I don't remember the first time I met Ela White. It was probably at one of the fundraisers for the Writers BarBQ, the magazine I ran in the late 80s and early 90s. I remember Ela sitting in the backyard at the house I lived in on Bryn Mawr Boulevard in Springfield. We had a cookout with readings to raise some cash to get the magazine going. My friend Ted Samsel had brought his cooker over. He had one of those rebuilt metal drums and was himself a master of the slow cooked meat.
Various people did some reading, Gael Carnes, and Martha Miller, I remember for sure. I believe Ela was somewhat involved with Martha at the time. She looked pretty butch that day. Later I found out she still lived with her crazy husband, John White, down on the Illinois River. They ran an operation that involved having a reproduction of a Mississippian native american village setup. You could go spend time in the village, living like the aborigines and hunting, cooking, and flintknapping like they did. John White was a well known anthropologist and Ela herself had done a lot of work, creating weavings based on the decorations of pot sherds from the time period. I know her work exists in numerous museusm.
Although her relationship with Martha ebbed, she did start attending the Friday night sessions on Bryn Mawr. Most of my adult life I had some sort of writers workshop going on. The last one, the Writers BarBQ, lasted from 1986 through 1999, when I finally called it quits on Springfield, after 27 years. Kimberly and myself moved to New Hampshire where we almost stayed. We ended up back in Illinois though, a year later, in Urbana where we are today.
Ela's work was very intense. She had spent many years researching the greek myths and their origins. And this led her into re-telling these stories, in what she considered their more primal forms. By the time I met Ela I was already pretty much a complete Goddess worshipper. I had my major Robert Graves going on (The Whtie Goddess) and I was really ready to move as far from bible culture literature as I could go. I recognize, of course, that xtian discourse, the stories and their interpretations, color everything in western society, for good and ill. The King James Bible is second only to Shakespeare for forming the basis of what we think of as literature.
In any case, Ela was working on a series of stories. The plots and characters were all familiar, Hera, Demeter, Artemis. The stories we all learned at Edith Hamilton's knee, in school. Ela had vast quantities of information that informed these stories in sometimes radically different ways. She gave us what she could defend as the "original" versions of these myths. Of course, as myths, they were probably oral tradition for a long time, so discerning what came first was a serious task.
Ultimately Ela had two books working in those days. One of them was the stories themselves. We encouraged this book the most, because we were mostly fiction writers and hearing these stories presented in a somewhat modern idiom with the new and different information that Ela had made them come alive and truly sparkle with that kind of energy that humans can have. The other book was the scholarship. And it was large and hunky and difficult to get a handle on. If you've ever tried to read the long version of the Golden Bough you know what I am talking about.
I think the most distressing part of my forays in "literature" in the 80s and 90s was the projects like this that were well written, thoroughly researched, and something new and different, that couldn't get a bit in the land of the publishers. Really. This story went on and on. These books were really important and were never published, despite Ela's scholarly chops and background. I assume that the real story in publishing, particularly academic publishing, is that you have to kiss a great deal of ass and smooch up to the people who control things. There is a lot of subjectivity in the arts, so they can always say well that was good but this was also good. So I published my friend's treatise on coffee tables over your re-telling in a feminist voice of the greek myths. It's a fucked up world. I know John Knoepfle spent years kissing Lawrence Lieberman's minor poet ass to get his book published at the University of Illinois. Ultimately it turned Knoepfle into such a sad egocentric loser. But his book was out there. Mind you he never got to be the "Illinois" poet. That was reserved for What's his face, at Bradley, Kevin the Stein man.
Well. Like my other Crone friend from the 70s/80s, Jane Morrel, there came a time in Ela's life where she began to have physical troubles. She had adult lieukemia, but survived it, but she also began to suffer from some form of dementia. I don't know if it was Alzheimers. But the fact was she didn't really remember who I was after a point. This mirrored what happened with Jane Morrel, who also lost her own memories. So, I haven't seen Ela in several years now. I hear about her occasionally from her daughter, Karli, who works at the labs for the Illinois State Museum.
But a couple of weeks ago, Claire Martin, another old friend from the writing group days, sent me the news that Ela had gone from the scene.
I have missed her for some years now. But now I will miss her in the rest of this lifetime that I live. But I will never forget her, nor what she brought to my life and my understanding of our time and our culture and mostly where we really came from. I know she is with the Lady now, and there is celebration and honor there. For the Lady is merciful, and She loves us. That is something Ela and I both knew right away when we first spoke. Be well, old friend. Give my love to Her.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Ice Tinkles in My Glass— Jane Morrel & Her Poems
Everyone I knew always thought Jane was a remarkable person. I believe Jane was 69 when I first met her in 1972. Janne Hanrahan and I always made it a point to try and see Jane when Janne would come to town. Janne had a definite relationship to Jane's work. Several times she wrote poems that were deliberately similar to Jane's work. And I always invited Jane to all the parties I threw in the 1970s and often she came. She came to my writing group many, many times.
