Thursday, December 19, 2013

Cozy & Loud as a Camel in the Rain: An Interview with Mr. Tod Perry

This is our third in a series of posts about Cornell University in the late 1950s, when literary legends Thomas Pynchon ('59) and Richard Fariña were in attendance.

Our first two posts (you can read them here and here) chronicled our hunt for a couple of rumored photos from this time/place and spiraled out further and further as we examined the successful group of students who helped pave the way for the 60s countercultural revolution. 

The more we learned about this time in Cornell, the more we felt that this was an under-appreciated nexus of talent and events, including the 1958 protest against Cornell’s in loco parentis policy that precursored the wider student activism of the 60s.

A couple of the people we wrote about in the first two posts contacted us and were kind enough to answer some questions that we shot their way. The first was Mr. Carl P. Leubsdorf, (‘59), who was an Associate Editor and frequent contributor to the Cornell SUN (student newspaper), and who--under the guise of "Dr. Ivan Cbarl"--was featured in a series of mock-duelling photos in the SUN along with Fariña and others whom we discussed in our first post.

The next key player to contact us was Mr. Robert "Tod" Perry (Feb. '59). Both Mr. Perry and Mr. Leubsdorf seemed happy to discuss these pivotal times at Cornell, although they were both respectively protective of Mr. Pynchon’s privacy. Mr. Perry, for example, asked that before we post anything he provided, we let him: 
“…review what is related to our correspondences.  I really mean to honor the privacy of my friends where it seems appropriate.  It is hard to define tho' what really is appropriate since you two have a genuine interest in learning about that period.”
We have also, in our own way, tried to respect Mr. Pynchon's wishes, and we did our best to prevent placing anyone in an awkward situation. We have focused, for example, more generally on these times at Cornell and on Fariña and his friends' escapades, including the lives of the people kind enough to contact us.

We are going to focus here on one of the many talented students who attended during this time: poet Tod Perry. We will write a subsequent piece focusing on our conversations with Mr. Leubsdorf, if we continue to have his okay.

The Sub-standard Disclaimer
Please note that we are not reporters. We were not paid to do this. We did this out of our own curiosity to learn more about a fascinating time and a talented group of people. I say this because I hope that readers will enjoy this and use our comments feature to help share more information and enthusiasm with us, as well as to let us know if we've gotten anything wrong. As always, we would appreciate hearing from anyone we discuss, hopefully as an opportunity to learn more, but we'd even welcome a "hey, knock it off" from anyone who would rather not be so publicly discussed.

Okay, so enough background—let's get to business.

Tod Perry
Mr. Perry is a published (and we think strong) poet. After attending Cornell, he attended the renowned writing workshop in Iowa. His poetry has been featured in Prairie Schooner, Contact, Epoch, the New Yorker, and some anthologies, although much of it was lost as publications folded and Mr. Perry moved to Europe.

More recently, in 2012, Mr. Perry was a winner in the Robert Frost International Poetry Contest.

But why is this fellow so important to our research? In the words of C. Michael Curtis ('56), one time roommate of Fariña and a SUN contributor who went on to become the fiction editor at The Atlantic Monthly, “With 'the whole sick crew' there was Tom Pynchon and Farina, and Tod Perry” (source, a honkin' big PDF). Likewise, Baxter Hathaway, an influential writing instructor at Cornell, referred to a "triumvirate" of "Pynchon-Farina-Perry". 

Mr. Perry was also one of the four students suspended following the 1958 Cornell demonstration. The other three suspendees were J. Kirk Sale, Richard Fariña, and David Seidler – all close friends with Pynchon. (Note that Peter Wheelwright, '61, was also temporarily suspended. We don't have a good understanding of his involvement with the people we've written about. If you do, please let us know.) 

After graduating from Cornell, Mr. Perry also spent some time in NYC with Pynchon and Fariña. He eventually wound up living part of the year in Key West, while living most of the time in Germany where he tells us:
[I] have a small business that keeps us going, Been here since early 1970.  That explains why most everything left in the USA just drifted off, including almost everything I wrote before coming to Europe. I have almost enough again now for a small volume of poems but most important I feel at home with my work now more than ever.
In our original piece about Cornell in the late 50s, we noted the following about Mr. Perry:
Paul Nunn Cleaver wrote an article that discusses Seidler, Sale, Lesham, Osterholm and a Todd Perry, among others, who could have been in these pictures. This Todd Perry could have been the Robert Perry charged in the wake of the riot (see for example, here, and note that both Todd/Tod and Robert Perry seem to have links to Florida). Note that Hathaway spells "Tod" with [...one] "d". Anyone out there know if Robert was also called "Tod" or "Todd?" There doesn't seem to be much about him. Cleaver indicates he died of alcoholism, but he seems to have taken second place in the 2012 Robert Frost Poetry and Haiku Contest.
Mr. Perry responded to our remarks on 10/5/13, with the following comment on our blog: "In fact I am alive. tod perry". He later helped clear up our confusion over his name: "My name is Robert Michael Perry. Tod is what my mother called me, and so does everyone else. I was suspended with the others." And later, after we'd both called him "Robert", he quipped, "Both of you might want to address me as Tod, rather than Robert.  Even after all these years, using Robert makes me feel as tho' I am in court."

Daurade responded with an apology for passing along an incorrect rumor and an invitation to correspond. Mr. Perry was kind enough to follow up with series of emails, which we have rearranged to form the appearance of a more formal interview. There were three participants:
  • P – Perry (Mr. Robert “Tod” Michael Perry)
  • G – “Gid” (a.k.a. Dave)
  • D – “Daurade” (a.k.a. Steve)
P: So then […] what are your questions?  And why are you so interested in this period?  Were you […] Cornellians?

I'll answer just about anything I can remember, tho' there was a sense of privacy that is peculiar to Tom, and to a degree I share that trait.  So what I answer depends on what is asked.

D: Mr. Perry, I first got interested in the "riot" after reading Fariña's novel.

P: I haven't read that in a while.  It was a fun read.  I was the character with the bright blue eyes.  Good old Dick gets me killed off.  I better re-read the book.

D: I was an assistant librarian at Olin at the time (early 90's) and found it interesting to associate those events with the Cornell I knew at the time.  The immediate genesis of our post was the dueling photo, which I had read about and describe finding in the post.  Our blog is about small details in history and we figured these events were an appropriate topic for us.  As we looked into it, we got caught up in the old SUN issues, details piled up and we exhausted what we could find in them.  So we left a lot of unanswered question.  Here's our first list of questions.  We respect your privacy and that of the other people involved, especially when it come to Mr. Pynchon, so we won't be put out if you decline to answer anything.

P: Good, thank you.

G: I really enjoyed Thomas Pynchon's novels, which were my immediate pull. Farina's music and writing pulled me in deeper. Once I started looking into these times, I found the idea of the protest at Cornell to be really fascinating. It seems like it was a sort of precursor to many later student protests—although I guess that I am not sure if it was something that led to other actions or if it was something that arose around the same time frame as part of the more general zeitgeist.

