Showing posts with label literary works. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literary works. Show all posts

Saturday, April 27, 2019

*The Unwritten American Civil War Saga- A Literary View

Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia's Entry For Ambrose Bierce An Important Post-Civil War Writer Now Somewhat Forgotten In Literary Circles And Who Is Mentioned In The Book Reviewed Below.

BOOK REVIEW

The Unwritten War: American Writers And The Civil War, Daniel Aaron, The University Of Wisconsin Press, 1987

As we approach the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War one would be hard pressed to find a subject related remotely to the war and its outcome that has not been covered by one or another Civil War buff. Needless to say the various major military and civilian figures have been covered ad nauseaum. Ditto for the main military strategies and their outcomes. Hardly a skirmish in some god forsaken hollow has been left untouched. And it goes on from there. The songs of both sides, the fashions of the day, the religions of the hour, the sacrifices on the home fronts and the financial credit ratings of both sides, just to pick some random examples, have all in their turn had their day in court. Lately, as the search for new material has gotten more doggedly elusive in the face of such scarcity factors such as the army morale, soldiers’ morality and the meaning of life (or the afterlife) for both sides have come in for inspection. In short, there is no lack of information about almost any facet of the struggle. Yet, this book under review, published originally some twenty years ago, concerning the way the American literary set at the time or since then have, or have not, written the definitive sage of the conflict is well worth the read, and as a very good source for further exploration on the subject as well.

Professor Aaron has taken as his thesis the notion that although the American Civil War would seem to have been a natural subject for some literary figure to attain immortality by writing the its definitive saga. He argues, for several reasons, that this did not occur, or if did it was by someone like William Faulkner who was substantially removed from any serious direct link to the struggle. Fair enough, More than one author, and here I am thinking of Norman Mailer, has broken his literary teeth trying, unsuccessfully, to write the great American novel, Thus that the same frustration may have occurred over a titanic human struggle by those who fought in or had the conflict touch their lives even indirectly does not come as a surprise. What is interesting here is the professor’s extensive overview of his subject and of the structure of his argument.

The professor has divided his book in several sections that reflect various applications of his overall theme. I will not go into detail here on each section but just say that a litany of the names that he evokes form a veritable who’s who of the American literary scene, some very familiar (Faulkner, James, Twain) others lost in the mist of time (DeForest, Tourgee, Cable), over the 100 years after the war (he basically ends his work after looking at Faulkner’s influence). I will, taking my hints from this book, spend more time in this space later going into more depth on many of these authors. For now though it is enough to summarize the sections.

Professor Aaron starts out by looking at the literary divide first- for or against one side or the other (or an off-hand indifference, as in the case of Melville). This tends toward a not unexpected divide between hot Northern “abolitionists” and Southern “fire-eaters”. He goes on to look at Hawthorne, Whitman, and the above-mentioned Melville. He thereafter gives space, but literary short shrift to the “malingerers” those who sat out the war, one way or another. Here Henry James, Mark Twain and Henry Adams get their just dessert. No one expects a literary figure to be a fighter or brave, but it helps when the subject is war, especially a war that will define a new age (successfully or not).

Actual combatant writers come under fire as well. Most of these writers are not memorable and Ambrose Bierce is the only one I have even seen anthologized. The second hand warriors are best represented by Stephen Crane His “Red Badge Of Courage”, required reading in high school certainly had the grit of the battlefield down but I agree with the professor that such a narrow scope is hardly the stuff of the “great” Civil War novel. Southern writers come in for some attention, especially the now well-known name of Sidney Lanier. Part of Professor Aaron argument is an assumption that while the South lost the war it “won” the literary battle. Certainly that was true until recently on the history front on the subjects of the fate of the slave under slavery and Radical Reconstruction. I am not as sure that this premise applies on this question.

Finally, the professor ends with a look at the Agrarians, a revisionist political/literary trend that took to defending the “old regime” in the South. The names Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren (of “All The King’s Men” fame) and John Crow Ransome are associated most closely with this endeavor. And of course at the tag end of that movement, although a literary force in his own right, William Faulkner who put the South, at least in fiction, back on the map. We have nothing common, as far as I can tell, politically or socially but, damn, he could write. As one can see a mere summary leads to many tempting ideas and precludes anything other than a summary to be followed up. In the meantime read this book. It is worth the time.