I remember one time at the Friday night group (the Second Scarritt group), John Ranyard had been reading from a novel he was writing that was meant to be a satire of pornography (example, there was a chapter entitled "the 120 mph blowjob"), so Ross Hulvey and Gary Adkins brought in their porno project about a minor league baseball team and decided to read from it. And what was Jane's comment after they read these episodes of minutely described oral sex and orgy? "I guess some things never change." In that deadpan way of her's.
The first time I ever encountered Jane's poetry was in Knoepfle's first poetry class at SSU. I believe that was the fall of 1972. I was in that class with Janne Hanrahan and Sandy Riseman. Also Steve Dolgin. We all thought we were hotshit poetry people. We thought, Jane = old lady, hearts and flowers. In those days you'd read a poem and then Knoepfle would gently take it apart and make suggestions. He and I had some serious set to's there. He invited Jane to read at the second or third class and she pulled out "Open Heart Surgery," and pretty much everyone's mouths fell open. Ha!
And Knoepfle said, "Well, that was fine. (Pause) Do you have anything else?" He couldn't find any way to make that a better piece. He couldn't even really think of anything to say. It's so short and exquisite. It's profound. It's a metaphor, but its grounded in the physical world, yet it transcends so much. It's about survival, and romance, and the possibility of hope. That was a great moment. We all knew then we were with someone special.
Then she read "Lesson in Anatomy," and Knoepfle tried to wrap his head around that. Naturally Jane listened to him, but she kept that piece pretty much like it was. And with good reason, "A cochin ate their gritty heart..." "Too human, my mother said ..." So that was Jane's first round with that crew and after that we all waited expectantly for what she might pull out next.
In the early days of the women's writing group, Brainchild, when it was at first an all poetry performance group, they would get together at various people's houses and do some workshopping and some planning for their gigs. They did some mass readings in those days. This group had been started by Peggy Knoepfle because she was tired of living in John's shadow in St. Louis. When they moved to Springfield she set out to have her own impact. Steve Dolgin and myself and Knoepf attended some of those soirrees. One time, when Janne Hanrahan was living on South Seventh Street, in the upstairs apartment (with Mary Gael Cullen and John Large) she hosted one of these evenings.
I happen to be walking up the stairs to Janne's place, and Jane was behind me, carrying a great platter of something tasty, and behind her was Billie Sue Shiner (I believe) who was a fine poet herself and a very sweet woman. And Billie Sue asked Jane when we were going up the stairs if she could carry the platter for her and Jane said something to the effect of "You can carry it for me when I'm old."
That was so cool. Because all those nice liberal ladies had a tendency to make Jane into the old lady (she has a great poem about being perceived as old, being kissed at random), which she did not want at all. I was with her on that. I remember Brainchild kept making her read "Alberta Lived to Be Ninety Three" at their mass readings and finally Jane rebelled and insisted on not having to read Alberta anymore.
When I had known Jane for many years and was very familiar with her work, I grew to respect her process. She once left her small notebook at our house on Scarritt Street, and I looked through it, finding there as many as thirty or more versions of the same poem. I grew to respect the hard work that created those lines that seemed so effortless. Knoepfle and Jane had an interesting relationship. In most respects she was the better poet, and of course Knoepfle had a sense of that. But he also thought he could elevate her work and he often tried to impose changes on her. Jane appreciated his interest, but he was no Randall Jarrell, and, although she wouldn't say anything critical to John, she knew that.
They had a long term fight about this poem of her's, "The Center of Interest". It is set on a summer's day, reflecting on nature as a metaphor for being. But it has this chorus line, "the ice tinkles in my glass," that drove Knoepfle to distraction. Because of the word "tinkles", which Knoepf said could not help but bring up urination. The first few years of this argument I was on Knoepfle's side. But as time went on I changed my opinion on this. I started to feel the line rather than analyzing it. Although I would say that Jane was to some extent an intellectual writer, I believe that it is in line's like this that she is a true poet. Like Graves said, the words cause you to have an emotional reaction. The full couplet is "The ice tinkles in my glass/I stir my tea."
It causes you to stop, glass in hand, and hear the music of the glass and ice, and feel the chill, and taste the bittersweet brew. Time stops. You can see the sharp picture, understand the thought. Knoepfle was wrong about this one.
The last time I saw Jane, before she lost the memory of me, was at Jessica Weber's apartment on Spring just off South Grand. We had an event, featuring Mexican food. And I had just discovered martinis at the time, but I didn't understand how powerful they really are. I had made a martini in a twelve ounce glass and I was drinking it and had had about two thirds of it, and I was talking with Jane, and it suddenly hit me that I was so drunk I could scarcely speak. So I staggered out on the back steps and threw up a couple of times, finally ending up on the small square of grass that served as a backyard. I remember lying there in the night when Randy Frank and his friend Timmy rode up on their BMX bikes and started making fun of me. They were both about 15 at the time. "Osburn's shitfaced," is, I believe, an accurate quote. I never made it back upstairs, and never got to talk with Jane again. Talk about regrets, I've had a few, and that's one I'll mention.
