Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

I was east bound on I-70 when the SUV in front of me flipped over and rolled a couple of times. Stuff came flying out of it. A computer flew out of the back and went sliding down the road. After the cops and ambulance arrived, (too late to for the driver he was killed instantly) I walked down the shoulder to see what happened to the computer. I like to tinker with them so I was curious if any thing had survived. I found the hard drive sitting on the fog line. I picked it up and carried it around with me until I got home a couple of weeks later. I plugged it in to a computer I had and booted it up. It was as if I had the guy’s life fossilized in silicon. All his e-mail was there. I started reading it. He was pretty successful writer. There were letters to his New York literary agent, he was not happy with her; they were not on the same page. Something about a movie deal. He was getting a quarter million dollars but he thought he deserved more. There was a letter to his wife. He was upset because she had taken a menial job in a plant nursery because she enjoyed the work. There were letters to his brother complaining about the work he was doing on his summer home. Lots of woe, the guy was miserable, pissed at everyone. He had the mid-list author blues I was still an aspiring writer back then. And I was stunned how the man’s talent had brought him so much misery. He had money, he had a wife, and he had work. But it just wasn’t enough. Then I found out the man who was killed was not the author it was his brother who was moving his stuff for him. So now he did not have a brother. I wonder what else he might have lost. After about ten minutes the hard drive began to smoke and it gave up the ghost and died. I still keep it around.

One of the bosses at litkicks was writing about the problems of mid list authors and I posted this. It was deleted and so was I. Still don't know why. Hurt like hell when they deleted me. But I figure it was just my karma. I still got plenty left to loose.

Dear Still ( or Mr. G.):


From 1970 to 1996 I ran a small press funded with government grants and an occasional check from a millionaire who liked new, quirky literature. I was editor-in-chief and had three readers working for me, screening the pieces that came in. We published eighteen small books and various volumes of translation, illustrated texts and broadsides.

I am giving you this information simply to indemnify a claim I'm about to make:

Had this piece of yours come across my desk ( metaphorically speaking), I would have printed it in our quarterly magazine.

It has a kind of hammering relentlessness about it-- an inevitability with which each taggle, each tatter, each manic ort follows the foregoing one. In short, it has a flash or originality about it, reminds me very slightly of Paul Celan and Italo Calvino

http://www.galaxyezine.com/stories/reviews/snop010.html


and perfectly embodies the apothegm William Stafford

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/ ... afford.htm

applied to poetry:

"A poem is an emergency."



--Z

"A poem is an emergency." I love it.

been a long day, to beat to check the link. Save it for breakfast. Talk at you later.

Thanks

Sorry Norman four years late on this reply.
thank you for the treasure.
I have gaps in my reading you could drive a truck through

http://www.williamstafford.org/spoems/index.html

That fills a void.

I hope you are well