This is Walt Whitman's well-known homage to the fallen Civil War President Abraham Lincoln. It deserves space in any left history blog. For an excellent musical rendition of this poem (and the inspiration for placing the poem here) listen to Carolyn Hester's "Carolyn Hester At Town Hall" recording from 1965.


O Captain! My Captain!

Walt Whitman


1

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart! 5
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

2

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck, 15
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

3

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.



Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d

1

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, 5
And thought of him I love.

2

O powerful, western, fallen star!
O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear’d! O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me! 10
O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!

3

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle......and from this bush in the door-yard, 15
With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.

4

In the swamp, in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary, the thrush, 20
The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat!
Death’s outlet song of life—(for well, dear brother, I know
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would’st surely die.) 25

5

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes, and through old woods, (where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris;)
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes—passing the endless grass;
Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprising;
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards; 30
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.

6

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop’d flags, with the cities draped in black, 35
With the show of the States themselves, as of crape-veil’d women, standing,
With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit—with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn; 40
With all the mournful voices of the dirges, pour’d around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—Where amid these you journey,
With the tolling, tolling bells’ perpetual clang;
Here! coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac. 45

7

(Nor for you, for one, alone;
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring:
For fresh as the morning—thus would I carol a song for you, O sane and sacred death.

All over bouquets of roses,
O death! I cover you over with roses and early lilies; 50
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious, I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes;
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you, and the coffins all of you, O death.)

8

O western orb, sailing the heaven! 55
Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walk’d,
As we walk’d up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
As we walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night,
As you droop’d from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on;) 60
As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something, I know not what, kept me from sleep;)
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you went, how full you were of woe;
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cold transparent night,
As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb, 65
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

9

Sing on, there in the swamp!
O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes—I hear your call;
I hear—I come presently—I understand you;
But a moment I linger—for the lustrous star has detain’d me; 70
The star, my departing comrade, holds and detains me.

10

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be, for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds, blown from east and west, 75
Blown from the eastern sea, and blown from the western sea, till there on the prairies meeting:
These, and with these, and the breath of my chant,
I perfume the grave of him I love.

11

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, 80
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air;
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific; 85
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there;
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows;
And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

12

Lo! body and soul! this land! 90
Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships;
The varied and ample land—the South and the North in the light—Ohio’s shores, and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies, cover’d with grass and corn.

Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty;
The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes; 95
The gentle, soft-born, measureless light;
The miracle, spreading, bathing all—the fulfill’d noon;
The coming eve, delicious—the welcome night, and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

13

Sing on! sing on, you gray-brown bird! 100
Sing from the swamps, the recesses—pour your chant from the bushes;
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on, dearest brother—warble your reedy song;
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid, and free, and tender! 105
O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer!
You only I hear......yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;)
Yet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me.

14

Now while I sat in the day, and look’d forth,
In the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring, and the farmer preparing his crops, 110
In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds, and the storms;)
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides,—and I saw the ships how they sail’d,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor, 115
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages;
And the streets, how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo! then and there,
Falling upon them all, and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail;
And I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death. 120

15

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle, as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, 125
To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me;
The gray-brown bird I know, receiv’d us comrades three;
And he sang what seem’d the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses, 130
From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held, as if by their hands, my comrades in the night;
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird. 135

DEATH CAROL.

16

Come, lovely and soothing Death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe, 140
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious;
And for love, sweet love—But praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.

Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? 145

Then I chant it for thee—I glorify thee above all;
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach, strong Deliveress!
When it is so—when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, 150
Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.

From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee—adornments and feastings for thee;
And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. 155

The night, in silence, under many a star;
The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;
And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil’d Death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song! 160
Over the rising and sinking waves—over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide;
Over the dense-pack’d cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death!

