Photo credit: Jerome Mallmann
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Intro
'John Wieners was a key figure in the American poetic renaissance of the late 1950s and 1960s. In his work a new candour regarding sexual and drug-induced experience co-existed with both a jazz-related aesthetic of improvisation and a more traditional concern with lyric form. In 1958 his first book, The Hotel Wentley Poems, appeared. Taking its title from a bare-bulb flophouse in San Francisco's Polk Gulch, this rhapsodically Bohemian début begins by quoting the title of an album by Bud Powell – "the scene changes". In pieces such as "A Poem for Tea Heads" and "A Poem for Cocksuckers", the poet presents a mental world at once kaleidoscopic and imprisoning.
'An unexpurgated edition was not available until 1965, by which time Wieners had embarked on the most publicly successful phase of his career, becoming a teaching fellow at the State University of New York, Buffalo, an actor and stage manager at the Poet's Theater in Cambridge, and the author of three plays performed in New York. However, he struggled with mental illness for much of his life, and was institutionalised several times. Although Asylum Poems (1969) makes reference to this burden, Wieners never exploited his condition, as had Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath in their more smoothly turned declarations of suffering.
'Returning to Boston in 1970, Wieners became involved with publishing and education co-operatives, political action committees and the burgeoning movement for gay liberation. A fifth-floor, walk-up apartment in Joy Street, in the winding Beacon Hill area, would be home for the rest of his life. But settled quiet and conventional success were not on the agenda. Behind the State Capitol; or, Cincinnati Pike (1975) is one of the great books of the 20th century, a 200-page whirlwind of paranoid fury, hilarity, outrageous theatricality and ventriloquism.
'His poetic career effectively finished at this point. It was not a case of unfulfilled promise but of a life's work that developed rapidly and led with its own determined, internal logic to a natural conclusion. In the 1980s Wieners's editor Raymond Foye embarked on a quest to gather unpublished poems. With the help of Allen Ginsberg and Robert Creeley, who remained unswerving in their support, the results were published as Selected Poems 1958-1984 (1985) and its successor Cultural Affairs in Boston (1988). In an interview with Foye, the poet had answered a query as to his theory of poetics in eminently practical terms: "I try to write the most embarrassing thing I can think of."' -- Geoff Ward, The Independent
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Resources
The John Wieners Page @ EPC
Archive of John Wieners mp3s @ Penn Sound
In Memorium John Wieners
Pamela Petro's 'The Hipster of Joy Street
CAConrad on John Wieners
Douglas Messerli remembers John Wieners
The John Wieners Facebook Page
'The Blind See Only This World: Poems for John Wieners'
Watch four videos of John Wieners reading his poems
'Kidnap Notes Next'
John Wieners' books @ Black Sparrow Press
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News
'After John’s passing, Jim Dunn and I went through the notebook (red leather with gold trim) which Bill Berkson had given John who was locked up in a Long Island asylum in 1969. (Wieners wrote his Asylum Poems from that unhappy place.) With the notebook in hand, Jim and I (with great help and encouragement from John Mitzel) sought to identify unpublished complete poems from that red book. We sent photocopies to Raymond Foye whose great care, love and attention produced the Black Sparrow editions of Selected Poems, 1956-1986 and Cultural Affairs in Boston: Poetry and Prose 1956-1985. Now Jim Dunn has transcribed and scanned Wieners remarkable notebook to bring us [a book of ] previously unpublished poems (A New Book from Rome), perhaps worked into something of a stained glass window version reminiscent of the chapel of St. Louis IX in Paris.' -- Charles Shively
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Weird media
Flash animation: John Wieners 'A Poem for Record Players'
Fake Larry King reads John Wieners' 'A Poem for Vipers'
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The End