The last time I saw her was at the Sangamon County Fair. She was there with Corlyss Disbrow, her daughter (and a fine writer in her own right) and Corlyss' friend and business partner, Henry, and Jane had no clue as to who I was. She had suffered profound memory loss. It marked me, that you could lose your access to your own information. The idea that you couldn't find it again, the words, the memories.
I read "Stops: On the Through Bus to El Paso" at her funeral. It's a poem that has spoken to me for all of these years. I pull out Jane's books (This Paradox Shadow, and Wordings Like Love) and look at them many times every year. She had a much greater effect on me, work-wise, than Knoepfle did. I can remember some of John's things, but they rarely hold the emotional power that Jane could get.
I miss her, very much. Like I miss my mom. Jane grew up in Oklahoma and my mom was born in rural Oklahoma in 1914 and grew up in Waukomis, and then Enid. Just a few years younger than Jane. She was also a good catholic woman, and she had a lot in common with Jane. I miss these women.
I remember one time at the Friday night group (the Second Scarritt group), John Ranyard had been reading from a novel he was writing that was meant to be a satire of pornography (example, there was a chapter entitled "the 120 mph blowjob"), so Ross Hulvey and Gary Adkins brought in their porno project about a minor league baseball team and decided to read from it. And what was Jane's comment after they read these episodes of minutely described oral sex and orgy? "I guess some things never change." In that deadpan way of her's.
The first time I ever encountered Jane's poetry was in Knoepfle's first poetry class at SSU. I believe that was the fall of 1972. I was in that class with Janne Hanrahan and Sandy Riseman. Also Steve Dolgin. We all thought we were hotshit poetry people. We thought, Jane = old lady, hearts and flowers. In those days you'd read a poem and then Knoepfle would gently take it apart and make suggestions. He and I had some serious set to's there. He invited Jane to read at the second or third class and she pulled out "Open Heart Surgery," and pretty much everyone's mouths fell open. Ha!
And Knoepfle said, "Well, that was fine. (Pause) Do you have anything else?" He couldn't find any way to make that a better piece. He couldn't even really think of anything to say. It's so short and exquisite. It's profound. It's a metaphor, but its grounded in the physical world, yet it transcends so much. It's about survival, and romance, and the possibility of hope. That was a great moment. We all knew then we were with someone special.
Then she read "Lesson in Anatomy," and Knoepfle tried to wrap his head around that. Naturally Jane listened to him, but she kept that piece pretty much like it was. And with good reason, "A cochin ate their gritty heart..." "Too human, my mother said ..." So that was Jane's first round with that crew and after that we all waited expectantly for what she might pull out next.
In the early days of the women's writing group, Brainchild, when it was at first an all poetry performance group, they would get together at various people's houses and do some workshopping and some planning for their gigs. They did some mass readings in those days. This group had been started by Peggy Knoepfle because she was tired of living in John's shadow in St. Louis. When they moved to Springfield she set out to have her own impact. Steve Dolgin and myself and Knoepf attended some of those soirrees. One time, when Janne Hanrahan was living on South Seventh Street, in the upstairs apartment (with Mary Gael Cullen and John Large) she hosted one of these evenings.
I happen to be walking up the stairs to Janne's place, and Jane was behind me, carrying a great platter of something tasty, and behind her was Billie Sue Shiner (I believe) who was a fine poet herself and a very sweet woman. And Billie Sue asked Jane when we were going up the stairs if she could carry the platter for her and Jane said something to the effect of "You can carry it for me when I'm old."
That was so cool. Because all those nice liberal ladies had a tendency to make Jane into the old lady (she has a great poem about being perceived as old, being kissed at random), which she did not want at all. I was with her on that. I remember Brainchild kept making her read "Alberta Lived to Be Ninety Three" at their mass readings and finally Jane rebelled and insisted on not having to read Alberta anymore.
When I had known Jane for many years and was very familiar with her work, I grew to respect her process. She once left her small notebook at our house on Scarritt Street, and I looked through it, finding there as many as thirty or more versions of the same poem. I grew to respect the hard work that created those lines that seemed so effortless. Knoepfle and Jane had an interesting relationship. In most respects she was the better poet, and of course Knoepfle had a sense of that. But he also thought he could elevate her work and he often tried to impose changes on her. Jane appreciated his interest, but he was no Randall Jarrell, and, although she wouldn't say anything critical to John, she knew that.
They had a long term fight about this poem of her's, "The Center of Interest". It is set on a summer's day, reflecting on nature as a metaphor for being. But it has this chorus line, "the ice tinkles in my glass," that drove Knoepfle to distraction. Because of the word "tinkles", which Knoepf said could not help but bring up urination. The first few years of this argument I was on Knoepfle's side. But as time went on I changed my opinion on this. I started to feel the line rather than analyzing it. Although I would say that Jane was to some extent an intellectual writer, I believe that it is in line's like this that she is a true poet. Like Graves said, the words cause you to have an emotional reaction. The full couplet is "The ice tinkles in my glass/I stir my tea."