17

To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, 165
With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume;
And I with my comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, 170
As to long panoramas of visions.

18

I saw askant the armies;
And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags;
Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierc’d with missiles, I saw them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody; 175
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men—I saw them;
I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war; 180
But I saw they were not as was thought;
They themselves were fully at rest—they suffer’d not;
The living remain’d and suffer’d—the mother suffer’d,
And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer’d,
And the armies that remain’d suffer’d. 185

19

Passing the visions, passing the night;
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands;
Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul,
(Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night, 190
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
Covering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,)
Passing, I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves;
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring, 195
I cease from my song for thee;
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night.

20

Yet each I keep, and all, retrievements out of the night;
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, 200
And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe,
With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odor;
With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep—for the dead I loved so well; 205
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands...and this for his dear sake;
Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967- Elegy For A Los Angeles Man- The Trials and Tribulations of A Literary Man-Charles Bukowski

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967- Elegy For A Los Angeles Man- The Trials and Tribulations of A Literary Man-Charles Bukowski




Zack James’ comment June, 2017:

Maybe it says something about the times we live in, or maybe in this instance happenstance or, hell maybe something in the water but certain things sort of dovetail every now and again. I initially started this commentary segment after having written a longest piece for my brother and his friends as part of a small tribute booklet they were putting together about my and their takes on the Summer of Love, 1967. That event that my brother, Alex, had been knee deep in had always interested me from afar since I was way too young to have appreciated what was happening in San Francisco in those Wild West days. What got him motivated to do the booklet had been an exhibit at the de Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park where they were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the events of that summer with a look at the music, fashion, photography and exquisite poster art which was created then just as vivid advertising for concerts and “happenings” but which now is legitimate artful expression.

That project subsequently got me started thinking about the late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, the driving force behind a new way of looking at and presenting journalism which was really much closer to the nub of what real reporting was about. Initially I was interested in some of Thompson’s reportage on what was what in San Francisco as he touched the elbows of those times having spent a fair amount of time working on his seminal book on the Hell’s Angels while all hell was breaking out in Frisco town. Delved into with all hands and legs the high points and the low, the ebb which he located somewhere between the Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco of the summer of 1968 and the hellish Rollins Stones Altamont concert of 1969.     

Here is what is important today though, about how the dots get connected out of seemingly random occurrences. Hunter Thompson also made his mark as a searing no holds barred mano y mano reporter of the rise and fall, of the worthy demise of one Richard Milhous Nixon at one time President of the United States and a common low-life criminal of ill-repute. Needless to say today, the summer of 2107, in the age of one Donald Trump, another President of the United States and common low-life criminal begs the obvious question of what the sorely missed Doctor Gonzo would have made of the whole process of the self-destruction of another American presidency, or a damn good run at self-destruction. So today and maybe occasionally in the future there will be some intertwining of commentary about events fifty years ago and today. Below to catch readers up to speed is the most recent “homage” to Hunter Thompson. And you too I hope will ask the pertinent question. Hunter where are you when we need, desperately need, you.       
*******
Zack James comment, Summer of 2017 

You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. (Walking with the king not about walking with any king or Doctor King but being so high on drugs, your choice, that commin clay experiences fall by the way side. In the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place, where many walked with the king, if you prefer, and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society, in high art society these days) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20th of this year.   


Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out loud the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs who like their forbears would stop at nothing he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  





DVD REVIEW

Bukowski: Born Into This, Charles Bukowski and others, directed by John Dullaghan, Magnolia, 2003

Back in the early 1970’s, well- before he became a cult figure of some stature, someone, somewhere directed me to some articles written by the king of “gonzo” journalist, the late Doctor Hunter S. Thompson for the then radical political/musical “Rolling Stone” magazine. Readers of this space are well aware of my affection for the writings of the good doctor. Around that same time the same person who “turned me on to” Thompson, as the expression of the day went, also mentioned that if I liked Thompson then I would definitely go for the then emerging Los Angeles literary cult figure under review here, Charles Bukowski.