P: I think it was a precursor of things later.  Also there were some "older" students on campus, veterans of the Korean "police action".

G: Either way, I was really impressed that such a talented group of students were at school together. Their later accomplishments are outstanding. I also went to a small private school and spent time with a group of creative, tight, talented, and motivated group of students, but we did not go on to this kind of success. Why not? This question kind of pushed me into looking into the Cornell crew of '58. What did they do/have that we did/do not? A combination of motivation and talent at a younger age is my best guess, although how important was the protest and its fall out (including, perhaps, Nabokov's resignation)? I still ask these questions to myself often: What did they do right, or did they have the curse of interesting times thrust upon them?

P: Seems there were so many talented people, off the bat the other names like David Lougee, Dee Snodgrass, Bill Dickey, students like Kris Osterholm, Emil Karfiol, Lee Meyers, a brilliantly delightful law grad student and his buddy.  There were other good writers too, plenty. Ruth McKendry. Bob Tuttle.  I'm sure with time I could come up with more names […] 

At Cornell there was another rather well-known poet, but can't remember the name.  That saddens me.  He was a faculty member.  Too bad.  And let's not forget Dave Seidler, who was a playwright.  I understand he was somehow the force behind the diction in the Oscar winning Kings Speech film […]

I don't think anybody did anything or had any sense that our time as a group led up to the demonstrations, or that we became something on the pivot of that moment.  I do admit being amazed that there were folk songs being sung about us, as heroes of sorts.  It may have been more pivotable for others.  I had already pivoted.

D: I see a group of people who pushed each other to further themselves.

P: I don't think anyone pushed or was pushed.  There was one great circus master in retrospect, and that would be Dick.  He was certainly the catalyst for much mischief, and he had some energetic and willing near mad men ready for most anything.

G: Can you point us to anything that Pynchon or Fariña wrote (or collaborated on) in The Cornell Daily Sun under pseudonyms?

P: No, if there was a collaboration, that may have come after I graduated in Feb 1959, leaving my pals in Ithaca for some months before we all were back together again in NYC.

D: In our [previous] article, we wrote, "If Minstral Island is a jagged look at concerns Pynchon and Sale would address throughout their lives, mightn't the SUN articles also have some use, however minimal, in that regard?" Any thoughts on this speculation?

P: I suppose so.  There was always a whole lot of writing going on, and Tom liked nothing better than writing three penny opera type librettos.  Kirk was phenomenal in that he could master so many topics. He is smart and educated and who was to know then, a real good poet in his own right.

D: Any other anecdotes about Kirk Sale—what do you think of his secessionist views?

P: Plenty about Kirk too, but I think Curt needs his flanks covered these days.  It seems strange that secession puts him in bed with some odd groups.  Just this week I wrote him a short comment about that.  He replied that what was important is that you get in bed.

G: As we've already said, we think this was a fascinating time and place to have gone to college. What a talented group of students! Do you have any stories you'd care to share or misconceptions you'd care to clear up?

P: OK, I see so much emphasis on leadership. I think Kirk has written on that elsewhere in regards to our participation, something like Dick held my one leg and Tod the other. That is true, and something else I had forgotten.  I don't think the riot started out as that. Kirk was embroiled in this battle (remember, the whole country could not buy Lady Chatterly's Lover then), and as it got bigger, we all dived in to support him, and the theme. After all it was Spring.  But there was a sense that there was a turning away from the world of Republican and Eisenhower years. I believe we were filled with an idea/feeling that we could create literature and a new politics.  None of us were enthralled with the work coming out of the West Coast, I remember some years later "the whole sick crew" (surely at this time Kirk, me, Dick, Tom and I don't know who else) at a party sitting on the floor not 5 yards away from Allen Ginsberg and his sick crew and not a word went back and forth from the two groups. Ginsberg's group was getting lots of PR, but we thought, or at least I thought, we were writing something possibly great, and these guys were breaking glass but not making more than noise. I can't say that is what my pals thought, but we did keep to ourselves. Also we were plenty tanked, as maybe they were too.

D: As friends, did you actually refer to yourselves as the "whole sick crew"? (Why not? We called ourselves "Alpha Las Vegas".) How did you get to know all those guys?

P: No, we did not refer to our selves as the whole sick crew.  That was more of a tag, something Tom used that sort of caught on I guess.  I can still hear Tom using that with his broad LI accent.

D: Mr Perry, so, if I get your comment about "leadership" correctly, the "riot" was much more of a spontaneous eruption?  Why did the administration target you four....why were you identified as the "leaders"?

P: I think Kirk was arguing the points of the demonstration, but the administration was resolute in keeping the restrictive codes in place.  This just would not work, and plenty of people were steamed up about this.  One young woman, a good student, I wish I could remember her name, was tossed out of school because it was determined she had relations with another student.  That was a real harm to someone for no good reason.  I know I was surprised to see Kirk engaged in preparing notes to say at a demonstration, and to see making posters at the College St. apartment he shared with Dick.  At that time I was living on Seneca St in an apartment shared with Tom, and two other fellows.  One of them was Nick Grieven, the other I cannot remember the name.

[...] One more note:  I didn't answer your question of why we four were made "the leaders".  This was clearly Kirk's show.  We were his back up as it grew outsized, out of hand.  Dick had plenty of contacts with the architects, mainly the Latins, who said they had plenty of experience with demonstrations.  That was a scary thought.  Who knows what gangs in frat houses around the gorges might have done.

Matters were made worse when the PA system broke down.  So there was a large crowd, energy, and no one could hear anything more.  So off the masses went in various directions.  Dick and I were probably pretty visible, but we had little to do with any riots except that we were expressing our objections to the stand of the administration.  Rather, Kirk was expressing his position.

I don't recall that Tom had anything at all to do with that affair.  The four were Kirk, Dick, me and Dave, and our involvement was in that order.

G: Can you tell us if Pynchon, Sale, Fariña, and/or yourself appear in any of these photos of the student protests (see the attached photos which we explored in our earlier posts)? If so, can you point them out for us? These photos all appeared in the SUN's coverage of the student protest, although the first one is copied from an AP reprint in the NY Daily (by the way, President Malott is the person circled in this first photo). If it helps to see these images in the context of the SUN, here are links: images 1 and 2; image 3.




P: I think so.  In the third photo.  I have attached the cut out, and Dick is on the left and I to the right:


G: Who was using the name Ludlow in the photos? Just to clarify, in the third picture on our first blog post, was that Guy du Puy on the left and Ludlow on the right?

P: No idea.


G: Did Fariña write the dueling article?

P: I don't recall the duel at all.  It may have come after I left, but if not, it was just part of the usual stuff. I do not think that is Tom with Dick in the duel.  If anyone, it might be Al Kurdle.  He would also be the likely impersonator F. Scott Fitzgerald as that was his guru.