It causes you to stop, glass in hand, and hear the music of the glass and ice, and feel the chill, and taste the bittersweet brew. Time stops. You can see the sharp picture, understand the thought. Knoepfle was wrong about this one.
The last time I saw Jane, before she lost the memory of me, was at Jessica Weber's apartment on Spring just off South Grand. We had an event, featuring Mexican food. And I had just discovered martinis at the time, but I didn't understand how powerful they really are. I had made a martini in a twelve ounce glass and I was drinking it and had had about two thirds of it, and I was talking with Jane, and it suddenly hit me that I was so drunk I could scarcely speak. So I staggered out on the back steps and threw up a couple of times, finally ending up on the small square of grass that served as a backyard. I remember lying there in the night when Randy Frank and his friend Timmy rode up on their BMX bikes and started making fun of me. They were both about 15 at the time. "Osburn's shitfaced," is, I believe, an accurate quote. I never made it back upstairs, and never got to talk with Jane again. Talk about regrets, I've had a few, and that's one I'll mention.
The last time I saw her was at the Sangamon County Fair. She was there with Corlyss Disbrow, her daughter (and a fine writer in her own right) and Corlyss' friend and business partner, Henry, and Jane had no clue as to who I was. She had suffered profound memory loss. It marked me, that you could lose your access to your own information. The idea that you couldn't find it again, the words, the memories.
I read "Stops: On the Through Bus to El Paso" at her funeral. It's a poem that has spoken to me for all of these years. I pull out Jane's books (This Paradox Shadow, and Wordings Like Love) and look at them many times every year. She had a much greater effect on me, work-wise, than Knoepfle did. I can remember some of John's things, but they rarely hold the emotional power that Jane could get.
I miss her, very much. Like I miss my mom. Jane grew up in Oklahoma and my mom was born in rural Oklahoma in 1914 and grew up in Waukomis, and then Enid. Just a few years younger than Jane. She was also a good catholic woman, and she had a lot in common with Jane. I miss these women.
Red rocks, red road, red river/there were faults, there were chips,/but there were no breaks.
Friday, June 24, 2011
My Artist Friend
Greg Lakebrink is perhaps my oldest continuous friend in this world. I met him at St. Louis University in the fall of 1968. We were both in the honors program there, as freshmen. Later we were both involved with publishing a kind of bohemian newspaper called The Aardwolf. Greg was essentially the art director. He also contributed the name of the piece. Later on, after I had moved to Springfield in 1972 and then split with my wife, Becky McGovern, and ended up living with Pat on Scarritt Street in 1974, Greg called me up from Iowa City where he had just quit the Graduate Painting Program at U. of Iowa, three hours short of his MFA, and asked if he could come look for work in Springfield.
Greg then lived at Scarritt until 1977, when he moved out and took an apartment in the Iles House (the oldest house in Springfield) when it was down on South Fifth Street. They moved it over to Seventh Street a few years ago. Greg lived in a large one room on the top floor.
The entire time I have known Greg he has painted, mainly water colors, but many oils. In my living room right now there are three of Greg's oils, one of my son when he was six (1976), one of me painted in 1981 that I didn't even know about that he gave to Kimb when we moved away in 1999, and a third one that I seem to have always had, known as The Red Lady, painted in 1969. There are many photos that have the Red Lady in the background. The irony is that the figure is actually a guy wearing a red apron.
Anyway, Greg eventually married a beautiful strange woman, Evan Kurrasch, who was taller than him, and looked like Vanessa Redgrave. She had, however, been in a camp stove accident and had much scarring over her body. I always thought that Greg really liked that, as an artist it appealed to him visually. In any case, he was married to Evan for five or six years, but she was very highly sexed, and he was not. I performed the marriage ceremony for them, in the nature preserve south of Springfield. My one marriage and it failed, ultimately.
Evan is married to someone elsenow. And Greg eventually married this funny, sweet woman, Sybil, who is also a visual artist. They live over on Fayette, near Washington Park, in a charming little Victorian place. Greg and Evan had a house on that street right across from the med school parking lot down at the end of Bond there. The med school scarfed it up and he had to move to Fayette somewhere along there. He had this really long backyard that stuck out behind houses on Bond and he and Evan let the grass grow like the tall grass prairie. Eventually the city made them cut it all down. They were always big Sierra Club people. Greg did the Sierra Club newsletter for many years. Also the Springfield Bicycle Club newsletter. Greg is to this day one of the true liberals I know. He's the kind of guy who's been giving money to NOW and the abortion rights people for many years now. He's a true person, if you know what I mean. No lies, no dissembling. Not much tact, either.
I used to always call on Greg when I needed artwork for a project. He did many drawings for The Writers BarBQ. He did most of the art in The Village Magazine 1979, for the Vachel Lindsay centennial. For that one, it was a rush job, he required me to be a Cardinals fan for a year. I was always a big Cubs fan. Greg grew up in St. Anne, the suburb of St. Louis out by the airport. He went to St. Louis University High School, the Jesuit high school. I went to the Jesuit high school in Wichita, Chaplain Kapaun Memorial High School, and had many teachers who had gone to SLU High and to SLU. And eventually I went to St. Louis University. My sister's Phd in literature is from SLU.