I then read some of Bukowski’s stuff, mainly poetry from the various “little” presses like "City Light" but I was not that impressed at the time. Later, in the late 1980’s, when the movie “Barfly”, starting Mickey Rourke as Bukowski, came out I again tried to read his work, this time mainly the novels. Still no sale. Now, however, with this rather well done documentary that details the ups and downs of this literary figure who may have had the same kind of feel for the dispossessed, the “street people” of L.A., that his near contemporary Nelson Algren had for Chicago I think I have to take another look.

This documentary puts together the various aspects of Bukowski’s life (and incidentally demonstrates how tough it is to be an avant guarde artist in America) from his broken childhood to his struggle to find work, but most importantly, his struggle to write with the deck stacked against him. Add in a mercurial personality, some physical facial deformities (due to severe facial acne) and a very heavy drinking problem, including periods of abusive behavior to his girlfriends and others, to help drown his sorrows and one does not get a pretty picture. The film also gives enough snippets of his work (including some readings by Bukowski himself) to intrigue me to go back and check him out again.

But here is the kicker. I am always on the lookout for those who will speak for the dispossessed (like Algren, James T. Farrell, the young Dos Passos, etc.) even if there is no direct political linkage. Maybe I missed something before. Moreover, the “talking heads” that naturally populate a documentary like this included Tom Waits, Sean Penn, Bono, and Harry Dean Stanton. These are the same guys who provided commentary on a couple of Hunter Thompson documentaries that I have reviewed in this space recently. So, maybe I did miss something. Who would have thought?

BEER
from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell


I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.

AS CRAZY AS I EVER WAS
from: Love is A Dog From Hell


drunk and writing poems
at 3 a.m.

what counts now
is one more
tight pussy

before the light
tilts out

drunk and writing poems
at 3:15 a.m.

some people tell me that I'm
famous.

what am I doing alone
drunk and writing poems at
3:18 a.m.?

I'm as crazy as I ever was
they don't understand
that I haven't stopped hanging out of 4th floor
windows by my heels-
I still do
right now
sitting here

writing this down
I am hanging by my heels
floors up:
68, 72, 101,
the feeling is the
same:
relentless
unheroic and
necessary

sitting here
drunk and writing poems
at 3:24 a.m.

ANOTHER BED
from: Love is a Mad Dog from Hell


another bed
another women

more curtains
another bathroom
another kitchen

other eyes
other hair
other
feet and toes.

everybodys looking.
the eternal search.

you stay in bed
she gets dressed for work
and you wonder what happened
to the last one
and the one after that...
it's all so comfortable-
this love making
this sleeping together
the gentle kindness...

after she leaves you get up and use her
bathroom,

it's all so intimate and strange.
you go back to bed and
sleep another hour.

when you leave its with sadness
but you'll se her again
whether it works or not.
you drive down to the shore and sit
in your car. it's almost noon.

-another bed, other ears, other
ear rings, other mouths, other slippers, other
dresses

colors, doors, phone numbers.

you were once strong enough to live alone.
for a man nearing sixty you should be more
sensible.

you start the car and shift,
thinking, I'll phone Jeanie when I get in,
I haven't seen her since Friday.

SHE SAID
from: War All the Time


what are you doing with all those paper
napkins in your car?
we dont have napkins like
that
how come your car radio is
always turned to some
rock and roll station?do you drive around with
some
young thing?

you're
dripping tangerine
juice on the floor.
whenever you go into
the kitchen
this towel gets
wet and dirty,
why is that?

when you let my
bathwater run
you never
clean the
tub first.

why don't you
put your toothbrush
back
in the rack?

you should always
dry your razor

sometimes
I think
you hate
my cat.

Martha says
you were
downstairs
sitting with her
and you
had your
pants off.

you shouldn't wear
those
$100 shoes in
the garden

and you don't keep
track
of what you
plant out there

that's
dumb

you must always
set the cat's bowl back
in
the same place.

don't
bake fish
in a frying
pan...

I never saw
anybody
harder on the
brakes of their
car
than you.

let's go
to a
movie.

listen what's
wrong with you?
you act
depressed.

