(small-press notes and literary info) If you’re all wet and don’t know what’s going on in literary circles in P-land, read this column for clues. Just whistle. I intend to be excessive. Blowing on a whistle full of water, gurgling and spluttering.. . . “ I have burnt myself out too long in this city / I am a voice in the wilderness / a poet / proclaimed a criminal of society / let my deeds inspire the young to come / and light a torch in these dark wastes. . . ” Jack Micheline, a great American poet, NYC 1965. Slavic wandering free spirit, booming driving reading v o ic e . . . . (Send for collected poems, North o f Manhattan, Man Root Press, Box 982, South S.F. 94080. Send $5.95 you got it! 240 pages of a master.) People don’t rust their intellects in Oregon. They drown them in corporate sales-pitch pap like the Towndowner and in rivers of pukewarm TV. TV short-circuits the aura — an electronic lobotomy — an addiction to the robot-bionic-computerized 21st-century tyranny abuilding. Check out Gay Sunshine, at Looking Glass Bookstore. Gay Sunshine is one of best American literary mags! Long interviews (Duncan, Isherwood, Ginsberg, Genet, etc.),'kinky, intellectual, scholarly. (For example, A Lover's Cock, by Rimbaud/Ver- laine is published by Gay Sunshine Press.) American Poetry Review in comparison sucks! If I have to read another turgid essay about so-called teaching poetry to elementary kids, I’ll break! Poetry is an adult activity like cunnilingus. Did I spell it right? The academics screwed up American poetry. Too dry. Too clever. That’s what W.C. Williams said about T.S. Eliot. Eliot fouled up American poetry by Britishizing it. The Iowa School of Poets. Terrible, thousands of graduate school imitators with no real-life exp. Just book exp. American Poetry Review is awful, abominable. Hardly a good poem in it — except in trans. The sensibility is so serious. Too many poets lack a sense of humor: That’s why they blow out their brains or stick their heads in gas ovens. Poor Sylvia Plath! What’s happening locally? Mississippi Mud. Congratulations, Joel Weinstein! (He designs The Clinton St. Q.) Copies are at The Catbird Seat or The Looking Glass bookstores. Best for small-press stuff. The Looking Glass (curses on City Council) will be smashed by Cadillac-Fairview Philistines . . . unless the lawsuit can save farmers’ market, Dave’s Deli, gay cruising blocks, et al. The sweet, crab-infested midriff of downtown, next to the arcade, Peter’s Inn, sandwiched between the Greyhound bus depot and the sleazy yellow-front bookstores. God love ’em! All good art and lit is steamy, funky, partly porno, at least sensual. Lawrence Ferlinghetti read at the NW Service Center on March 22, sponsored by the Portland Poetry CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY Festival. Where do they find the old- timers? (Kenneth Rexroth several years ago.) Coney Island o f the Mind was a good book. I’ll never forget at the Fillmore (what era?) Voznesensky booming out in Russian; and whiny nasal bald-pate Lawrence wimping in English after. That was between sets of the Jefferson Airplane . . . and hipsters had dropped pharmaceutical Sandoz LSD. Those were the days, my friend! (This column sounds like Gene Detro. Where are you, bro?) I didn’t dare. Three cheers for Ferlinghetti! Let’s have more readings in the amazing, curved and vaulted NW Service Center auditorium. The mellow spirituality of the old Christian Science building prevails. And the mellow, witty, deadpan, slapstick style —with lots of allusions to time — of the poet himself was touching, generous, civilized. He’s a good ole trouper! Actually, the Beats had something — a sense of humor, playfulness, free love, political commentary, cryptic erudition. And F. personifies them — the cracking voice, the San Fran sophistication. It was a benediction of hipster culture. B.J. Seymour taped it for “ A Spell of Word Sound,” her regular 6 p.m. Sunday poetry program on KOAP FM. If a poet can’t be extravagant, or offensive, what’s left? There is too much controlling middle-class sensibility castrating everything. Even the little buds of spring wince at vinyl raincoats. “ Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb!” Allen Ginsberg said it best ca. 1963? He still says it with “ Plutonium Ode” poem on tape. KBOO 90.7 FM plays tapes of Ginsberg, Bly, Kesey, Ann Waldman, others .. . local poets. The Talking Earth, Mondays 9:15. In April, tributes for Mary Barnard and Willis Eberman. Mary Barnard’s Collected Poems is available locally, published by Brei- tenbush Press. She is a fine Northwest poet, Sappho scholar. Seventy- one years old, she lives in Vancouver, Wash., and deserves very much recognition. Mr. Cogito magazine is the other imp. local poetry mag. It looks like a menu, publishes many translations — needs good American poetry submitted. Send a buck to: Mr. Cogito, Box 627, Pacific Univ., Forest Grove, OR 97116. The editors, Bob Davies and John Gogol, have contributed much to the poetry scene, as well as having published their own work. Bob Davies’ Timber, poems of an abandoned logging town, is a classic of Northwest regionalism. It compares favorably with Stafford or Snyder! Price $2.50 from Mr. Cogito Press. (If you like Oregon, get this book.) John Gogol is a superb translator, expert on NW Indian art and culture. His Native American Words is a gem ($1). What is Spit in the Ocean ! It is Ken Kesey and merry pranksters’ lit mag from Pleasant Hill. Six issues. With the “ Neal Cassady” issue coming, edited by Ken Babbs. Babbs is Kesey’s sidekick, a fine short-story writer and solid editor. The guys and gals have done a tremendous job with this small-press effort! Send for a copy. All are. $3.50 except Cassady issue, $5. (SPIT, 85829 Ridgeway Rd., Pleasant Hill, OR 97401.) For example, Kesey’s trip to the great pyramid in Egypt, Spit 5. Good writing and photos. Or Spit 3, edjted by Dr. Timothy Leary, “ Communication with Higher Intelligence.” UFOs, cyrology — a fascinating issue. (Leary will do stand-up comedy at The Earth April 21.) They call the Cassady issue “ A Spit Spectacular.” It is a memorial issue celebrating the legendary Beat hero Neal Cassady. Featuring writing by Kesey, Babbs, Mountain Girl, Burroughs, Wavy Gravy, Ed McClanahan, Ginsberg, Corso, Orlovsky, etc. A collectors’ item! I’d send for it right now. On Thursday mornings on KBOO listen to Don Manning’s Jazz Program — Charlie Parker — all the greats from NYC in the ’40s and ’50s. He reads some Kerouac. The sweetest sincerest teachingest jazz program in the U.S. Have you ever gone to a real-live poetry reading in a tavern? Get drunk and rave on Tuesday nights The Long Goodbye. Sunday nights The Chocolate Moose. Mondays The Earth. (Tom Cassidy, Musicmaster and Im- possibilist, hosts this one.) Listen to awful-mediocre-great poets rectalize the American language. Wet your whistle at a tavern reading. Some wonderful moments have transpired at tavern readings! Hit or miss. Poets such as Katherine Dunn, Jay Rothbell, Marjorie, John Shirley, Marty Christensen, myself — many others — have performed their guts out on gloomy rainy nights. Portland has a tremendous history of good local performing poets. Names like John Bartels, Ed Edmo, H. Holmes, M. Wilson, Tom Cassidy, Kay Reid, Francisco Ybarra . . . . On and on. In the dark night of American culture. Dick Bakken. We were there. Doing our job. Doug Spangle. A Mutual Admiration Society. And a lot of the academic poets didn’t have — and still don’t — guts enough to join us. They call us “ street poets.” Horseshit! We create the legends, and they get paid. Off. Why mention the academics? Oh, well . . . . The Portland Review this year is a translation issue, 55 countries, 504 pages. Quite a job! Due at the Portland State Bookstore, about May 1, price $5.95. A personal note: John Shirley leaves for NYC! Sci-fi writer, poet, punk performer (his band Sado- Nation) will work for Heavy Metal Comix. He is sci-fi novelist, Trans- maniacon and Dracula in Love of Zebra books. The Portland “ artist drain” continues. Portland doesn’t treat its local “ geniuses” well, does it? Marty Christensen in San Luis Obispo. Marjorie in Nepal. Bartels in Eugene. Where’s Mike Marsh? Or Marshall Bump? Some Oregon puddlejumper coughed up a green lunger, the size of an oyster, at the steps leading to Sambo’s. Which made me consider. Is there more brain damage in Oregon, due to the moisture?! Why are Portland citizens so godawful illiterate? For ten bucks — if you had a brain or a heart — you could spend it on any of the above small-press works. I’m growing sentimental . . . over you. All of you. How many — a handful? — can honestly say they miss the Portland-Astoria poet Marty Christensen? He and I would para- noidly rave about the infamous Portland Poetry Festival conspiracy. MAC and CETA nepotism . . . . Dissect the pimples of the local art and poetry mafia. Great fun. 1 miss the poor bastard. He’ll die of sunburn! His sharp insight directed at me: “ Premature ejaculation represents an expression of contempt for your sexual partner.” Author of My Flashlight Was Attacked By Bats and Dying in the Provinces. Let’s let him have the last words. Well, almost. “never to have learned / about the muse at all / strange / how that thought amuses me. ” The rain is tears my windshield wiper swipes off. Tears of the world. (Old pond. Frog jump-in. Water sound.) Basho? Yes. Who’d you guess? Old Town Optics Custom Design Specializing: Sports Eyewear Racquetball —Skin diving Mountain Climbers Ski Wear 214 N.W. 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