As a matter of fact, my sister going to St. Louis U. for grad school is how I got involved in this whole thing. My sister, Kathy, was great friends with Sandy and John Knoll in St. Louis. She and Sandy shared an office both at the grad lit dept. at SLU and then at Forest Park Community College. Then Sandy and John moved to Springfield. so John could run the Communications Department at Sangamon State University. Larry Smith was John's colleague there, and the four of them, the Smiths and the Knolls, became friends and eventually lived across the street from each other.
That fact facilitated the affair that Pat had with John for the two years before I moved to Springfield with my wife, Becky McGovern, in January of 1972. I met Jane Morrel in the fall of 72 when Knoepfle had his first poetry seminar. I had taken Knoepfle's novel writing class at St. Louis university, where he was the poet in residence. John Knoll had gotten him to move to SSU. (Knoll also brought Norman Hinton to Springfield. Norman was on my sister's Phd board.) Anyway, Sandy Martin and Pat were best friends, so my relationship with Pat Smith comes from my sister's friendship with the Knolls in St. Louis. Sandy's brother was a priest, Harry Martin, and Harry performed my first marriage to Becky McGovern in February of 1970. We were pregnant, of course. Stupid catholic kids. Harry also performed the funeral service for my friends' Nora and Jack's four month old baby, Emil Zapata Jones two years later. We called him Harry the Pot Smoking Priest. He was a good guy and was a protege of Knoepfle's in St. Louis.
Complex histories of a personal nature. I do know where most of these people are today. I saw Greg about four years ago in Springfield. He and his wife both have fairly serious health problems. I know he is working somewhere, but I don't know where.
I have a collection of his water colors. He came to writing group for many, many years. Of course he lived at Scarritt when the first group was meeting there. Greg has also come to pretty much every group I had in Springfield. He would come and sit in the corner and paint people and small scenes. So there are perhaps a couple of hundred of these watercolors that catalog the many years of my writing groups. And many of these watercolors are so beautiful. He really is a great artist.
Hey, you know, I love Greg. He's a really weird guy. He has what is called flatness of effect and often he seems removed, but at heart he has a beautiful passionate soul. I have a little book of his poems on my shelf that I still pull out from time to time and read through. He has always been a true friend to me. He has put me up when I was thrown out, he has sheltered me when Bill Panichi beat me up. He has given me money when I needed to get back to Springfield from Wichita in 1983.
May he live in the Lady's mercy and know Her great love.
Greg then lived at Scarritt until 1977, when he moved out and took an apartment in the Iles House (the oldest house in Springfield) when it was down on South Fifth Street. They moved it over to Seventh Street a few years ago. Greg lived in a large one room on the top floor.
The entire time I have known Greg he has painted, mainly water colors, but many oils. In my living room right now there are three of Greg's oils, one of my son when he was six (1976), one of me painted in 1981 that I didn't even know about that he gave to Kimb when we moved away in 1999, and a third one that I seem to have always had, known as The Red Lady, painted in 1969. There are many photos that have the Red Lady in the background. The irony is that the figure is actually a guy wearing a red apron.
Anyway, Greg eventually married a beautiful strange woman, Evan Kurrasch, who was taller than him, and looked like Vanessa Redgrave. She had, however, been in a camp stove accident and had much scarring over her body. I always thought that Greg really liked that, as an artist it appealed to him visually. In any case, he was married to Evan for five or six years, but she was very highly sexed, and he was not. I performed the marriage ceremony for them, in the nature preserve south of Springfield. My one marriage and it failed, ultimately.
Evan is married to someone elsenow. And Greg eventually married this funny, sweet woman, Sybil, who is also a visual artist. They live over on Fayette, near Washington Park, in a charming little Victorian place. Greg and Evan had a house on that street right across from the med school parking lot down at the end of Bond there. The med school scarfed it up and he had to move to Fayette somewhere along there. He had this really long backyard that stuck out behind houses on Bond and he and Evan let the grass grow like the tall grass prairie. Eventually the city made them cut it all down. They were always big Sierra Club people. Greg did the Sierra Club newsletter for many years. Also the Springfield Bicycle Club newsletter. Greg is to this day one of the true liberals I know. He's the kind of guy who's been giving money to NOW and the abortion rights people for many years now. He's a true person, if you know what I mean. No lies, no dissembling. Not much tact, either.
I used to always call on Greg when I needed artwork for a project. He did many drawings for The Writers BarBQ. He did most of the art in The Village Magazine 1979, for the Vachel Lindsay centennial. For that one, it was a rush job, he required me to be a Cardinals fan for a year. I was always a big Cubs fan. Greg grew up in St. Anne, the suburb of St. Louis out by the airport. He went to St. Louis University High School, the Jesuit high school. I went to the Jesuit high school in Wichita, Chaplain Kapaun Memorial High School, and had many teachers who had gone to SLU High and to SLU. And eventually I went to St. Louis University. My sister's Phd in literature is from SLU.