D: We'd like to know more about the pantheon of characters and pseudonyms [from the SUN]. Aladar, Cbarl, Hochkappler, Ludlow, du Puy, Huntington...what other adventures did they get into, other than those we cited?

P: Cannot help here.  It might have come from the confusing visit from Oswald LeWinter, a fabulous phony who showed up in various disguises over a period of years.  One time as Rommel's son.  Dick got taken in every time but was also very impressed.

D: As for Oswald LeWinter, I just looked him up and he got me very intrigued.  When you say he showed up, what do you mean?  Was he a regular visitor to Cornell or something?

P: He popped up 3 times I believe. Dee Snodgrass all riled up too.  Dick was completely taken in by the son of Rommel impersonation.  I think it ended badly for Dick.  Loss of money, loss of a girlfriend too I vaguely remember, and for a time loss of pride.

G: Do you know why Sale's arm was in a sling in photos of the protest?

P: I remember the arm was broken, but I can't remember how or why.

D: I know that the "riot" has been written about quite a bit so I was hoping to ask a few more questions as we go along? One thing I was wondering is if you could speak a little bit about the writing culture in general at Cornell.  It seems like a lot of talented writers were together at the same time and that you had some excellent professors to stimulate that.  Baxter Hathaway seems like a great guy.  Of course, having Nabokov on staff was pretty cool too!

So my questions: Could you tell us your impression of the writing program and culture at Cornell?

P: It was fabulous, more like an immersion.  I sometimes think I learned by osmosis there.  No one said that we were in a period that would be regarded as great.  We just felt without being self conscious we would do great things.  Everyone around us was writing something ambitious or lyrical and interesting.

We just expected a creative experience all the time I guess.  153 Goldwyn Hall was as much a hang out as the editorial offices of EPOCH magazine. 

[…] Jim McConkey […] was like a mentor to both me and to Dick.  He had taught at Montana I recall, and Baxter Hathaway brought him into the faculty.  He, Ammons, + Walter Slatoff, were faculty located I think at the Epoch office at 153 Goldwyn.  Jim is an accomplished novelist [and] short story writer, […] for sure he was a pillar in the Cornell writing scene.  He also talked Dick and me out of at least one outrageous prank.

G: You were surrounded by talented crew at Iowa! I like this idea of bringing together so many hard working people. That's something where I think the Internet has helped--a great tool for bringing people in contact, perhaps collaborating, or perhaps just being motivated by like-minded people.

P: Yes, the Internet has been a game changer, Still, I think poets need to interact.  I hear from people that the workshop environment has changed in ways that the old guard is not so happy with.  For me the old guard were the teachers of people like Dickey, Justice, Snodgrass.  These would be Lowell, Berryman and others who were mythical, and whose spirits were always in the air.

D: You corresponded quite a bit with Hathaway—some of your letters are in his archives—what is your opinion of his role in all of your writing lives?

P: I didn't know I wrote often to Baxter Hathaway.  [ed. - We were probably mistaken in our previous question. Looking back through Hathaway papers, we found only one mention of Perry in box 4 folder 21.] He [Hathaway] was the head of the program, but I never had a course with him. I just had conversations I guess when I was in 153 Goldwyn, and then there were frequent socials with Baxter Hathaway in attendance, and also senior professors like Mike Abrahms, and if I recall Robert Adams (not so sure here) and plenty of profs in between.

I may have had some correspondence with Baxter when I was at Iowa.  While at Iowa I think I had two poems published in Epoch.  I am pretty certain Baxter H. had a lot to do with my getting funds at Iowa because my undergrad grades were marginal at best.  My learning took place more at night.

D: Do you recall if there was some scandal around Nabokov and more importantly, was he as good a teacher as writer?  (Lolita to me being one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read, but otherwise I don't really know his oeuvre.)

P: I don't know of any scandal with him.  I never took a course with him either, tho' I got plenty of feedback from Leigh Buchanan who did.

G: I believe that Nabokov left while you were at Cornell. According to Hathaway, this was partly stemming from in-fighting among the faculty of the English Department, a tussle for power between scholars and creative writers, like Nabokov. Lolita came out in the US in '58, which was not only possibly embarrassing to other faculty members at Cornell, but it sounds like it helped provide Nabokov with the funds to move on from Cornell.

In '59, a student named Alan Metcalf (perhaps you knew him?) wrote story for the SUN called Christmas Tale that seems to be a satire commenting on Nabokov (it features a foreign professor with a butterfly collection who scares students with an eagle named Hubert who swoops after students -- not exactly discrete, in other words). I have to confess, however, that I don't really understand the satire beyond the surface references; it seems to commingle commentary about Cornell's in loco parentis policy alongside commentary about Nabokov and events that led to his leaving Cornell.

Perhaps none of this rings a bell, but if it does, we were hoping you might have some insights to the events surrounding Nabokov's departure or insights into the Christmas Tale that you could share.

P: I only recall that Nabokov left quickly and that seemed a result of his financial success.

D: Also, more delicate [...] Are there any anecdotes you can share with us about Fariña?  Did you stay in touch at all after you left Cornell?  I'm sure this must be a source of some sad memories so I apologize beforehand if this is an unwelcome question.

P: There are so many.  Some funny, some dangerous.  As I mentioned Dick loved The Compleat Practical Joker (a Cornellian) and we were always conspiring to pull off something memorable.  I should say Dick would be in the lead on these.  As you may know many thought of Dick as a self promoter, as Dee Snodgrass commented once, he had this thick Irish sweater but nothing much under it. That is really how I saw Dick too.  I had that in common with Dave Seidler.  On the other hand that was only one side of the truth.  Dick really was a deep friend of mine.  I almost saw him drop into the raging Triphammer Gorge when the cable broke as he descended into the gorge. By some miracle, his descent ended as he lay prone on the last ledge before his certain death.  I saw this like in slow motion, and then I also had weeks of aggrandisement in the telling how he, Hemingway-like had flirted once again with disaster, and his time was not to be now.  Certainly there were gods who watched him especially.

I think it was about then that I sent two lyrical poems to the Writer and submitted using Dick's name.  No one knows this I don't think.  They were accepted and the editors spoke to him about them. He went into a tizzy, people imitating him "already", but then there was a second explanation:  these were truly 18th century lyrical poems with his name applied.  Dick took them to Mike Abrahms, sr authority, and he apparently told Dick these were modern, the word choices and diction made it 20th century.  It was a great laugh.  And for me it was a strange kind of breakthrough.  I wrote these with ease; they were exactly the opposite of the tortured things I was doing, or trying to do.  In a way it gave me structure.

I found later that I have several styles I slip into back and forth, and the easiest for me to write, and what is most liked publicly is this "easy" voice.  I never told anyone (I hope) because I was a bit sheepish.  Dick was so pumped up over it.  I thought it was a bit mean.  Nothing was ever mentioned again from any side.  I bet someone knew.

