tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post1653882597314540941..comments2024-01-26T21:38:25.924-08:00Comments on Duane's PoeTree: Dan Godston multimediatesDuanesPoeTreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-70924713753485192482018-01-19T17:57:45.041-08:002018-01-19T17:57:45.041-08:00Poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg founded the F...<br />Poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg founded the Fugs in 1964, named after Norman Mailer's euphemism for "fuck" in his 1948 novel "The Naked and the Dead." An FBI memo called the band the "most vulgar thing the human mind could possibly conceive." In 1944 Kupferberg he was seriously injured after he tried to commit suicide by leaping off the Manhattan Bridge, an act which was memorialized in Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem "Howl": he was the one "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer." Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman also wrote about the incident in their prose poem "Memorial Day 1971": "I thought that I had lost the ability to love.... So, I figured I might as well be dead. So, I went one night to the top of The Manhattan Bridge, & after a few minutes, I jumped off.... I landed in the water, & I wasn't dead. So I swam ashore, & went home, & took a bath, & went to bed. Nobody even noticed." Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore in New York in 1962; he was arrested on obscenity charges in 1966, leading to his being featured on the cover of "LIFE" magazine as "a leader of New York's Other Culture."<br /><br />Diane Arbus was noted for her photographs of dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers, and others whose normality was perceived by the general populace as ugly or surreal. In 1971 she took an overdose of barbituates, wrote the words "Last Supper" in her diary, put her appointment book on the stairs leading up to her bathroom and slahed her wrists with a razor in her bathtub. The next year she became the 1st American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale, and the accompanying exhibition book, "Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph," is the best-selling photography monograph in history. Her brother Howard Nemerov was the nation's poet laureate in 1963 and 1988, and her sister Renee Nemerov Sparkia Brown was a noted sculptor/painter/designer.<br /><br />Chuck Berry was one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. After serving 3 years as a teenager in a reformatory for armed robbery and carjacking he began performing in 1953 In 1955 his song "Maybelline" sold over a million records but was sent to prison in 1962 for taking a 14-year-old girl across state lines for illicit purposes. In 1979 he was jailed for tax evasion amd in 1990 he paid $1.2 million to 59 women who claimed he had installed a video camera in the bathroom of his restaurant. Although he continued to perform he stopped recording original material in 1979 until 2016 -- "Chuck" was released after his death in 2017.DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-76555081756970858842018-01-19T17:57:17.688-08:002018-01-19T17:57:17.688-08:00Timothy Leary was a Harvard University psychologis...Timothy Leary was a Harvard University psychologist who championed the use of psychedelic drugs. At the massive 1967 Human Be-In gathering in San Francisco he exhorted the 30,000 attendees to "turn on, tune in, drop out" (a slogan actually coined by language philosopher Marshall McLuhan); in promotional literature for his League for Spiritual Discovery, a religion with LSD as its holy sacrament, he explicated the phrase: "Drop Out – detach yourself from the external social drama which is as dehydrated and ersatz as TV. Turn On – find a sacrament which returns you to the temple of God, your own body. Go out of your mind. Get high. Tune In – be reborn. Drop back in to express it. Start a new sequence of behavior that reflects your vision." On the day in 1969 that the Supreme Court overturned his 1965 conviction for possession of marijuana he announced his candidacy for governor of California, for which John Lennon composed "Come Together" as a campaign song, which was recorded by the Beatles on "Abbey Road," their final album:<br /><br />Here come old flat-top, he come grooving up slowly<br />He got ju-ju eyeballs, he's one holy roller<br />He got hair down to his knees<br />Got to be a joker, he just do what he please<br /><br />Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me<br /><br />He wear no shoeshine, he's got toe-jam football<br />He got monkey finger, he shoot Coca-Cola<br />He say, "I know you, you know me"<br />One thing I can tell you is you got to be free<br /><br />Come together, right now<br />Over me<br /><br />He bag production, he got walrus gumboot<br />He's got Ono sideboard, he one spinal cracker<br />He got feet down below his knee<br />Hold you in his armchair, you can feel his disease<br /><br />Come together, right now<br />Over me<br />Right!<br /><br />He roller-coaster, he got early warning<br />He got muddy water, he one mojo filter<br />He say, "One and one and one is three"<br />Got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see<br /><br />Come together, right now<br />Over me<br /><br />However, in 1970 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a 1968 arrest. Based on psychological tests he was given (including the "Leary Interpersonal Behavior Inventory" he had devised a decade earlier) he was assigned to work as a gardener in a low-security prison, from which he escaped with help from the Weather Underground Organization, a leftist terrorist group which took its name from a line in Bob Dylan's song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows). He was recaptured and sentenced to 95 years but was released in 1976.