'John attended a party with Charlie Shiveley Sunday around 7:30 PM. Charley drove from Cambridge and picked up John even though the party was just across Cambridge Street. Charley stopped at the drugstore first and bought John some medicine, a box of candy, and an inhaler. The host of the party had a cat and John was feeling slightly under weather because he was allergic to cats. Charley thinks John left the party around 9:30 or 10. He was found in a nearby parking garage by the parking attendant and was admitted to the ICU at Mass General at midnight that night. John tried feebly on Monday morning to breathe on his own, but to no avail. He was put on the respirator machine. An MRI was taken that showed little or no brain activity. Friday, the doctors took another MRI and it confirmed that he was brain dead. Also, as he was lying in the hospital, there was a social worker who doggedly pursued finding John's identity. If it wasn't for her and the nurses at MGH, he may have never been ID'd. John's cousin (Walter Phinney's mother) stopped by after she was contacted by the hospital Friday afternoon. John was pronounced dead at 5:11 on March 1st. I arrived at 5:30 and Charley arrived an hour later. John was still breathing on the machine and his heart was still beating. Charley and I spent some time with him and then summoned the on-call priest to administer last rites. The priest said an "Our Father", and anointed John's forehead and hands. Around 8:00, the technician arrived and removed the breathing tube and shut down the respirator. Charley and I stood by. I had my hand on John's chest as his heart fluttered. We watched as his blood pressure dropped and his heart rate decreased from 111 down incrementally to 28 and then to X. His heart stopped beating at 8:16 PM. Immediately at that moment, the lights over the sink and the hospital supplies began flashing on and off in a strange rhythm. I pointed it out to Charley saying, “Look it's John”. Charley responded, "He must have gotten into the electrical system" It was a strange, sad and beautiful moment. We said our final good-byes and left him looking peaceful, serene, and almost heroic - eyes closed , full beard, and worry-free.' -- Jim Dunn
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10 poems
TWO YEARS LATER
The hollow eyes of shock remain
Electric sockets burnt out in the
skull.
The beauty of men never disappears
But drives a blue car through the
stars
ACT #2
I took love home with me,
we fixed in the night and
sank into a stinging flash
1/4 grain of love
we had,
2 men on a cot, a silk
cover and a green cloth
over the lamp.
The music was just right.
I blew him like a symphony,
it floated and
he took me
down the street and
left me here.
3 AM. No sign.
only a moving van
up Van Ness Avenue.
Foster's was never like this.
I'll walk home, up the
same hills we
came down.
He'll never come back,
there'll be no horse
tomorrow nor pot
tonight to smoke till dawn.
He's gone and taken
my morphine with him
Oh Johnny. Women in
the night moan yr. name.
DAVID ASPELIN
died at 16
put a rifle in his mouth, and laid across his bed at night.
After he held my hand on the way home and said
I will be dead tomorrow.
A POEM FOR VIPERS
I sit in Lees. At 11:40 PM with
Jimmy the pusher. He teaches me
Ju Ju. Hot on the table before us
shrimp foo yong, rice and mushroom
chow yuke. Up the street under the wheels
of a strange car is his stash--The ritual.
We make it. And have made it.
For months now together after midnight.
Soon I know the fuzz will
interrupt, will arrest Jimmy and
I shall be placed on probation. The poem
does not lie to us. We lie under
its law, alive in the glamour of this hour
able to enter into the sacred places
of his dark people, who carry secrets
glassed in their eyes and hide words
under the coats of their tongue.
COCAINE
For I have seen love
and his face is choice Heart of Hearts,
a flesh of pure fire, fusing from the center
where all Motion are one.
And I have known
despair that the Face has ceased to stare
at me with the Rose of the world
but lies furled
in an artificial paradise it is Hell to get into.
If I knew you were there
I would fall upon my knees and plead to God
to deliver you in my arms once again.
But it is senseless to try.
One can only take means to reduce misery,
confuse the sensations so that this Face,
what aches in the heart and makes each new
start less close to the source of desire,
fade from the flesh that fires the night,
with dreams and infinite longing.