Dick wrote me several times while I was at Iowa, and he even came roaring thru town arriving at Vance Bourjailey's with a shot deer over the fender arriving in the dead of winter out of Montana.

We were in touch also in NYC.  I remember the night he breezed into the White Horse on Hudson Street showing the bandage on his arm as he was to marry Caroline Hester.  Years later after I got back from Puerto Rico, and was working while living in New Jersey, Dick had me join him and Mimi at some parts (Vanity Fair sticks in my mind for some reason).  He was playing a zither and she sang, I think.  He wanted me to drop everything and come to California and live in his compound and write songs for Joan and crew.  I did not,  I had children.  I should have I think.  I just never had the instinct Dick had to do things the easy way.  He knew that, and that was one of the strange things about our friendship.  We just had lots of fun together, and in many other ways thought much alike.

D: Likewise the following [is more delicate]. Are there any Pynchon stories you could share with us regarding his writing habits at the time, which do not violate his well-known request for privacy?

P: Tom was so prolific, so capable.  In the background I always hear the Rakes Progress, which I think I knew by heart.  It always was on the hi fi Tom had in his room where we lived on Seneca St.

I do remember one of his periodic lock downs for 3 days in his room because he wanted to write an opera, maybe it was over two weeks with one severe 3 day lock down.  To write the opera (his first with 3 acts) he had to learn Italian first.  That did it.  True or not he was confirmed a genius.

Finally, going back to the culture at Cornell then, I saw no change in the intensity of talent at Paul Engle's Iowa: Al Lee, Bill Brown, Mark Strand, Annette Basalyga, Donald Justice, Mike Harper, Robert Berner, Phillip Roth, Walter Travis(?), Jerry Bumpus, Jim Crenna, Vern Rutsala (an excellent poet and straight thinker), Tad Richards, there were more, many more plus visits from previous years all friends of the workshop ringmaster Don Justice--  Henri Coulette, Phil Levine, Bob Mezzy, Chris Wiseman, people like Kim Merker, bars like Irene Kenny's, politicos, musicians, frequent visits by people like Karl Shapiro, WH Auden.  Hard to remember so many talents.  […] The poet Charles Wright, and also Steve(?) Parker.  And Nick Crome.  And for sure Knute Skinner.  I hope I have not forgotten other really talented writers […] I am uneasy about the name of people I forgot to mention. […] Verlin Cassill (RV Cassill) at Iowa […] was a faculty writer, always it seemed involved with Chuck Wright.  I had no classes with him but I was to be found often at the same parties late, late at night.  He was for sure one of the many top fiction people with Bourjaily and Phil Roth. 

I had less contact with Morty Marcus and Lew Turco.  I know I met both of them, in Kenny's I recall talking with Lew and also Bill Brady, another good poet.  Morty and Lew were associated with a group of Iowa poets and writers before my arrival, but somehow made extended visits during my time.  I had several good evenings with Morty but Lew I recall meeting only once.

Then there was a fine teacher of translations by the name of Fitzgerald.  Don Justice had me look into translations, and that was a wonderful training that led to writing some prose poems.

G: It seems like a number of your friends from Cornell ended up in NYC after graduating: Pynchon, Farina (off and on, I think), Sale, and others. I suppose that makes sense since you all went to school fairly close to the city. I really loved reading about Farina's adventures in NYC in "Positively 4th Street". I also can't help but imagine that spending this time together really helped encourage you all to stay focused on writing, which contributed to your successes. Can you share any more about this time?

P: I don't know how much focus there was.  There were two locations in NYC, the  "west side flophouse" on 84st and West End or was it Riverside (in those days not much gentrified at all), and the East side "flophouse" a five story walk up between York + 1st ave in what was then a slum building with armies of cockroaches.  I had left Ithaca after graduating in February 59 and then I think it was in June that the rest came down from Ithaca.  (Hard to figure this out because I thought Dick had already left and was at an ad agency, but then it must be that he returned to Ithaca after I left.)

I was rooming with Robin Palmer first on 79th street on the east side.  This was a room with no kitchen, no bath except in the hall.  So I guess then that I am confused on the time, because later we had the 49th St place, and even later I was back at the 79th St rooming house.

Generally any one of the crew just stayed at either place depending on what side of town they were on. Walking up 5 flights made the East side place even more undesirable I think, so the center of our group would be the West side location.  There I think it was Tom and Kirk who lived there, and then somehow Dick and Bob Tuttle.  The west side was also easier for direct subway shots downtown to the village.  Often we would yoyo late night on the returns past our stops.  A miracle we were  not robbed and beaten several times.  Sometimes on these late returns uptown Kirk and Bob Tuttle would amuse themselves by playing chess from memory, making moves in their heads with no board.

On the East side we had other amusements.  And there was the fabulous table and hospitality of Hans + Gerda Meyerhof.  They entertained a really amazing group of intellectuals from CCNY and Columbia and elsewhere--art historians, scholars, artists.  Often we had dinner there, Dick, Kirk, Tom, Bob, Robin.  Frau Meyerhof sometime shook her head and said it was like listening to a convention of the poetic plumbers.

G: I know that Pynchon didn't spend too much time in NYC while you were there because he moved to work for Boeing, but V., if nothing else, must have been influenced by this time. On the other hand, I think that you and some of the other Cornellians must've spent a fairly long time there. Did you move from NYC to go to grad school in Iowa? That would have been in the '70s, prior to moving to Puerto Rico?

P: Yes, I suppose there was an 18-month period or so in NYC.  I had a crumby job as an assistant editor on a trade magazine, and then did some leg work for Hans Meyerhof before the enterprise died.  I learned a lot then, and most importantly the first lesson on how little I knew how things run in corporate America.

Then off to Iowa and the poetry workshop for the next 3 years starting in 1960 thru June 1963 […]

Right after Iowa, summer in Scranton, then to Puerto Rico to teach 3 semesters.  This stay was financially difficult.  Teaching was a dead end unless with a PhD, and with 2 children I was not going down that path.  I needed a job that paid.

It was during my time in Iowa that Dick was doing his Gerdie Folk City thing.  My sister was closer to that scene, much closer.

D: What contemporary authors do you read?  I'm a big fan of Jonathan Lethem myself!

P: I read whatever strikes me, tho' mostly political, and then poetry.  Recently Billy Collins, Kay Ryan, Mark Strand (again) Kirk Sale (did you know The Sea is Salt?), Marvin Bell, Annette Basalyga, Tad Richards and Roz Brackenbury.

D: Are you going to try and publish your recent work?

P: I hope to.  I send it out, but it takes months for responses.  Very painful to get rejections again because some things [are] plenty good. 

G: Not to butter you up, but could you point us to anything that you've written that we could read?  We're really interested in knowing more about your work as a poet.