THE ALIENS
from The Last Night Of The Earth Poems


you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction of distress.
they dress well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here.

BAD TIMES AT THE 3RD AND VERMONT HOTEL
from: You Get So Alone At Times that It Just Makes Sense


Alabam was a sneak and a theif and he came to my
room when I was drunk and
each time I got up he would shove me back
down.

you prick, I tole him, you know I can take you!

he just shoved me down
again.

I finally caught him a good one, right over the
temple
and he backed off and
left.
it was a couple of days later
I got even: I fucked his
girl.

then I went down and knocked on his
door.

well, Alabam, I fucked your women and now I'm going to
kick you all the way to
hell!

the poor guy started crying, he put his hands over his
face and just cried

I stood there and watched
him.

then i left him there, i went back to
my room.

we were all alkies and none of us had jobs, all we had
was each other.


even then, my so-called women was in some bar or
somewhere, i hadn't seen her in a couple of
days.

I had a bootle of port
left.

i uncorked it and took it down to Alabam's
room.

said, how about a drink,
Rebel?

he looked up, stood up, went for two glasses.

THOSE GIRLS WE FOLLOWED HOME
from: You Get So Alone At Times that It Just MAkes Sense


in junior high the two prettiest girls were
Irene and Louise,
they were sisters;
Irene was a year older, a little taller
but it was difficult to choose between
them;
they were not only pretty but they were
astonishingly beautiful
so beautiful
that the boys stayed away from them;
they were terrified of Irene and
Louise
who weren't aloof at all;
even friendlier than most
but
who seemed to dress a bit
differently than the other girls;
they always wore high heels'
silk stockings,
blouses,
skirts,
new outfits
each day;
and'
one afternoon
my buddy, Baldy, and i followed them
home from school;
you see, we were kind of
the bad guys on the grounds
so it was
more or less
expected,
and
it was soomething:
walking along ten or twelve feet behind them;
we didnt say anything
we just followed
watching
their voultuous swaying,
the balance of the
haunches.

we liked it so much that we
followed them home from school
every
day.

when they'd go into their house
we'd stand outside on the sidewalk
smoking cigarettes and talking.

"someday". I told Baldy.
"they are going to invite us inside their
house and they are going to
fuck us."

"you really think so?"

"sure."

now
50 years later
I can tell you
they never did
-never mind all the stories we
told the guys;
yes, it's a dream that
keepds you going
then and
now.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

***Alright Miss Lonelyhearts- The Life And Times Of Nathanael West And Eileen McKenney- A Guest Book Review

Click on the headline to link to a "Boston Sunday Globe" article, dated April 11, 2010, concerning the American novelist Nathanael West and his wife, Eileen McKenney.

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2010/04/11/reversal_of_fortune/

Markin comment:

I have always held Nathanael West's "Miss Lonelyhearts", and more so, "Day Of The Locust" in very high regard. That last scene in the movie version, starring Donald Sunderland, still haunts my memory of what the "mob" can do when it gets its head up. More on this important member of the American literary canon later.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Old Left "Culture Wars"-Lillian Hellman vs.Mary McCarthy-Ouch!

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Lillian Hellman.

March Is Women's History Month

Markin comment:

The following is an article from the Winter 1980-81 issue of "Women and Revolution" that has some historical interest, for old "new leftists", perhaps. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of "Women and Revolution" during this Women's History Month.


Lillian Hellman vs. Mary McCarthy:

What Becomes a Legend Most?


Two such literary legends as Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy squabbling over who's a liar and who's a slanderer, with over a million bucks at stake, certainly isn't very becoming. But these really aren't two bitter old ladies locked in senile death-battle over whose cat killed the canary. Although New York intelligentsia clique fights are often best left to Woody Allen ("I hear Dissent and Commentary are fusing—they're calling it Dysentery," he said in Annie Hall), this case did provoke a few thoughts.