<br />DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-62473115245316022562018-01-19T17:56:22.959-08:002018-01-19T17:56:22.959-08:00Patti Smith, the "punk poet laureate," f...Patti Smith, the "punk poet laureate," fused rock music and poetry in her work, as in "my blakean year."<br /> <br /><br />In my Blakean year<br />I was so disposed<br />Toward a mission yet unclear<br />Advancing pole by pole<br />Fortune breathed into my ear<br />Mouthed a simple ode<br />One road is paved in gold<br />One road is just a road<br /><br />In my Blakean year<br />Such a woeful schism<br />The pain of our existence<br />Was not as I envisioned<br />Boots that trudged from track to track<br />Worn down to the sole<br />One road is paved in gold<br />One road is just a road<br /><br />Boots that tread from track to track<br />Worn down to the sole<br />One road is paved in gold<br />One road is just a road<br /><br />In my Blakean year<br />Temptation but a hiss<br />Just a shallow spear<br />Robed in cowardice<br /><br />Brace yourself for bitter flack<br />For a life sublime<br />A labyrinth of riches<br />Never shall unwind<br />The threads that bind the pilgrim's sack<br />Are stitched into the Blakean back<br />So throw off your stupid cloak<br />Embrace all that you fear<br />For joy will conquer all despair<br />In my Blakean year<br /><br />Before William Blake died in 1827 he suffered from "that sickness to which there is no name." In 1819 he began a series of deathmask-like sketches called "visionary" heads" based on historical figures who modeled for him.DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-57318506546827025782018-01-19T17:55:25.762-08:002018-01-19T17:55:25.762-08:00Janis Joplin was a legendary blues singer of the 1...Janis Joplin was a legendary blues singer of the 1960s who died of a heroine overdose in 1970. Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter wrote "Bird Song" as a tribute to her:<br /><br />All I know is something like a bird within her sang<br />All I know, she sang a little while and then flew on<br />Tell me all that you know, I'll show you snow and rain<br /><br />And you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why?<br />Anyone who sings a tune so sweet is passing by<br />Laugh in the sunshine, sing, cry in the dark, fly through the night<br /><br />Don't cry now, don't you cry<br />Don't you cry anymore<br />Sleep in the stars, don't you cry<br />Dry your eyes on the wind<br />DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-51168431302460144882018-01-19T17:54:21.757-08:002018-01-19T17:54:21.757-08:00Uriah was one of the "mighty men" whom k...Uriah was one of the "mighty men" whom king David of Israel relied upon. David impregnated his wife and then arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle. Uriah Heep, however, was a British rock band formed in 1969, named after a villainous character in Charles Dickens' 1850 novel "The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)." One of the band's songs "The River" by Mick Box/Ken Hensley/ Trevor Bolder / Lee Kerslake / John Lawton:<br /><br />River, rising to hide<br />Across the midnight<br />Wanderin' westward by daylight<br />Take us and lead us to tomorrow<br />As fast as you come and can flow<br /><br />River, you're windin'<br />An unending rhythm<br />The sooner keep<br />Movin' to warn him<br />The spirit that keeps<br />Us from sinking<br />Guide us from going astray<br /><br />Point us a way<br />To a shoreline ahead<br />Through the mist and the fog<br />Of this valley of death<br />Too many years we have<br />Walked in a sleep<br />Now we're awaken and ready to fleeDuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-74808937870988939692018-01-19T15:35:25.107-08:002018-01-19T15:35:25.107-08:00Down a Green Plain
Then down a green plain, leapi...Down a Green Plain<br /><br />Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run<br />with cobblestones falling down the riverbank<br />when the willow's roots exposed from the dirt<br />Uriah lifts a vase full of river water<br /><br />with cobblestones falling down the riverbank<br />tumbling through the lightshow vortex<br />Uriah lifts the vase full of river water<br />as Janis Joplin ascends the stage<br /><br />tumbling through the lightshow vortex<br />Patti Smith's Blake death mask print sits<br />as Janis Joplin ascends the stage<br />so does Timothy Leary's psychotropic sermon<br /><br />When Patti Smith's Blake death mask print sits<br />upon the Peace Eye Bookstore cash registers click<br />so does Timothy Leary's psychotropic sermon<br />tell Tuli Kupferberg a verse after his Brooklyn Bridge plunge<br /><br />upon the Peace Eye Bookstore cash register Chuck Berry album<br />so Ed sanders swims to the nuclear submarine<br />tell Tuli Kupferberg a verse after his Brooklyn Bridge plunge<br />when Diane Arbus' camera aperture blinks<br /><br />So Ed Sanders swims to the nuclear submarine<br />then down a green plain, leaping, laughing<br />the Harpy face behind the rose<br />when the willow's roots exposed from dirtDuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.com