P: There is not much alive today.  Certain domestic upheavals ended in the loss of magazines where early work appeared, Prairie Schooner, Contact, Epoch, one piece in the New Yorker, some translations in a contemporary French poetry book put out by Don Justice, that Robert Frost prize last year. Basically, what I had during and after the Iowa workshop seems lost or destroyed.  I didn't write again until about 4 years ago, and now I seem to be doing some good things.  Publishing them is not so easy as before as it seems the little magazines need to know you first, and I am not just forgotten, I was even thought dead as you are aware.

D: I was sorry to hear about losing your poetry.  I photocopied everything I'd written at my job a few years back and left a copy each with two writer/poet friends....just in case.  Still, I have lost full notebooks and shrugged it off!  Any way we can see the poem that won in the contest?  Or maybe a more recent one...I gave up writing poetry about the time I started this blog and now feel the urge to get back to it....

P: There were one or two pubs in Epoch I think in the 60s, and then the Tsunami poem in the 2012 Robert Frost contest.  Years back the NYer had my "For Nicholas, Born in September" poem and it was reprinted in a collection of NYer poetry.  I don't know where the Prairie Schooner poems are but two were published in the early 60s, and there was December magazine, and in Contact out of San Francisco.  Also some anthologies over the years.  Here's the Tsunami: http://www.tskw.org/wp-content/uploads/Tsunami1.pdf

[…] One other thing lost was a prose poem I wrote that won 1st prize for the fiction-writing contest. Vance Bourjaily was the judge. I think it had the unlikely name Omaha Northern natural Gas Iowa Fiction Writing Contest. That too is lost, all copies of it vanished. I would try to contact the company, but it morphed into Enron! I guess we all change. [ed. note: If anyone has a copy, please share it with us so that we can get it to Mr. Perry!!]

D: OK, quite a few q's and some open-ended ones at that! Hope you are well. […] This has been a cool experience for us, so I hope the final product doesn't disappoint you.  We often write these posts and appeal for comments or thoughts, but this rarely bears fruit.  It’s very gratifying to have this opportunity to get into more detail, so thanks again for taking the time to talk with us.

P: [...] I had a chance to reflect on the events in 1958, and more I sort of anticipated the direction your questions might take. Specifically, regarding the "culture" of this group at Cornell, and then how this fit in or compared to later experiences.

I realize that what I thought I remembered so clearly often has no beginning or no end.  It is like a photo that you might say "oh yeah" to, but which has no context in memory.  I wrote about this phenomenon last year with my poem, Que Guapo.  Seems to apply here.  It is attached.  It has not been published.

D: Thank you, Mr. Perry, for allowing us to post this poem along with the photo that inspired it.


Que Guapo

These photos all have voices
saying what you think they say,
you just can't hear them.
None have exactly the face in the mirror now,
the one with the demeanor of a nasty camel,
a Yasser Arafat over the hill in his final years.

At five, a smile shines with blessings, dimples
radiate a love straight from a mother's heart,
the teeth so wide, it is disarming to see
such innocence in this buck-toothed beauty.

At ten beside my sister, with four hands each
counting the gloves pinned to our cuffs,
we stand shoulder high in snow after a romp.
Scribbled on the snapshot border--
"how I loved that coat",
That toothy boy there with no idea
how soon his time would come to knuckle down.
Today, I don't remember just what it was
about the coat or why I loved it so.

We save these photos for so many reasons,
perhaps as many as there are photos.
I always avoided them:
too toothy, too thin,
too much like my father.
I didn't know enough back then to calculate
how a lifetime comes in steps all much the same
till time deceives and changes by degrees,
and so I trusted more a power held within
to know what things would stick,
what fresh or subtle face would keep
each smile safely stored inside like yesterday.

Que Guapo, says the young technician from Columbia
(and means my picture as a slender lad in white),
as she buffs the golden stumps inside my mouth,
white shirt, white pants, white shoes,
all 140 pounds, yes, 19 and handsome,
a day remembered for one ugly hangover,
yet the photo doesn't say how my head was fuzzy,
and that the lean stomach growled with beer.

Que Guapo, so sincere, and what a compliment,
Que surpriso! Me, in her eyes dressed so fine,
and in mine, harnessed to my first working whites, 
and not a bit the gentleman cabellero. 
By then a camel suited up for burdens, I had no time
for the liberating euphonies of the arts,
or most other pleasures not foaming in a glass.
Que Guapo. Awakened here, the animal alert
to the daring scent of the caravans, 
at the start of a marathon run full gallop.

Of these matters the photos hardly say,
forgot to say, or never knew to say.
Familiar people, nameless,  are stranded together
pasted onto the lost islands of an album.
They send out their messages in dots and dashes
to a world that chatters now in a busy stacatto 
with cyber-friends in terabytes and holograms.

In time there was more that I forgot,
the small and simple things began to fly,
the keys to start and then the glasses,
the names of friends, new words for everything,
those wallets for extra credit cards and currencies
which then developed wider into categories,
personal IDs, then user names with puzzling alterations,
logins, PINs, with passwords and mutations stored
in vaults where codes are keys,
some 48 and counting, or maybe 50 now
like the states, (plus some territories).
And so, just so, do simple thoughts get buried,
important from the start, but in the end unsaved.

That girl who loved her monkeys and the color purple
is a doctor now, and maybe several kinds of doctor;
she spent a life like Sisyphus in search of funds
to save the floods of children abandoned by the earth.
Despite the disappointments of her work
in the crushing world she sought to change,
she mourns, by Skype, the most for children lost 
and not at all her fortunes lost for causes,
and loves her monkeys still and the color purple.

What I remember less each day is not so clear,
but more than just a favorite coat:
the people first by ones, and then in groups,
and now whole buildings disappear.
These photos put a face on things long gone,
a time and place to show in bits what partly is,
a space that sees the small forgotten rains
before the deluge, and after, how time spilled over
to well up in that amazing face in the mirror,
that me, cozy and loud as a camel in the rain,
most at home on a path to somewhere,
at my best with things uncomfortable,
and, hey, it has been a ride, Que Guapo.

Tod Perry

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Monday, December 16, 2013

My fist is small but my halo is large


"Our most recent post about the phenomenon of photographers photographing politicians and popes so that a conveniently placed light or other applicable circle appears to form a halo around their heads also conveniently recapitulates LoS' collection of said photos, along with a small barrel, a tin honestly, of related images witch toy about with the air of human sanctity.  Or devilry."
--J. Jonah Jameson
 
You can see some other examples here on LoS, or you can see how this photo actually niftily relates to the content of an article (Like Pope Francis? You’ll love Jesus.) in today's WaPo about the liberal love affair with our Lateran lad.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Collaboration With A Dead Man

This is an excerpt from Collaboration With A Dead Man by LoS pal Tim Wilson.  Unfortunately, the process of squeezing the file into the you tube led to a one-second de-synchronization of the sound and image.  I hope to get Tim to describe the transfiguration of the file (Done, see below).  I know it was shot on 16mm, then videotaped from the screen of a flatbed editor, probably a Steenbeck, in the editing suite of the now-defunct USF film program.  Where it went before finally becoming a YouTube flash dealy would be an interesting insight into the digital fate of older analog media....



addeed 12/17

Daurade:  Can you describe the various transfer processes and the various formats this went through before you uploaded it to YouTube? I think that would be an interesting detail to add to the post. As I recall, some other video you've done went through almost 10 formats....16, VHS and then....?