As a matter of fact, my sister going to St. Louis U. for grad school is how I got involved in this whole thing. My sister, Kathy, was great friends with Sandy and John Knoll in St. Louis. She and Sandy shared an office both at the grad lit dept. at SLU and then at Forest Park Community College. Then Sandy and John moved to Springfield. so John could run the Communications Department at Sangamon State University. Larry Smith was John's colleague there, and the four of them, the Smiths and the Knolls, became friends and eventually lived across the street from each other.
That fact facilitated the affair that Pat had with John for the two years before I moved to Springfield with my wife, Becky McGovern, in January of 1972. I met Jane Morrel in the fall of 72 when Knoepfle had his first poetry seminar. I had taken Knoepfle's novel writing class at St. Louis university, where he was the poet in residence. John Knoll had gotten him to move to SSU. (Knoll also brought Norman Hinton to Springfield. Norman was on my sister's Phd board.) Anyway, Sandy Martin and Pat were best friends, so my relationship with Pat Smith comes from my sister's friendship with the Knolls in St. Louis. Sandy's brother was a priest, Harry Martin, and Harry performed my first marriage to Becky McGovern in February of 1970. We were pregnant, of course. Stupid catholic kids. Harry also performed the funeral service for my friends' Nora and Jack's four month old baby, Emil Zapata Jones two years later. We called him Harry the Pot Smoking Priest. He was a good guy and was a protege of Knoepfle's in St. Louis.
Complex histories of a personal nature. I do know where most of these people are today. I saw Greg about four years ago in Springfield. He and his wife both have fairly serious health problems. I know he is working somewhere, but I don't know where.
I have a collection of his water colors. He came to writing group for many, many years. Of course he lived at Scarritt when the first group was meeting there. Greg has also come to pretty much every group I had in Springfield. He would come and sit in the corner and paint people and small scenes. So there are perhaps a couple of hundred of these watercolors that catalog the many years of my writing groups. And many of these watercolors are so beautiful. He really is a great artist.
Hey, you know, I love Greg. He's a really weird guy. He has what is called flatness of effect and often he seems removed, but at heart he has a beautiful passionate soul. I have a little book of his poems on my shelf that I still pull out from time to time and read through. He has always been a true friend to me. He has put me up when I was thrown out, he has sheltered me when Bill Panichi beat me up. He has given me money when I needed to get back to Springfield from Wichita in 1983.
May he live in the Lady's mercy and know Her great love.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Forgotten Birthday
One year, when I was married to Becky Bradway, she completely forgot my birthday. That very day she forgot to pick me up from work. I remember, walking south on South Fifth street, I got to South Grand Avenue, on my way to our house on Bryn Mawr, at least fifteen more blocks, and she came driving up and said we should go out to dinner, as it was my birthday. Of course we ended up going to a mexican restaurant on the east side that was new. Becky was a mexican food freak. Not my thing, but she was one of those people it was easier to do what she wanted then to deal with the weirdness of her not getting her way.
As a matter of fact, she was better at giving off a hostile vibe then anyone I'd ever met. I conjecture that it was because when she was a child, being abused both by her father and her mother, if she said anything they actually used soap in her mouth and basically hurt her. So she got really good at just giving off the fuck you vibe. Her grasp of that darkness was pretty much complete. I undertstand, of course, why she was like that, what had happened to her as a child. When we had separated and she was living down the street under Laura Giese and her husband, she would come for dinner every night. Why not? I cooked it and cleaned it. I paid for it. She did this for nearly the whole year she lived down the street before she engineered moving to Bloomington to go to ISU to get her doctorate. Of course that was right after she promised me, signed a paper, that she would never move Paige out of town. Anyway, I used to say to her, hearing all that was going on in her head about her family and about working for Rape World (which is what she called ICASA, the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault) that she could turn out to be a serial murderer and if people knew what she had been through they would understand.
But that business about breaking her promise was par for the course for my relationship with Becky. She basically broke every promise she ever made to me. And we were together for fourteen years, first fuck to last. To be precise though, I lived with Pat the first year and a half, though I was sleeping with Becky, and Pat knew it. I spent that year looking for work, after having lived off of Pat for six and a half years. Mind you, I was the housewife in that relationship. Well, that and the fuck toy.
So I am always of two minds about Becky Bradway. I have enormous sympathy for her. I lived with her family for several years in the early 1980s, and they were definitely so screwed up you could pretty much taste it. But I had no idea how truly cruel they had been. So, I feel bad for what happened to that little girl.
But I also despise her for how she treated me. Mind you, I am grateful I am no longer with her. And I am very glad she found a decent man, Doug, to be there for her. She will always be a serious user, and she will suck up all the resources that are around her if you let her. I was a very co-dependent guy when I was with her. I did not resist any of that. My mother made me into the one in my family who gave in to the younger kids and to my sisters. Basically I learned to do what other people wanted to keep the peace.
This personality trait serves me well now. The woman I live with these days is also very much a giver. I've really never been with anyone who seemed to take my feelings into consideration as much as Kimberly does.
