, enthralling, and hypnotic. All of this is by way of an introduction to a brand new book about Richmond (pictured above) by the publisher, novelist and poet Mike Daily, entitled Gagaku Meat: The Steve Richmond Story.

Last year, Mike contacted me asking me if I could share any remiscenses of Steve since I had published him in the early issues of Lilliput Review [pdf file] (I just discovered on amazon an issue of Lillie going for $48.00 because Steve was in it - I quickly listed it at the going rate around here, $1.00) and I was happy to oblige. All in all, the book serves not only as an inquiry into a talented, tortured soul, but as a distinctive chapter in the history of the small press underground movement of the later part of the 20th century. Many fellow poets and publishers are quoted at length here. Mike recounts the history his own friendship with Steve, as well as Steve's relationships with Jim Morrison and Charles Bukowski, and his ungodly descent into a drug addled hell that would have even demons scurrying for safety. It is at once a sad, horrific and beautiful account, much like the man himself.
Here is the blurb for the book that Mike Daily sent along. If you have even a faint interest in Richmond and small press history, I highly recommend it. It is riveting.

***************************************************************************

Gagaku Meat Press Release (April 4, 2009)

Gagaku Meat: The Steve Richmond Story is a 32-page, 19,000-word journalism piece written about poet Steve Richmond. The feature article was produced for buk scene 1, a new Charles Bukowski-influenced magazine from Holland. Gagaku Meat is now available as an 8-1/2" x 11" format small press zine.

Santa Monica abstract artist and close friend of Richmond, David Garcia, was interviewed for Gagaku Meat, as well as 20 poets, writers and publishers: Gerald Locklin, FrancEyE (Frances Smith, mother of Bukowski's daughter, Marina), Al Berlinski, John Martin, A.D. Winans, Kurt Nimmo, Linda King, Nila NorthSun, Richard Peabody, Mat Gleason, Ron Androla, S.A. Griffin, Alan Kaufman, Jeffrey Weinberg, Don Wentworth, Ed Smith, Alan Catlin, Billy Childish, Pat deTurk, Ben Pleasants.

Three poets contributed exclusive sidebar poems about Richmond: Jim Chandler, Todd Moore and Neeli Cherkovski (Cherkovski's is titled, "You Were Angry").

Two weeks ago, Steve Richmond told David Garcia he is "enthralled" about Gagaku Meat.


Available for $6 postage-paid direct from Mike Daily on the multi-media Steve Richmond tribute site, Mr. Viced Honest:

http://www.myspace.com/mrvicedhonest

Available now from Powell's Books:

http://powells.com/biblio/7-9781127644421-0

Preview video of Gagaku Meat on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmQcGjYF3fY


Mike Daily
http://www.mickogrady.blogspot.com

******************************************************************


Finally to cap off this post about Steve, here's a link to a recent interview with him done at 3 AM. Also a post by the always great Dennis Cooper with material by Ben Pleasants, an edited version of the interview, and some of Steve's poems, and lots of his attitude. Fittingly, Steve's work can be found in The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He is still alive and evidently writing again. Here's hoping things are going well for him.
For those interested in his method of composition, something that enthralled me and that I mentioned to Mike Daily, here is an example of gagaku music:



If you do have the opportunity to read Gagaku Meat, you'll learn the well-known story of Steve's bust for obscenity when he published some anti-war material in his magazine, Earth Rose. The cover image may seem quaint now, but the message was and still remains powerful in the iconic way so typical of the counter culture:








best,
Don

Bukowski: Pain, Sorrow, Tenderness

Cover by the Irrepressible Wayne Hogan

Though it might be heretical in the small press, I’m no fanboy of Charles Bukowski. The misogyny is near impossible to get by. Two things recently caused me to reconsider: a Jim Harrison review in the New York Times Book Review of the new career spanning publication, The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951-1993, and the film on Bukowski Born Into This, directed by John Dullaghan, using footage shot by Taylor Hackford. The film is a revelation and, as with much of his own works, is a warts and all affair. At one point, revisiting his childhood, Bukowski recounts the regular horrid beatings he endured at the hands of his father and this about said it all for me. No excuses: Buk would tolerate none and neither should we.

It just is.

Bukowski’s virtues leap off the page: honesty, revelation, and an oft-concealed tenderness. He made the mold, broke it and everyone to follow in his footsteps pales in the brillant white California light. Still, there are as many troubling aspects in his work as there were many troubling issues in his life: really, how could one expect otherwise? Reading through this particular volume, edited by founding editor of Black Sparrow Press and friend, John Martin, can be at once rapid and a bit of a slog. What I mean by this is it can be read too quickly because of the natural cadence, read in almost novel-like or short story fashion. But, as with any great poet, that is a true injustice. The arrangement is not chronological so one is following the threads of association of editor Martin and that, in and of itself, is extremely interesting. It gives the reader more of a feel for the poet overall and is an excellent approach expertly handled.

Make no mistake: this is not everybody’s cup of meat. But poems like his “Carson McCullers” exactly capture what any of his legion fans knew all along; this man is a born poet, a reveler and directly in touch with what is.

Carson McCullers

she died of alcoholism
wrapped in a blanket
on a deck chair
on an ocean
steamer

all her books of
terrified loneliness

all her books about
the cruelty
of loveless love

were all that was left
of her

as the strolling vacationer
discovered her body

notified the captain

and she was quickly dispatched
to somewhere else
on the ship

as everything
continued just
as
she had written it.

There are many poems in this collection that it is hard for one to imagine would make a career retrospective but for every 10 of those there is one “Carson McCullers” and in a 500 plus page volume that makes for quite a few revelations. More than the average selected poems, I’d warrant. These revelations more often come in a bar, at the track, on the street, or sitting on the crapper but they are none the less powerful for it. For me, he will never replace Whitman or Ginsberg or Oliver or Sexton or Wordworth or Wright (James and Franz) but he doesn’t need to. He’s Bukowski and that’s enough.

“Of loveless love …”

This week’s selection from Lilliput Review comes from #139, originally published in October 2004. Here are some tinier revelations:

New fallen chestnuts
Always to bear the failure
of such beginnings.

David Lindley

handing back an old photo---
the clouds over us
never drift off

Gary Hotham

one maple leads to another,
my father’s house,
two autumns from here

Rob Cook

Child

Child
you are just beginning
to learn the lessons
that finally
I have unlearned.

David Lindley




That’s it for this week. I'll end with one final quote from one small press poet to all the poor poet through all of time:

“all the poets wanted to get disability insurance
it was better than immortality.” - Charles Bukowski



best,

Don