Wilson:  Oh yeah, that was kind of a crucial element; I think now it was intended anyway to be something like the spate of "found footage" horror films, the story extracted, assembled from a cache of media, etc. 

But lessee, reality went into the camera holes, exposing Super-8 Ektachrome, Super-8 TRI-X and 16mm B/W Reversal Film. The color Family Vacation shots are true found footage, color 16mm. The whole of it was developed and rephotographed thru an Optical Printer onto 16mm Reversal, the results of which were in turn developed and run again thru the Optical Printer, etc. Some shots have been treated this way up to four times. At the time, this process of reshooting footage was almost the content of the film in many ways; the structure resulting from zooming into shots, reframing scenes, stop-motion frame by frame control of speed, exposure, pans to following hairs and spots on the film rather than the focused action, etc. So each round of Optical Printing had the strange effect of both making the original more broad, stark -- more diffused perhaps? -- but also it revealed hidden figures, complex motions, emergent scenes composed of increasingly globular film grain. This cinema/motion film material was bolstered by material culled from the paper ephemera of Jorge Suarez's life. Squares were cut from magazines, letters, etc, and packed into slides. Photographed through the OP as a kind of hurdy-gurdy animation, the printed matter illuminated such that it featured the front facing elements juxtaposed with the material on the backward, flip-side. The footage arising from this process was then developed and cut into the earlier material on a flatbed film-editor. I also spent considerable time at this stage cutting raw audio mag-tape, which comprises the entirety of the soundtrack. This length of hot-glue edited film, along with the diagonal tape edits of audiotape, was transferred to 3/4 inch Video for final editing. Later, this video was transferred to standard VHS, which was in turn digitized as a compressed DVD mpeg which spit out and split it all into disconnected chapters for some reason. These DVD chapters were strung together in AfterEffects and rendered as a lossless avi. Lastly, this avi was crunched down by Adobe Media Encoder into several web-friendly formats, one of which was stuffed thru a tiny, rough-hewn hole for YouTube display.

added 12/18


These are some of the slided from the Jorge Suarez material mentioned by Tim:

Photographed through the OP [optical printer] as a kind of hurdy-gurdy animation, the printed matter illuminated such that it featured the front facing elements juxtaposed with the material on the backward, flip-side.

Obviously, now one would just scan a magazine and pop the resultant .jpeg into After Effects, but back in the day, one had to physically photograph the image, the length of time on screen determined by how many times you shot it.  Remember at 24 fps, if you wanted say, a four-second appearance, you'd have to re-shoot the image 96 times!  The OP was tedious work and Tim was making the most extensive use of it in the film program, as far as I know.

Digital film-making can produce marvellous results....Inland Empire was filmed on a camera one can buy used for somewhere around 1000 euros.  Digital is faster and cheaper, allowing for many more experiments and takes; it makes film-making more accessible to the general public.  Most film stalwarts (as Tim was) have embraced it.  But most of them will probably tell you that they're glad to have worked with film.  The physicality of it, the mechanical and chemical processes involved, the strange contraptions and devices one had to avail oneself of....there's something undeniably rewarding working with tangible objects.  Although film-makers and artists have embraced digital formats, I think there will remain a tiny niche for working with actual film....as long as someone keeps making the stuff.

The second photo in the Wikipedia article on the optical printer shows a JK 16mm OP setup with a Bolex H16, which is very much if not exactly the same setup we had at USF.

For more about Jorge Suarez (b.1922, Santiago, Chile-d.1992, NYC), the "dead man" of the film's title, see the Plastic Tub.

A collector of all manner of porn, from cheesecake to hardcore, he only left his appartment to buy cheap gin and visit sex shops to add to his ever-growing collection.  
....
He had cut himself off from the world, and everyone respected that, still pained, however, by Suarez' obstinate pursuit of decadent solitude.  

Friday, December 13, 2013

Cthulhu Rising

Subtle.
The spook establishment doesn't at all seem to be hunkering down quietly in the wake of the now weekly revelations of the depth and breadth of its domestic and international espionage and surveillance.

Au contraire, mon frère!  Instead they've given a big "fuck you" to the world with the design of their latest mission patch.  As HuffPo puts it:  "America Is Launching A Giant, World-Sucking Octopus Into Space".  Again.

This from the launch of a classified payload by the National Reconnaissance Office, the NSA partner responsible for providing satellite-based surveillance capabilities.

This wasn't exactly hidden, as the logo was tweeted by the Office of the DNI on the day of the launch:

Ready for launch? An Atlas 5 will blast off at just past 11PM, PST carrying an classified NRO payload (also cubesats)

So, is this a result of arrogant indifference to the concerns of the American public over NSA/NRO spying activities?  Is it an ironic joke?  Or could it be a threatening reminder, a kind of Psy-op employed as none-too-subtle intimidation tactic?

I suspect the latter.  But I have been wrong before.  Once.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Alfred Starr Hamilton, 2: Bibliography in Progress

ASH 1914-2005

An introduction to this bibliography can be found here:
  
  
I first put this online in November, 2001, updating it from time to time until 2004 or 2005.  This latest edition [2013] has a few additions and I hope readers will contribute as well.  

12 Dec 2016:  Updated with neEpoch references, Wake Up Heavy reference and images.

3 Nov 2022:  I recently came across the University of Chicago library's description of their ASH archives and was able to add about a dozen new citations for magazines, in effect doubling the bibliography's size.  I'm sure it's still incomplete.  Since I first put this up 20 years ago, the number of online articles about and referencing Hamilton has skyrocketed.

I.  Books & Chapbooks

Sphinx. Kumquat Press, Montclair, NJ 1968

Published by Geof Hewitt. 


Kumquat Press apparently still exists and you can reach them at: Kumquat Press, P.O. Box 51, Calais, VT 05648. Hewitt is himself a poet who leads workshops across the state of Vermont. Hewitt's been a juried member of the Vermont Arts Council since 1971.

The Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton.  Introduction by Geof Hewitt. Drawings by Philip Van Aver. The Jargon Society, Penland, NC 1970

"Al Hamilton is the kind of poet everybody says they'd like to be.  He doesn't apply for grants and has probably never heard of the national Council on the Arts.  He doesn't teach in a college or write reviews or wash dishes in a diner and other odd jobs.  He writes poetry.  All he does is write poetry."
The Jargon Society
PO Box 15458
Winston-Salem, NC 27113
The Big Parade. The Best Cellar Press, Lincoln, Neb., 1982

 
"This book is published as a special issue of the poetry magazine PEBBLE. This is issue number 22."

