This poem is not intended as a companion piece to "Music for the End of Time." The tone is entirely different, not at all apocalyptic. But it covers the same or similar ground, and I can't help thinking that the difference in treatment is a merely a matter of temperament. Which is enough: Death is a wind that will carry you off sometime before the following dawn. It may start with a lake-scented draft from the cane break behind the house, or a breeze through an open door filling your nostrils with your mother's party perfume: … [Read more...]

I remember meeting Stephen Schneck in San Francisco at City Lights Bookstore, where I was clerking at the time. He had published The Nightclerk, which won the International Formentor Prize, and I was starting a "little" magazine. He offered three "Not Poems" for the first issue. His novel, translated into 12 languages but banned in Australia, was about the erotic fantasies of a corpulent hotel nightclerk. (Orson Welles wanted to film it; didn't happen.) So Schneck's offer felt like a great piece of luck. Not in the same league as getting … [Read more...]

My staff of thousands tells me that if I post any more poems by Heathcote Williams, I will be making a mockery of this blog's stated purpose. I'm a small "d" democrat who rules Straight Up by popular consent, so I had to admit I've been banging on about his poems. But -- with a capital "B" -- what are his poems if not "arts, media & cultural news with 'tude?" More than mere 'tude, they're truth-telling CAT scans of historic figures and cultural history ("Shelley at Oxford," for example, or "The United States of Porn"); of political and … [Read more...]

It was a year ago today that I began posting tributes to Carl Weissner (1940-2012), whose unexpected death last January came as a shock. My own words went up with a photo and funeral announcement by the filmmaker Signe Mähler, another of his friends. The poet and performance artist William Cody Maher, the journalist and author Matthias Penzel, the author and literary accomplice Jürgen Ploog, all sent tributes of sorrow and praise. That only scratched the surface of an outpouring in newspapers, magazines, and blogs, largely in Germany, … [Read more...]

I noticed an ad in the current issue of The New Yorker for the Yale Writers' Conference to be held this coming June. Since a bunch of us have been talking about Nelson Algren, the ad couldn't help reminding me of his essay "Hand in Hand Through the Greenery," published in The Last Carousel back in 1973. It was Algren's take on the most celebrated creative writing programs around at the time. The essay begins like this: "Dear Mr. Algren," a young woman writes from Wheaton (Ill.) College, 'I am a freshman and am standing on the threshold … [Read more...]

I'm happy to report that Colin Asher's smart biographical essay on Nelson Algren in The Believer is the best I've ever read. I'm also glad I made an unacknowledged contribution, one nearly verbatim. Though small, it reminds me that words have a life of their own, regardless of who wrote them. Postscript: I finally found time to post a further comment on Asher's essay. … [Read more...]