TWO YEARS LATER
The hollow eyes of shock remain
Electric sockets burnt out in the
-----skull.
The beauty of men never disappears
But drives a blue car through the
----------------stars.
TO CHARLES ON HIS HOME
Death is an unforgiven
That's what we have in common
language an act of sharing words.
Coming tears will do it
Where there's smoke
THERe's a suitcase
fairies never change
into fire
It's so hard to get to the top.
Death is a failure
there are so many of them.
Dont trust her
I don't care how old the races are.
And I never have.
for Cher.
A POEM FOR RECORD PLAYERS
The scene changes
Five hours later and
I come into a room
where a clock ticks.
I find a pillow to
muffle the sounds I make.
I am engaged in taking away
from God his sound.
The pigeons somewhere
above me, the cough
a man makes down the hall,
the flap of wings
below me, the squeak
of sparrows in the alley.
The scratches I itch
on my scalp, the landing
of birds under the bay
window out my window.
All dull details
I can only describe to you,
but which are here and
I hear and shall never
give up again, shall carry
with me over the streets
of this seacoast city,
forever; oh clack your
metal wings, god, you are
mine now in the morning.
I have you by the ears
in the exhaust pipes of
a thousand cars gunning
their motors turning over
all over town.
A POEM FOR TRAPPED THINGS
This morning with a blue flame burning
this thing wings its way in.
Wind shakes the edges of its yellow being.
Gasping for breath.
Living for the instant.
Climbing up the black border of the window.
Why do you want out.
I sit in pain.
A red robe amid debris.
You bend and climb, extending antennae.
I know the butterfly is my soul
grown weak from battle.
A Giant fan on the back of
------a beetle.
A caterpillar chrysalis that seeks
a new home apart from this room.
And will disappear from sight
at the pulling of invisible strings.
Yet so tenuous, so fine
this thing is, I am
sitting on the hard bed, we could
---vanish from sight like the puff
-----off an invisible cigarette.
Furred chest, ragged silk under
--wings beating against the glass
---no one will open.
The blue diamonds on your back
are too beautiful to do
-----away with.
I watch you
---all morning
-----long.
With my hand over my mouth.
THE ACTS OF YOUTH
And with great fear I inhabit the middle of the night
What wrecks of the mind await me, what drugs
to dull the senses, what little I have left,
what more can be taken away?
The fear of travelling, of the future without hope
or buoy. I must get away from this place and see
that there is no fear without me: that it is within
unless it be some sudden act or calamity
to land me in the hospital, a total wreck, without
memory again; or worse still, behind bars. If
I could just get out of the country. Some place
where one can eat the lotus in peace.
For in this country it is terror, poverty awaits; or
am I a marked man, my life to be a lesson
or experience to those young who would trod
the same path, without God
unless he be one of justice, to wreack vengance
on the acts committed while young under un-
due influence or circumstance. Oh I have
always seen my life as drama, patterned
after those who met with disaster or doom.
Is my mind being taken away me.
I have been over the abyss before. What
is that ringing in my ears that tells me
all is nigh, is naught but the roaring of the winter wind.
Woe to those homeless who are out on this night.
Woe to those crimes committed from which we
can walk away unharmed.
So I turn on the light
And smoke rings rise in the air.
Do not think of the future; there is none.
But the formula all great art is made of.
Pain and suffering. Give me the strength
to bear it, to enter those places where the
great animals are caged. And we can live
at peace by their side. A bride to the burden
that no god imposes but knows we have the means
to sustain its force unto the end of our days.
For that is what we are made for; for that
we are created. Until the dark hours are done.
And we rise again in the dawn.
Infinite particles of the divine sun, now
worshipped in the pitches of the night.
