To Know Jack Hot and Spicer Questions for Kevin Killian INTERVIEW Tears! Never Happens
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ART Nim Ben-Reuven POETRY Crow Jane Collective, Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle URBAN FOLK Bleecker St. Folk Club at Red Lion, Daniel Harnett, BOOG CITY Brook Pridemore, Schwervon! A COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER FROM A GROUP OF ARTISTS AND WRITERS BASED IN AND AROUND NEW YORK CITY’S EAST VILLAGE ISSUE 57 FREE To Know Jack Hot and Spicer Questions for Kevin Killian INTERVIEW tears! Never happens. If Jews and Negroes aren’t allowed to Incredible success. One day… Same drunk. Fate. Silently face be unverts then I don’t want to be one either. But can I help it? each other, “Knock knock.” Who’s there? Chrysanthemum. BY DEL RAY CROSS That’s the question Spicer poses (in his 1950s “essay-novel” The (Relief, completely safe.) Chrysanthemum who? “Ah go fuck Unvert Manifesto and Other Papers Found in the Rare Book yourself.” Dodie Bellamy photo Room of the Boston Public Library in the Handwriting of Oliver Neville Tove Charming, also now available in full length in the recent Spicer collection). photo I was in grad school and one of my examiners was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet … He had written a book that included a section on Robert Duncan, and he told me that Duncan had some qualities we should admire, but that Spicer was best left in the gutter. Jack Spicer I assume that it must be quite satisfying, but do you ever have any mixed feelings about how, due in much part to your own doings, Jack Spicer is no longer a fringe poet, his What animal do you most resemble? name is basically on the tips of everyone’s tongues these I don’t know. Gilbert replied, “That simple white mongrel you days? see in any city at night.” It definitely makes me blue—well, bittersweet—that Spicer Kevin Killian is not my own little secret any more. The same thing If you were able to hop into a time machine back to 1964 happened with Dario Argento, and also with Kylie Minogue. and you then bumped into Spicer on the streets of San Nowadays you don’t have to be 40 and a gay male to Francisco, what’s the first thing you would ask him? The Kevin Killian is the author of two novels, a book of memoirs, two know who she is. second thing? books of stories, and two books of poetry. He has also written If it were 1964 I would ask him for the rest of the “Map on the life and work of the late American poet Jack Spicer, and Jack Spicer and Kylie Minogue loom over your work, or Poems.” Then I’d try to buy him a drink. If it were 1954 I would try, recently co-edited, with Peter Gizzi, My Vocabulary Did This To you’ve been utterly immersed within the auras of both. you know, going to a hotel with him, maybe the one Janet Leigh Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer for Wesleyan University Would you consider either or both of them alter egos (of and John Gavin are in during the opening sequence in Psycho. Press. Boog City sent indie-publisher and fellow Bay Area poet yourself)? Del Ray Cross on an online trail of Killian, who made a recent I consider Spicer a great psychic master of mine, though And speaking of Lorca, have you heard about or are you stop in New York to moderate the symposium on Jack Spicer at not an alter ego. Kylie yes. She weighs two hundred pounds in any way excited about Paul Morrison’s film Little Ashes, the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. less than I do, and she’s pretty, but otherwise we’re twins at the the preview of which makes it look like a gay threesome same business. love triangle with Garcia Lorca, Salvador Dali, and Luis What got you hooked on Spicer? And when? And where Buñuel? were you? (“Flares of melty sentiment” are perfectly Do you think Spicer would shop at Amazon.com? Sorry That’s the one with the boy from Twilight, so yes, I’m there. acceptable here.) if it’s obvious, but how do you think he’d feel knowing I suppose I was in my 20s and the Collected Books had he could readily obtain this masterpiece collection via Del Ray Cross lives in San Francisco and edits SHAMPOO come out three or four years before. I was in grad school and Amazon? (www.ShampooPoetry.com)—both now for nine years running. Thank you, Del. I don’t know what Spicer would have He is the author of Lub Luffly and Cinema Yosemite from It definitely makes me blue—well, thought, but I expect he would have seen Amazon as a horrid Pressed Wafer and Ein frisches Trugbilt (in German with English symptom of the spread of neoliberal globalism and would have translations by Peter Rehberg and illustrations by Jessica bittersweet—that Spicer is not my own little mimed wiping his butt with it. McLeod) from luxbooks. Kevin Killian is his hero. secret any more. The same thing happened Have you ever written or typed your own with Dario Argento, and also with Kylie answers to Spicer’s “Poetry as Magic” Minogue. Nowadays you don’t have to be Workshop questionnaire? Joanna Penn Cooper 40 and a gay male to know who she is. I never did complete it … but, yes, partially. Did you know that Peter and I Washington Heights uncovered the original answers of many See That Bird one of my examiners was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and of the original participants in the Magic the last word in dapper. He was a player in the “confessional Workshop, as well as some by those poetry” business. He had written a book that included a section Spicer rejected. Here’s one of Jack Believe me or don’t, I’ve been a hoarder of private glees. Have forgotten on Robert Duncan, and he told me that Duncan had some Gilbert’s answers: qualities we should admire, but that Spicer was best left in the my givens, the muck of my beginnings. Thought on those other gutter. Where was I? Long Island of course, where everything Write the funniest joke that you know. beginnings. How string-haired teenagers stood around my crib dispiriting was going on at the moment, even the Amityville Man is radio announcer. Does on-the- harmonizing Neil Young. I’m not even kidding. There is that Horror. street interviews, incredibly successful. Fame. Money. House by Van der Roes. Daughters in my species—an algebra of voice and floating particles. Sly jokes. What’s your favorite Spicer poem? married to Whitneys. One day… Drunk Feet out the car window. Minor key susurrations. Right now, it’s “Helen,” the serial poem Peter Gizzi and I comes along. For joke asks him: Good What if you saw me standing in the kitchen staring at an avocado pit published in My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected morning, sire (etcetera). Poetry of Jack Spicer. I wonder how it will go down with the Drunk: Knock knock. in wonder and plain looking? How my Ezekiel bread and vegetables general public since it’s a little different from the Spicer we’re Announcer: (Ha! Ha!) Who’s there? felt so blessed I wanted to kiss them before I took them into me used to. But now I’m cheating on “Helen,” one might say, and Drunk: Aga and chewed. Well, ok. We have our ecstatic songsters. the tall, lanky “Hokku Notebook” is taking its place. Do you Announcer: Aga who? know the poet Ryan Murphy? He has his own very idiosyncratic Drunk: Aga fuck yourself. We have our quiet wonderers. But see that bird out your window, press and for every book he prints he uses a different press Catastrophe. Cut off the air. Ruin. how small and impertinent and there for a season, screaming name; Peter and I are editing a particular 1959 notebook for Bankruptcy. Daughters divorced. Years of its little head off out its beak? That’s kind of me. Murphy to publish this summer. struggle. Night watchman in studio. 20 years. At night he studies names. Every Would you consider yourself an unvert? possible knock knock on any name. Finally, That would mean I would enjoy going to bed with my own one more chance. Sidewalk interviewer. Geoffrey Cruickshank- POETRY Hagenbuckle Elmhurst, Queens Tragic Wand for Ariana Reines I stand at the world’s door Crow Jane collective Do you see the demon tree? France, England, Germany, We’re talking about my exile South Korea, and New York City From both poetry and the Republic Here I Will Use Establishing Shots December’s sky’s a gurney gray, Spavined with needle swabs. as We Say of Film They’re tearing down the brownstones I’ll make out with anyone: I stole Satan’s socks— And townhouses in New York— Two hand grenades tossed on kitchen tiles “We don’t draw pictures In France leaves Linoleum Blown-apart. Of the storm, We draw power from it.” One short fortuneteller escaped from prison? Small medium at large. While a chicken “Form is force not font. Packaging won’t Crossing the road is poultry in motion, Pull the snake out of the hole.” Backward poets write inverse. 3rd’s Chinese foot-rub girl If you don’t pay your exorcist Swoops her Hula-hoop, You may get repossessed Urban birds eat meat. Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft Baby ducks trail gaily by, And I’ll show you A-flat miner.