Best Cellar Press

Greg Kuzma, Editor
Department of English
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588

(The next two books appeared after my ASH website ceased to exist)

Send This to the Immune Officer.  Commentary etc. by Lisa Borinsky.  Weird New Jersey, Inc., Bloomfield, NJ, 2010


Letters from ASH to the Montclair Police Dept. with commentary.  A fascinating and compelling read.

A Dark Dreambox of Another Kind:  The Poems of Alfred Star Hamilton.  Edited by Ben Estes and Alan Felsenthal.  Introduction by Geof Hewitt.  The Song Cave, 2013


A comprehensive collection of early poems published in various journals, to previously unpublished, hand-written poems written during his final years at an assisted-living facility.  It's well-designed, and the occasional use of black pages, the title, and the introduction by Hewitt all recall the Jargon book.  It's even got a photo by Simpson Kalisher on the cover, almost certainly taken during the same session as the photo used for the Jargon collection.  Unlike the Jargon book, "Dreambox" includes an autobiographical blurb by Hamilton, originally written for Quickly Aging Here (1969).

John Latta mentions the following two works as well, but I'm not sure if they're books, chapbooks, or broadsides....Any info out there?  I got the the following info from WorldCat.

An orange drink at Nedick's.  Crawlspace, Belvidere Ill., 1985

War and Peace: poems.  Blue Moon, Tuscon AZ [?], 1960 [?]

The references on WorldCat give no indication of the length of these books and the date of War and Peace is incorrect; Blue Moon was founded in 1975.  Both publishers do exist, however.

 
II.  Magazines / Journals

Epoch.  Fall 1962 Vol. XII, No. 3  Cornell University:  "Crabapples"

Epoch.  Fall 1963 Vol. XIII, No. 1  Cornell University:  6 poems 

 

EpochWinter 1963 Vol. XII [XIII?], No. 3  Cornell University


Epoch.  Spring 1964 Vol. XIII, No. 3  Cornell University:  3 poems


Epoch. Winter 1965 Vol. XIV, No. 4  Cornell University:  5 poems

EpochWinter 1967 Vol. XVII, No. 2  Cornell University   


Metanoia. Vol. 1, No. 1 December 1967

Metanoia. Vol 1 (?), No. 4 1968 (?)
 
Monk's Pond. No. 1 Spring 1968.  Trappist, KY:  "Poems from Salvation Army"


Judging from Hamilton's correspondence with Merton, 6 poems were included.

Poems of the People.  No. 3 1970: 3 poems [Thanks to Eric Torgersen for sending these scans from PotP].


"This was a mimeographed publication sent free to underground papers....who were free to publish any of the poems etc. in the issue. Published by me [Eric Torgersen] with Michael Lally and Paula Novotnak. 
It was a publication in its own right, with some individual subscribers, but the service to the papers was the point. I can't name individual publications....but besides the three who produced it we had stuff from Robert Bly, from small-c communist poet Walter Lowenfels, Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs, Vincent Ferrini (who plays a role Olson's Maximus Poems), plus many of the most political poets out there in little-mag world."
The Archive. Vol. 83, No.3 Spring 1971: 8 poems

The Archive. Vol. 83, No.2 Winter 1971: 19 poems

Note: the volume info for The Archive comes from the Guide to the Alfred Starr Hamilton Papers 1963-2015 at the University of Chicago Library; I'm not sure why No. 2 is Winter and No. 3 is Spring; I suspect an error with the numbering or the dates, and will try to clarify this with UC.

New Letters: A Continuation of the University Review. Vol. 39, No. 1 Fall 1972:  short biography and 4 poems

The Wormwood Review. Vol. 16, No. 1 (Issue No. 61) 1975: “Double Daring" (10 pages of poems dated 9/12/75)

Workshop 25. Fall, 1975. Bob Arnold, Ed.

I don't know what poems are included.

American Poetry Review. March/April, 1976:  "Color Lines," "Moon," "To Father Coughlin," "Pink Ponds;" p.13

"I am immune."

Poetry Now. Volume III. Numbers 3-6 (Issues 15-18), 1976:  "Our Flag," "The Pool," "Wilkes Barre, Pa.," "Broom Factory," "Visitations," "War;" p. 60-61

waves [sic], No. 1 1978: "Walden House," "Baloney," "Boy Meets Girl"

New Letters: A Magazine of Fine Writing. Winter 1981/82:  4 poems

The UC archives list “Apples” and “Crawlspace” as "Published Poetry" in 1985 but I'm not quite sure what that refers to, as no journal is mentioned.  Perhaps they were broadsides?  I think Crawlspace is a journal. They published "An orange drink at Nedick's" either as a broadside or in their magazine.

Cat's Eye, Winter 1980: "The War," "Ferlinghuysen Avenue," "Arena," "King Solomon" (I haven't verified this)

Cat's Eye, No. 3, Summer 1981: "With contributions from the reclusive outsider poet, Alfred Starr Hamilton...."
Exquisite Corpse. Vol. 5, Nos. 9-12 September-December 1987

Lips. No. 11 1985

Lips. No. 14 1988:  “A Drifting Cloud” and “The Month of Maine”

The Wormwood Review. Vol. 28, No. 1 (Issue 109) 1988:  “Yes” and “Poetry”

Journal of New Jersey Poets. Volume XVII. Number 2, 1995:  "Mirrorland," "Beautiful," "A Town without a Soul;" p. 1-3

Wake Up Heavy, No.3, 2000 


Chicago Review. No. 58 Summer 2013:. "Woodcut," "A Disciple of Red Christ," "Indomitably Bystanders," "City Wide," "Officers Shoes" 

(Hewitt apparently did a hand-printed broadside of a poem with this name in the late-60s.  WorldCat;  "Set and printed by hand, the Kumquat Press, Montclair, N.J., [196-?])  Hewitt writes:
I don't recall "Officer's Shoes," and cannot recall whether I issued a Hamilton broadside. I think there were 8, all on a nice white toothy paper with deckle edge, as I recall, each only as big as the poem plus margins, so there was Elliott Coleman"s "A Summer Sky" (18" x 14"+/-) and probably a Hamilton poem (10" x 6"). It's all getting a little foggy, but the broadsides are probably 1968 Iowa City, same letterpress shop as Sphinx.
Boston Review, 38, 2013: "Cinderella"


III.  Anthologies

Quickly Aging Here: Some of the Poets of the 1970's. Geof Hewitt, Ed. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1969.


Alfred Starr Hamilton’s “Anything Remembered,’’ “April Lights,’’ “Guardian,’’ 
“Liquid’ll,’’ “Town,” “White Chimes,” from Epoch, © 1963, 1964, 1967 
by Cornell University; “Bronze,” “Didn’t You Ever Search for Another 
Star?” “Psyche,” from Sphinx, © 1968 by The Kumquat Press.
Bleb Twelve. Gardner, Geoffrey, Ed. New York, NY: Bleb, 1977.