----
*
p.s. Hey. Well, it's hard to know what to say in the face of so much kindness, but I guess I will try to thank you as best I can down below. It's been heavy, and it is, but I'm okay, and life so weirdly just goes on. Also, thank you to everyone who sent in SPD entries. I'll put the party together, and I'm all but positive that it will appear here not this coming weekend but the following one on Friday and Saturday. That's the plan unless you hear otherwise. Okay. ** Friday ** David Ehrenstein, Hey, David. I'm very glad you approved of my little Clementi homage. It was actually watching the Garrel film with you that fully ignited my love for him and his work, so I as well as my novel definitely owe you a big one. ** Empty Frame, Wow, man, incredible stuff on Clementi, Pasolini, cannibalism. Thank you so much! I copied and pasted it to pore over closely when I head back into novel land in a while. Yeah, incredible, thank you a lot! And thanks much for the kind thoughts on my situation. ** Pilgarlic, Larry Clark and I barely know one another, but what little contact there has been between us, wasn't wildly friendly. But, really, I'm just not on the museum's mailing list basically, and that's all there was to that. No big. I'll go see the show any second now. Assuming the traffic to Tybee isn't still backed up, I hope you're having a blast down there, and I hope you thought to do a pump a fist during Eddie Money's set for me because, well, why the hell not. ** Sypha, Hope you got through your last pre-holiday work day without the cutting of ties. That does sound like it would be an inconvenience. Re: the paperback, expanded 'Weaklings', my agent wants to think/ talk about that or his ideas or whatever next week. I'll suggest Rebel Satori. Thanks for that. Oh, and shit, I need to send you that thing. Man, I'm sorry. Life's been weird. Always nudge me when I'm running late because I can get really blank sometimes. ** Alan, Hey. Yeah, my hope is that I can hold up a bit while in New York on work on the novel. I kind of need to. I can't really take an extended break because I need to stay really locked into it. Yeah, I hear you about the lack of agents who don't just pick and choose authors to meet the bottom line. Don't get too discouraged yet though. How did the fixing go? Did you go into it with a clear game plan as to how to shuffle the sequence? ** Plexus, Hi, Gabey. Thanks for the hugs and holds. They came in handy. Take a ton of them from me for the shit you're going through. Target, yeah. They have a Target or two here too, but they're tiny storefronts, which I guess ... makes them easier targets? So, did they have the wisdom to hire poor you? I hope the confrontation with your female creator went okay. Did it? I'm kind of insane too, I guess, but you can talk to me. I can learn lip reading if necessary. Imagine if real blood was cherry-flavored. We'd all be dead by now. Actually, I hate cherries and cherry flavors, so I could be, like, the new Superman or something. Thank you for everything, dear G., especially your you-ness. Love, me. ** Kiddiepunk, Hey, downstairs maestro. ** JW Veldhoen, Thank you for the ghost story. I just peeked at it then started it. Lookin' good. Lou Christie happened because there was a need for a peculiar pop song stylist with a falsetto and a hairy chest at that particular moment? ** Misanthrope, Hey, George. There should be some 'fuck all' time. When, precisely, I hope I'll know pretty damned soon since I leave the day after tomorrow. I've got my lodgings squared away, and now I'm waiting for the rehearsal schedule, which I think I'll be getting today. But, yeah, shouldn't be a problem at all. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, Ben. Exciting about the imminent YnY. An alert when it's ours, please, of course. Hope you enjoyed the Malick and that your weekend flew or lazed by depending on which you preferred. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Mm, I don't think I have a favorite Clementi performance. I think I just find watching him in films fascinating across the board. Basically, the more he's in a film, the more I like his performance, basically. He's amazing in 'Partners', yeah. I haven't seen 'Les Idoles'. Just the clips online. I think it's on DVD in France, but, well, don't hold me to that. I'll check. This is that new or fairly new Contortions/Chance comp. Looking forward to the anthology stuff. Thanks a lot for that. ** Steevee, Yeah, I hadn't really cottoned to the Salem lyrics in detail, and, even after reading the Pitchfork review, I'm still not sure I hear them. ** Bill, Hey. Really glad the gig went well, technical issues not withstanding. Was it recorded? ** Nb, Well, I guess try to think of it as the dark having gotten your imagination fired up and try to channel its effect into the writing? Sometimes my pragmatism scares me. ** Creative Massacre, Hey. Sure, it may take me a little bit to respond because I'm just about to travel to NYC, but, sure, yeah, I'd be happy to and as quickly as I can. ** Statictick, You might really cotton to the films Clement directed, assuming your internet connection spares you the grief. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey. Yeah, that was Pierre Clementi. The 'Belle du Jour' character you described. I've known a few porn stars who used their real names 'cos they were lazy and their real names had zing, but they all lived to regret it. Oh, I remember 'The Breakfast Club' now. The 'sitting around and talking' one. That was a really good spooky story of a day you had there. That stuff in the mailbox creeped me out, and the wolf too. Yeah, very nice. PZB is having sexual reassignment surgery? What?! Boy, I'm way behind. That's, wow, news. I thought 'The Cube' was misery, so I won't expect much from that Ballard film. Okay, my weekend. Well, a lot of it was dealing with my dad's death. He was basically on his deathbed as of the middle of last week. It was all kind of sudden. He'd been doing really well lately, but he suddenly had really bad pain and nausea, and when they took him to the hospital, they said he'd had this thing that's the equivalent of having a heart attack in your bowels. Basically, his bowels were dead, and he was too old and physically fragile to operate on, and that was that. They put him on a morphine drip, and, after a couple of days, his Pacemaker was the only thing keeping him alive, so they turned it off, and he died a few hours later. Anyway, I got the call on Saturday morning. He lived in Hawaii. My sister and her husband just happened to be visiting him when it happened, so they were there, and that was very good obviously. So, I don't know how to describe the effect of all that. It's very heavy and kind of diffuse at the same time, and it's so complicated that it doesn't really gel into one effect or specific emotion. I'd guess everyone who's lost a parent knows what I mean. It's, like, until he died, he was my father in the moment, and I thought about him and our relationship as they existed in the now, but in death he becomes my dad in this complete way, from my birth until now, and that's a huge identity, and getting myself oriented to the full version of him emotionally and mentally is, well, disorienting, and isn't happening in a flash. It feels like it will be this long, gradual process rather than a short cathartic burst of meaning and feeling. So, yeah. It's hard to describe. So, my weekend was mostly about all of that and talking with family and old friends and stuff. I worked on my novel to try to get away from things, and that went okay when I managed it. My NYC trip got basically organized, and I have a cool place to stay there and everything. I saw and/or talked to some Parisian pals. Yesterday, I was interviewed for this Swiss magazine Heterograph, and that was pretty interesting. There's kind of a haze over most the weekend's details though, I guess. Today I have to get ready for the trip to NYC on Wednesday, so things will be normalizing quickly. Anyway, I bet your weekend was a whole lot better than mine, ha ha, and I'm looking forward to hearing about it. ** Oliver, A novel! Wow, that's fascinating. Can you say anything about it? I'd be really, really interested to hear. No, when I saw 'Enter the Void' at least, the crowd was pretty wowed/ hypnotized/ silent, as I remember. Some 'how cool!' and things like that is all. ** Syreearmwellion, Hey. Oh, I got behind on your blog in my writing frenzy. I really look forward to reading the new poems and the list. Everyone, the superb writer and fond d.l. Syreearmwellion has some new stuff on his blog that you should check out: poems and some rundowns