#SQUADGOALS (31)

By: Carl Wilson
August 2, 2017

One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by HILOBROW friends and regulars during 2017, on the subject of our favorite squads.

WHY I AM NOT A NEW YORK SCHOOL POET

I am not a New York School poet, I’m a rock
      critic,
though I think I’d rather not be. Why? Well,
      many days
as a young man, younger and more man
than I wished, I would go to the library on
      Colborne Street
with a series of questions that were the
      same question:
Where did this culture come from? This
      meaning
the one I most cared about, with punk rock,
      late-night TV,
David Lynch, comix zines in it, though I also
      cared
about literature or jazz, e.g., which weren’t
      much in it,
except by rare invitation. If you were a
      young man
you mostly found out the answers were
      drugs,
the Velvet Underground, the Weather
      Underground, the
Beat Generation. If you were lucky maybe
      someone told you John Cage.
(Dadaists and surrealists, bien sur,
but that’s over in the other place.)
Around when you were catching on
that Andy Warhol’s banana pulled more
      weight
than John Cale’s viola, when you were not
as young a man, or if you never were a
      man,
the Beat Generation would be making you
      very tired,
in aggregate though not every particulate,
above all for the denouncing and
      pronouncing, which
the Republicans later heard about, and
      yelled GOOD IDEA.
Finally you found out, maybe from poems
      copied for you
by a woman you loved who was smarter
      than you,
about the New York School in the 1950s,
      who were
John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, James
      Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch
(pronounced Coke like the coke-bottle
      glasses). Optionally
also Barbara Guest, Joe Brainard, Ted
      Berrigan,
and Bernadette Mayer, et al. All
indifferent to denouncing and
      pronouncing, yet
(don’t tell the internet) not bored or evil
but rather so beautifully exhilarated about
      having washed up
on Manhattan-which-was-still-Manhattan
      from wherever
(who remembered?) on waves of splattered
      paint. In “The Morning
of the Poem,” Schuyler told this story about
      what it was like
for them to meet (I took the line indents
      out, it was too much):
“When I first knew John Ashbery he slipped
      me
one of his trick test questions (we were
      looking at a window
full of knitted ribbon dresses): ‘I don’t think
James Joyce is any good: do you?’ Think,
      what did I think! I
didn’t know you were allowed not to like
      James
Joyce. The book I suppose is a masterpiece:
      freedom of
choice is better. Thank you, ‘Little J.A. in a
Prospect of Flowers.’”
Joyce or no Joyce, their poems rejoice in
      letting in
brows of all furrinesses and their friends
as characters (poetry will be sociable
or not at all!), and exclamation marks,
      kangaroos and Cokes,
Kenneth or otherwise. If New Yorkers were
      Dr. Seuss drawings,
or Lana Turner were Popeye, or cherubs
      were epistemology,
Republicans never noticed and still don’t.
      Women
were seldom props for William Tell
      practice; mercy, some of the poets
were women, though more of their painter
      friends were,
and returning to figuration. A few were
      even heteros.
Granted, lots, whatever gender, were Ivy
      League valedictorians
and track stars for Mineola Prep. There are
      dodgy tales
about their dealings with LeRoi Jones, who
      fled them
into the arms of Amiri Baraka. Still, in some
      insane
time like 1952 or 1955 it seems they’d
      already known
not only about late-night TV and comix
      zines (collages!)
and that not as much literature would
      follow, but also that queer
shoulders would get sprung from the
      wheel. So they held
Stonewall some 15 years in advance, down
      the hall
from Uncle Wystan Auden’s apartment (he
      left early)
and celebrated all morning and mourned
      all night.
They were so sad that they wrote about
      happiness,
removing the transition between the two
so the straights couldn’t prosecute it. And
      wrote novels together,
and ridiculous plays, very fast, that they
      made
each other star in. (Oh, the punishment
      theaters
now inflict for the crime of having written a
      play! “Development”?
No, no. Do it like this.) They glowered drunk
at each other’s boy-and-girl-friends at
      parties
but always went to the parties (or not at all)
and borrowed typewriters there, if they
      weren’t over
in the other place, because Paris-which-
      wasn’t-exactly-still-Paris
was their own time-travel destination. They
      were the last pack
of poets who wanted to be painters,
      instead of rock stars.
So if Frank O’Hara had lived past 40 (Fire
      Island, dune buggy)
maybe he would have run a Factory
that built a better Brillo box. But I didn’t
      come from that culture.
Even though now the palaces give my
      beloved little J.A.
all the crackerjacks for being
still here, so wistful and so bereft of blood
      relations.
I came from this culture (notice my
      pronunciation),
where you can say James Joyce was bad all
      day long
and nobody gets mad or exhilarated or
      starts looking
at ribbon dresses. It’s called SARDINES.

***

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

#SQUADGOALS (31)

Categories

Tags