I still remember walking down that street, in late June. I must've been 42 or 43 that day. It was depressing.
Thanks to the Lady Arianrhod for helping me live through that time. She sent me the possibility of a true priestess to be with, and sure enough. I can practically see the curved moon tattoo upon her brow. Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley.
As a matter of fact, she was better at giving off a hostile vibe then anyone I'd ever met. I conjecture that it was because when she was a child, being abused both by her father and her mother, if she said anything they actually used soap in her mouth and basically hurt her. So she got really good at just giving off the fuck you vibe. Her grasp of that darkness was pretty much complete. I undertstand, of course, why she was like that, what had happened to her as a child. When we had separated and she was living down the street under Laura Giese and her husband, she would come for dinner every night. Why not? I cooked it and cleaned it. I paid for it. She did this for nearly the whole year she lived down the street before she engineered moving to Bloomington to go to ISU to get her doctorate. Of course that was right after she promised me, signed a paper, that she would never move Paige out of town. Anyway, I used to say to her, hearing all that was going on in her head about her family and about working for Rape World (which is what she called ICASA, the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault) that she could turn out to be a serial murderer and if people knew what she had been through they would understand.
But that business about breaking her promise was par for the course for my relationship with Becky. She basically broke every promise she ever made to me. And we were together for fourteen years, first fuck to last. To be precise though, I lived with Pat the first year and a half, though I was sleeping with Becky, and Pat knew it. I spent that year looking for work, after having lived off of Pat for six and a half years. Mind you, I was the housewife in that relationship. Well, that and the fuck toy.
So I am always of two minds about Becky Bradway. I have enormous sympathy for her. I lived with her family for several years in the early 1980s, and they were definitely so screwed up you could pretty much taste it. But I had no idea how truly cruel they had been. So, I feel bad for what happened to that little girl.
But I also despise her for how she treated me. Mind you, I am grateful I am no longer with her. And I am very glad she found a decent man, Doug, to be there for her. She will always be a serious user, and she will suck up all the resources that are around her if you let her. I was a very co-dependent guy when I was with her. I did not resist any of that. My mother made me into the one in my family who gave in to the younger kids and to my sisters. Basically I learned to do what other people wanted to keep the peace.
This personality trait serves me well now. The woman I live with these days is also very much a giver. I've really never been with anyone who seemed to take my feelings into consideration as much as Kimberly does.
I still remember walking down that street, in late June. I must've been 42 or 43 that day. It was depressing.
Thanks to the Lady Arianrhod for helping me live through that time. She sent me the possibility of a true priestess to be with, and sure enough. I can practically see the curved moon tattoo upon her brow. Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Moving to Springfield
I've decided to resurrect this blog which started out as a series of scans of notebook pages from the 1970s. I still intend to do that some, but I thought I would now devote this section of my piece of the internet to remembering the people and places I lived and worked in the 70s and 80s.
Primarily then this is a story of my view of the literary community, small fry division, in Springfield, Illinois.
I ended up in Springfield pretty much because I got lost one day on the way to Peoria. I had been to see the Who at the Mississippi River Festival the previous evening. There was vast quantities of smokeables and drinkables and there were too many people there. It took place in a natural bowl, outside, which comfortably held about 20,000. 35,000 showed up. We went early. Actually our party sent someone out around noon for a nine o'clock show. I went with Russell Mill and his wife and his brother from Texas who had brought a suitcase of pot up to sell to pay for the trip. Russell ran the Akashic Record Store, which was in Webster Groves at this time. The Who had just brought out the album, Who's Next, and they played all of it and most of Tommy, and there was a half hour encore of Eddie Cochran songs. It was great. Particularly memorable for me, lo these nearly forty years later, it was the first time I heard the song "Bargain." It really moved me, and it still does. Of course, I don't remember leaving, getting home, any of that. Lots of marijuana and wine.
My wife in those days was Becky McGovern. We had married in February 1970 because, primarily, Becky was pregnant with the human being Joel Osburn. I was a good catholic boy and abortion was out of the question at this point. Two and a half years later, having struggled to be together and to make enough money to keep going Becky and I drove to Kansas City to get an abortion, in September of 1972. I have no regrets about having Joel, though. He is a remarkable person and has made himself a good life. And he has given me two beautiful granddaughters.
So Becky and Joel were at Becky's parents house in Peoria. I was supposed to get up that morning and drive to Peoria and eventually bring them back to St. Louis. But, to be honest, I got up way late and hopped in the car and didn't really have a clear idea of what I was doing. Anyone who's driven Highway 55 past Springfield knows that the left hand lane goes into town with little warning.
So I found myself on the south side of Springfield, Illinois, lost and a little disconcerted. I remembered that two of my old friends had moved to Springfield a couple of years before. John Knoll, and his wife Sandy Martin, were originally friends of my sister Kathy Osburn. Kathy went to graduate school at St. Louis U., one of the reasons Mother stuck me there. She knew Sandy from the Literature Dept. where they shared an office as Grad Assts. Later she and Sandy both taught at the new community college, Forest Park Community College, by the great St. Louis park.