on his recent music playlist. Hit it. It's here. Yeah, I don't how I do the blog/p.s. thing every day either, ha ha. It just sort of happens like clockwork. ** Bollo, Hey. Well, there are at least two ways to think about the age limit on the Larry Clark show. One is the censorship angle, and another is that in most other countries in the world, the show would have been killed by fear before it was even born and, even if it did actually open, the museum would have been swarmed by outraged moralistic protesters and the exhibition ordered shut down by the police and/or government. I'm into the second way of looking at it. Uh, I'd have to think about the tape title. With a project name like that, '1' might be enough. And, anyway, how can I get one? Hope your weekend was full of music and/or art making galore. ** Saturday ** Okay, I don't really know how to deal with this, but I'll do it this way: Misanthrope, Brendan, Kiddiepunk, FreeFox, Jheorgge, Thomas Moronic, Jax, Syreearmwellion, _Black_Acrylic, Todd Colby, Toniok, Kier, David, Slatted Light, Sleater, a.r., David Ehrenstein, Empty Frame, Pilgarlic, Oscar B, Bollo, Milkkore, Creative Massacre, Colin, Paul Curran, William Keckler, Inthemostpeculiarway, Sypha, Blake Butler, Mark Gluth, Chilly Jay Chill, Memoirs of a Heroinhead, Matthew, Bernard Welt, Angela, Alan, Ishmael, Tonyoneill, Trees, Bacteriaburger, Tosh, Bill, Plexus, Steevee, John, Frank Jaffe, Wolf, Mona, T H O M, Tender prey, Hedi, Dynomoose, Laurabeth, Dungan, L@rstonovich, Catachrestic, Waiting for John, Dasblad, Destroyed beyond emptiness, JoeM, Emily, Jesse Bransford, Jack, Casey McKinney, Paradigm, Jesse Hudson, Tim Miller, Andrew, Lord_s, Michael karo, Oliver, The Dreadful Flying Glove, 'Stoopid Slapped Puppies', Pascal, Nb, Flit, Rigby, Killer Luka, Kyle Brod, Allesfliesst, Ken Baumann, You-x, Davidc, OscarDavid, Pris, Changeling, October, Dandysweets, The Man Who Couldn't Blog, Panda?, Zod Microbe, Schlix, Jose, Postitbreakup, Nerstes, Wow. When I was a kid, there was this popular TV show called 'This Is Your Life' where they'd surprise some celebrity when he or she was having dinner or something then bring them into a television studio where all these people from their present and past would show up one by one to say really nice things to them. This kind of reminds me of that, but without the embarrassing anecdotes. Look, I'm really moved by your thoughts and affection, and I return them to you fully, believe me. Yeah, it's hard to know what to say. To those of you who haven't been here in a while, it's so incredibly good to see you, and, you know, please come back whenever you can, okay? And to the people who've never commented here before, it's very good to meet you and thank you so much, and please feel free to hang out here when the place becomes more festive again, meaning from today on. And to the, I don't know, regulars, which sounds weird, yeah, thanks, you guys, bottomlessly. My dad was an interesting man. Difficult and kind of an egomaniac, especially when he was younger, but he did a lot of incredibly interesting and valuable things in his life, and I admired him for that and many other reasons. When I was younger, he and I didn't get along at all, and I would go years without communicating with him. But, in the last twenty years or so, he mellowed, and maybe I did too, and we grew closer. Apart from my amazing nephew Cody, he was/is the only member of my family who cared at all about my writing, ever really acknowledged what I did with my life and asked me about it, bought my books as soon as they came out, read them or tried to, said he was proud of me, bragged about me, ... That alone meant a huge amount. So, yeah, death is evil, and his death is a perfect example. Anyway, thank you, and, yeah, just thank you so much. Words suck when it comes to gratitude and love, but feel mine to and for you because they're deep and big. ** Okay, let's get back to it. John Wieners is a great poet, a huge favorite of mine, and Chilly Jay Chill asked me to resurrect this Day from my dead blog, and, even though the 'dead' and 'dying' parts make for peculiar timing, the post has been scheduled for today for a couple of weeks, and it's really all about his greatness as a poet, and I hope you enjoy it. See you tomorrow.
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