Found some manuscripts

[mjp]

Here are a couple of my early mimeo appearances (circa 1966-67), previously considered lost to the unforgiving ravages of time.

As you can see, I was literally deconstructing the English language and entering - blindly perhaps, I must admit - into a skeletal, crude form of...well, it can really only be described as dirty realism.

THE STARS is a hopeful piece, full of barely concealed yearning and the positivity of youth.
THE APPLE ORCHARD is a darker meditation on man being broken on the wheel of dull, repetitive labor.

Enjoy.

 

[d gray]

hey! no member poetry.

 

[the only good poet]

Songs of innocence and experience.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

???

 

[mjp]

I know, it's mind-boggling how well they hold up after more than 50 years, isn't it.

I started writing more poetry after my hospital stay and tonsillectomy.

 

[skiroomalum]

Did you get ice cream after the tonsillectomy? I did.

 

[mjp]

Ooh, well too bad we couldn't all afford to have our tonsillectomies at The Mayo Clinic, Mr. I-Had-Ice-Cream-Delivered-To-My-Hospital-Bed.

 

[skiroomalum]

I meant I got ice cream after your tonsillectomy. I just couldn't remember if you did. Delicious mint chocolate chip!

 

[mjp]

What is that, a grammar zing? You grammar zinging me? Feels like a zing.

And mint chocolate chip?! That hadn't been invented yet. The only ice cream we could get when I was growing up was vanilla or rhubarb, and we had to get it from an Italian family in Wisconsin. Only place within 500 miles that had refrigeration.

So no, I didn't get ice cream, Rockefeller. They gave me a clump of wet gauze and said, "Suck this for a while, then get a move on. We need the bed. Mrs. Wagner's gout is flaring up."

 

[PhillyDave]

I got jello after my tonsillectomy & slept thru the Halloween party at the hospital

 

[Johannes]

Badass typewriter ribbon.

Think about it, you wrote poetry the same time as Bukowski when he was working in the Post Office :oo

 

[mjp]

Bukowski only wished he could tap into the kind of rich poetic vein I was working in the 60s. I mean, sure, he came close, but let's be real.

Badass typewriter ribbon.

Those are mimeographs, so saying "manuscripts" in the thread title was misleading. My fingers were too small and refined to work a mimeograph machine or a typewriter when I was 6 years old, so I dictated all of my work to a typist, and they took it from there. All the publishing stuff -- well, I've never wanted to know how the sausage is made, I just want to eat all the hot dogs.

 

[Johannes]

Well I guess then you were lucky the typist didn't get bored and started throwing shit in :D

 

[esart]

Dirty Realism indeedy-doo. You were a fucking genius. What happened?

zzzzing!

 

[mjp]

I think those two years at the Iowa Writers' Workshop fucked me up. All that discussion and chai tea and thoughtful feedback vampired my homespun creativity.

I should have never signed my MacArthur Genius Grant check over to them. But hindsight is 20-20. (Cliche! You can do better. Show us how it made you feel.)