Thus Spake the Corpse : An Exquisite Corpse Reader 1988-1998 : Volume 2. Andrei Codrescu & Laura Rosenthals, Eds: "God," "February," & "New York City Public Library Lions."

 

Bluestones and Salt Hay. An Anthology of Contemporary New Jersey Poets. Joel Lewis, ed. Rutgers University Press, 1990. Foreword by Anne Waldman. 



IV.  About Alfred Starr Hamilton

HAMILTON, Alfred Starr  1914-[2005]

PERSONAL:  Borne June 14, 1914, in Montclair, N.J.; son of Alfred Starr and Virginia (Gildersleeve) Hamilton. Education:  Attended high school in Montclair, N.J. Politics:  Socialist.  Religion:  "Immune."  Home and office:   41 South Willow St., Montclair, N.J. 07042.
CAREER:  Poet.  Military service:  U.S. Army, 1942-43.
WRITINGS:  Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton, Jargon Press, 1970.  Contributor to Epoch, New Directions, Foxfire, New Letters, Archive, and Greenfield Review.
SIDELIGHTS:  Hamilton has hitchhiked through forty-three states.

source:  Contemporary Authors:  A bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields. Volumes 53-56. 1975: p.264

 
New: American and Canadian Poetry. Number 9, 1969; p. 40-41

A review of Sphinx by Eric Torgerson.


"Notes towards extinction: American poetry wipe-out." New: American and Canadian Poetry. Number 15, 1971; p. 39-44

 
This essay is a "state of poetry today" kind of thing.  Hewitt doesn't say anything about Hamilton that couldn't be applied to any number of other poets, but he does praise his unique voice, apparent lack of concern for literary "fashion" and ability to maintain a strong "presence" in the poetry without being its sole object.

[I've always felt my description here sounds a bit flip, so I should reiterate my respect for Hewitt as a long-time champion of ASH and a stand-up guy.  I've had exchanges with a few Hamiltonians and to a number they're good people].

Three poems are given in full:  "Liquid'll," "April Lights," and "Hark"

The New York Times.  April 13 and May 25, 1975


On April 13 Jonathan Williams has "The Guest Word" in the New York Times Book Review.  He berates James Dickey for high reading fees and praises Hamilton.  The article repeats the Hamilton story told by Hewitt and makes a plea on his behalf for money, adding that for 1975 he only needs about $2,000.  A Spartan existence is outlined.  The details differ, but it is essentially the same story given by Geof Hewitt in his intro to The Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton.

"I'm not immune.  I'm just out in the open.  There aren't as many bees as there used to be."

On May 25 Williams writes in to report that Hamilton donations have come to the tune of $5,600 dollars.

Blackbird Dust. Jonathan Williams. Turtle Point Press, 2000.

 
Includes his NYT article from May 25, 1975.

The New York Times.  "His Poetry Was Odd, but His Letters to the Police Were Odder." Peter Aplebome. 23 Aug 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/nyregion/23towns.html?_r=0. Accessed 06/11/13.
“Dear Police; Is anything of this kind surreptitious?” reads one letter dated Jan. 10, 1983. “I don’t know. Make sure everything is alright. Send this to the immune officer. I am immune. Alfred Starr Hamilton.”
Not so much a review as a description of Borinsky's magazine and the paradoxes in ASH's life.

CounterText, Vol. 7, Iss. 1 2021: Moreover: Reading Alfred Starr Hamilton. John Wilkinson.

Honest question. Is this a satire of academia?  I'm not saying it to take a dig at anyone, but this reads like a satire of academic jargon.
This article addresses the challenge to professionalised practices of reading represented by the oeuvre of Alfred Starr Hamilton (1914–2005), with broader implications for the contested category of Outsider Writing. Drawing on the author's experience, three types of early life encounter with poetry are specified, guided to its objects by cultural and parental authority and later reaction against them: a fetish of the book and representations of the poet, oral pleasure, and the magic of the word as an illimitably productive and plastic material. These are linked to encounter with Hamilton's poetry, at once unrelentingly repetitive, and sponsored and structured by a small seedbank of magic words, occasioning the sudden florescence of beauty. To read Hamilton requires a feline practice of submitting to reverie while registering disturbance and aesthetic shock precisely.

V.  Music  (Eventually, if such a thing were to happen, I'd add theater or cinematic works about or  
                     inspired by Hamilton)

A.  The Bye Bye Blackbirds have a song called "Alfred Starr Hamilton" on their 2016 album Take Out the Poison.  I wrote them and asked why, or if an ASH line is used as a lyric.  Singer/songwriter Bradly Skaught replied:
[The song] doesn't incorporate any of his lines (or even approximate his style) but it was inspired by him. It's not so much about his work, but him as a person and an artist, living and working so marginally and isolated, yet still creating this rich artistic life. I found myself thinking about artists at the margins, some of whom we never even hear of and vanish without a trace, but who lived an artistic life and navigated the world with a spirit of creative investigation and expression regardless of their relationship to anything like the art world, publishing, etc. I guess I was trying to capture something of the feeling of that spirit, and maybe relating to it as well -- to that core drive to be creative and create art in whatever little sphere of life we find ourselves in.

Here's that song:



B.  Composer Nathan Hall has set 5 ASH poems to music and put them on SoundCloud: here. 2019.

VI.  Archives

The University of Chicago has some archival material related to Hamilton (3 boxes / 1.5 meters of shelf space) which are open to researchers.

The collection contains biographical information, personal belongings, correspondence, drafted prose inspired by Hamilton written by family members, book reviews, newspaper clippings with interviews and biographies, poetry journals and magazines, books, and Hamilton’s unpublished poetry manuscripts.

There is a more detailed inventory at the UC Library website.  It appears as though there are some appearances in print of which I was earlier unaware, and I've updated the bibliography accordingly.  If anyone has an opportunity to see those archives and would like to share with us, we'd be grateful.

My own collection of ASH book (not including photocopies from his appearances in poetry journals).  I started with the Jargon book in 2001 and got a copy of Sphinx in 2020.

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

If you know of any other appearances I've missed, please 
let me know and I'll add it to the bibliography.

Years ago I bought The Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton for 30 dollars and The Big Parade for 10 or 15.  Booksellers have cottoned to his enduring popularity and the increasing scarcity of these small print runs; both now sell for about 90 dollars.  I don't see Sphinx for sale anywhere; when it was available it was - even then - beyond my means.  You might try asking Geof Hewitt directly if he still has copies.  

If you are interested in the work, and not a collector, I'd recommend the Dreambox collection.  It's affordable, comprehensive, and a nice little book, easy to read (an important consideration for fogies like me) and not too big or heavy to bring to a picnic and read to your companions à la Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe....

Here are some links, if you're looking (I get no remuneration for this):
  • Sphinx
Many thanks to those who've helped me and agreed to be quoted.  I hope to annotate this bibliography further with anecdotes about the circumstances of these publications.  One day....