John Knoll did the coursework for his PHd at SLU. Then he was hired at a new college in Springfield, Sangamon State University. John was the head of the communications department. His specialty was film and he knew much about it. He and Sandy lived on North Sixth Street in the Hatch Mansion, a property they rented from the Marine Bank.
So I called John Knoll from a payphone (remember those?) and his brother from Indiana answered, Jerry. And Jerry said John was out but hey, come on over. So I drove all the way across town to the north side and went in and then John and Sandy came home and I had a great time hanging out with them. I called Becky in Peoria and she was not pleased with me. They'd called the state police. So that wasn't good.
Before I left I was talking with John and told him I was hoping to go back to college. I was working at the post office in downtown St. Louis, 18th and Market, on the graveyard shift. I said I was looking at that crazy school in Ohio, Antioch. And John said, why don't you go to Sangamon. And I said, what's that? So he told me about his school and his gig and how he could get me in and pretty soon it turned out to be a plan.
Becky and I spent the next six months driving to Springfield and staying with John and Sandy in the maid's quarters of the big house and looking for a place to live and getting set for the school.
SSU at the time was a senior college, last two years. So I had to CLEP into the program. Which was no problem. In those days I took multiple choice tests like peanuts. I always did well.
Finally, Becky and Joel and I moved to Springfield in February 1972. I lived there, on and off, for the next 27 years, finally escaping to New Hampshire in 1999.
Primarily then this is a story of my view of the literary community, small fry division, in Springfield, Illinois.
I ended up in Springfield pretty much because I got lost one day on the way to Peoria. I had been to see the Who at the Mississippi River Festival the previous evening. There was vast quantities of smokeables and drinkables and there were too many people there. It took place in a natural bowl, outside, which comfortably held about 20,000. 35,000 showed up. We went early. Actually our party sent someone out around noon for a nine o'clock show. I went with Russell Mill and his wife and his brother from Texas who had brought a suitcase of pot up to sell to pay for the trip. Russell ran the Akashic Record Store, which was in Webster Groves at this time. The Who had just brought out the album, Who's Next, and they played all of it and most of Tommy, and there was a half hour encore of Eddie Cochran songs. It was great. Particularly memorable for me, lo these nearly forty years later, it was the first time I heard the song "Bargain." It really moved me, and it still does. Of course, I don't remember leaving, getting home, any of that. Lots of marijuana and wine.
My wife in those days was Becky McGovern. We had married in February 1970 because, primarily, Becky was pregnant with the human being Joel Osburn. I was a good catholic boy and abortion was out of the question at this point. Two and a half years later, having struggled to be together and to make enough money to keep going Becky and I drove to Kansas City to get an abortion, in September of 1972. I have no regrets about having Joel, though. He is a remarkable person and has made himself a good life. And he has given me two beautiful granddaughters.
So Becky and Joel were at Becky's parents house in Peoria. I was supposed to get up that morning and drive to Peoria and eventually bring them back to St. Louis. But, to be honest, I got up way late and hopped in the car and didn't really have a clear idea of what I was doing. Anyone who's driven Highway 55 past Springfield knows that the left hand lane goes into town with little warning.
So I found myself on the south side of Springfield, Illinois, lost and a little disconcerted. I remembered that two of my old friends had moved to Springfield a couple of years before. John Knoll, and his wife Sandy Martin, were originally friends of my sister Kathy Osburn. Kathy went to graduate school at St. Louis U., one of the reasons Mother stuck me there. She knew Sandy from the Literature Dept. where they shared an office as Grad Assts. Later she and Sandy both taught at the new community college, Forest Park Community College, by the great St. Louis park.
John Knoll did the coursework for his PHd at SLU. Then he was hired at a new college in Springfield, Sangamon State University. John was the head of the communications department. His specialty was film and he knew much about it. He and Sandy lived on North Sixth Street in the Hatch Mansion, a property they rented from the Marine Bank.
So I called John Knoll from a payphone (remember those?) and his brother from Indiana answered, Jerry. And Jerry said John was out but hey, come on over. So I drove all the way across town to the north side and went in and then John and Sandy came home and I had a great time hanging out with them. I called Becky in Peoria and she was not pleased with me. They'd called the state police. So that wasn't good.
Before I left I was talking with John and told him I was hoping to go back to college. I was working at the post office in downtown St. Louis, 18th and Market, on the graveyard shift. I said I was looking at that crazy school in Ohio, Antioch. And John said, why don't you go to Sangamon. And I said, what's that? So he told me about his school and his gig and how he could get me in and pretty soon it turned out to be a plan.
Becky and I spent the next six months driving to Springfield and staying with John and Sandy in the maid's quarters of the big house and looking for a place to live and getting set for the school.
SSU at the time was a senior college, last two years. So I had to CLEP into the program. Which was no problem. In those days I took multiple choice tests like peanuts. I always did well.
Finally, Becky and Joel and I moved to Springfield in February 1972. I lived there, on and off, for the next 27 years, finally escaping to New Hampshire in 1999.
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