Two self-serving myths of American liberalism are in collision here, with roots going back to the '30s when so many literati had heady affairs with communism. The current fracas was kicked off by Mary McCarthy's caustic comment on the Dick Cavett show last January that "Lillian Hellman...is terribly overrated, a bad writer and dishonest writer... every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." So liberal darling/ feminist heroine Hellman, author of Scoundrel Time and the memoir which became the popular movie Julia, promptly sued McCarthy et al. for $1.7 million, claiming "mental anguish" and "injury in her profession."

But it isn't really the money, or literary reputation, that Hellman and McCarthy are fighting over—the real question is whose legend will prevail. Hellman's defenders cite her defense of "simple decency" before the infamous 1952 HUAC trials. Many of McCarthy's partisans, on the other hand, recall her image as a righteously indignant seeker-for-truth, attacking Stal¬in's brutal repression and exposing the cheery "men of good will" Popular Front lies fellow travelers like Hellman spouted. Of course it is to Hellman's credit that she refused to fink to HUAC—unlike Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets and so many others—and to McCarthy's that she recognized the Moscow Trials for the vicious frame-up they were. Yet the truth is rather more complicated, and even though a lot of blood's flowed under the bridge since the '30s and '40s, it's obvious the old wars haven't been forgotten (and why not; after all, for many their brush with communism was the most vivid, important part of their lives). As we pointed out in a Workers Vanguard (18 June 1976) review of Scoundrel Time: "Hellman's memoir...confirms the general warning appropriate to the confessional genre: look out for what is omitted— although [Hellman] explains her stand before HUAC by 'these simple rules of human decency,' life was not so simple, she was not so simple, and it was all political."

Hellman was a well-known Stalinist fellow traveler, as McCarthy remembers full well. Hellman joined the Stalinists in cheering on their bloody Popular Front policies in the Spanish Civil War, while McCarthy supported the POUMists being butchered on Stalin's orders. Hellman's "simple decency" didn't extend to the victims of the 1936 Moscow Trials frame-up, nor to the Trotskyist leaders sent to prison in 1943 under the U.S. Smith Act, nor to artists like the Russian composer Shostakovich, muzzled and harassed by the bureaucra¬cy while she burbled on about the progressive culture of the USSR. No wonder McCarthy today still can't stand Hellman, wrapped up in her Blackglama mink and utterly snobbish self-congratulations as just another well-bred white Southern lady steeped in "old-fashioned American traditions."

Of course Mary McCarthy did her bit for the Cold War, abandoning her earlier Trotskyist sympathies. During the '50s she opposed the anti-Communist witchhunts only because they gave real anti-Communism a bad name with their "red-neck anti-intellectual boorish methods," and attacked "the Communist's concealment of his ideas and motives" in a speech to the notoriously Cold War, anti-Communist American Committee for Cultural Freedom. Still, to her credit McCarthy did break with the Cold War crowd relatively early during the Vietnam War, and wrote a good book exposing U.S. imperialism's crimes in Vietnam—and attacking those '50s organizations she had addressed. Polemicizing against Diana Trilling in her book Hanoi, McCarthy wrote:

"I reject Mrs. Trilling's call to order.... And if as a result of my ill-considered actions, world Communism comes to power, it will be too late then, I shall be told to be sorry. Never mind. Some sort of life will continue, as Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Sinyavski, Daniel have discovered, and I would rather be on their letterhead, if they will allow me, than on that of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, which in its days of glory, as Mrs. Trilling will recall, was eager to exercise its right of protest on such initiatives as the issue of a U.S. visa to Graham Greene and was actually divided within its ranks on the question of whether Senator Joseph McCarthy was a friend or enemy of domestic liberty."

It's too bad Hellman and McCarthy have chosen to battle it out on the rather obscure terrain of purely personal "morality," since both know where plenty of bodies are buried. But they seem to have settled for enshrinement in a panoply of petty-bourgeois legends of liberalism. As Trotskyists we have long pointed out that such legendary "personal morality" does not stand outside class politics. This case proves it doesn't even stand above vicious squabbles over money. Nor can we help noting that Hellman hasn't forgotten at least one of the grand old Stalinist traditions—she's still seeking revenge against her enemies through the capitalist state.