Arlene Corwin: Dear reader, let me present myself 'as we would at a cocktail party'. How
do you do? My name is Arlene Corwin. Lovely to meet you.
Having just completed an interview in which I've tried to give the
gist of my background, my creative mentality and where I'm 'at' nowadays
- as kids say. Let me put it this way:
I
can write but I can’t speak.
It’s
as if God says,
“You
have a message. Write the words.
I’ll
give written words a glaze,
But
eloquence that can be heard’s
Off
limits, for I slow you down
For
honesty, integrity
To
kill the vanity you’ve sown.
I’ll
make you stumble, clumsy, dumb,
Slow-thinking,
witless,
Sounding
somewhat girlish.
I’ve
obscured your verbal self
So
that you can’t impress.
I
keep you in the house
So you
must guess
What
is and what is not success.
Left
there to stammer,
Lose
my language;
Syntax,
grammar
In
a sandwich
Of
aphasic doublethink,
The
phrases weak,
Technique
oblique,
My
karma manifestly leaking,
Left
to do my dharmic seeking,
(Swim
or sink)
Through
scribbled, scratched and silent ink.
DV: You've obviously been around the block a few times, with a lot
of world experience. What got you started as a writer -- and especially as
a poet?
AC: "Been around the block a few times," huh? Sounds pretty risque to
me. But then again, I probably was introduced to sex and falling in love at a
pretty young age. Hmm. I started writing at about the age of 10 when I wrote
dirty lyrics to a popular song of the day "Sunday, Monday or Always"
- which started "Won't you tell me dear, the size of your brassiere?
Sunday, Monday or Always... Does it fit you right, is it thin or tight, is it
black or white, blah, blah blah..." Only God knows why. I certainly had no
idea of sex or anything to do with it. But I was a Brooklyn
girl after all. But 10, that's pretty young. Then I remember having
written a little pamphlet of poetry which my 'mommy' threw away when she was
cleaning my room. I remember feeling the loss deeply, but also feeling too
powerless to complain articulately. I mourned the loss in silence. Obviously,
the left side of my brain has always dominated. It may be relevant here to
mention that I'm left-handed.
DV: That's a certainly tragi-comic beginning! How did you get back into
the swing of things?
AC: After that, since I was often taken out of class to sing in the school
plays, I was to give a chance solo, and for some reason said I would do a song
called "Siboney." I didn't even know the lyrics to this "Siboney,"
so at lunch time I went home and wrote some. The quick access to poetry showed up
early, as I now understand. So as you can see, I had rhyme and meter in
my, as the Swedes would say, "spine".
DV: Was it the Bing Crosby version of "Siboney" you were familiar
with?
AC: I have
no idea where I would have heard it or how I knew it. It was in a film with one of my favorite childhood stars Gloria Jean. Maybe I saw the film (Get Hep To Love) in one of those Saturday matinees
that my mother used to send me to when she and my father were working. (They
owned a beauty salon). Of course, it may have been Crosby
since he was on the radio and kids snap up songs, sometimes even lyrics
quickly. By the way, "Sunday, Monday Or Always" was written by
Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen. I have a long, strong history with Johnny
Burke! Who would have thought that in 1943 when I was being nine years old
that Johnny would be a part of my life in 1958 or 9.
DV: Dolly
Morse wrote the English lyrics to "Siboney," but they had no
relation to the original ones in Spanish -- just like yours, I suppose. Since
then, have you written other lyrics? In compositional terms, what's the primary
difference between a song and a poem?
AC: I've just
checked my lyrics collection and see that I've written 61 lyrics. In terms
of the words themselves, there is no difference in my mind-set. As I read some
of them - especially the ones that I don't remember at all, I see that they
stand up by and for themselves as good, or quite good poetry. Also, the
process is influenced by whether there is music beforehand or afterward. The
music itself is a strong influence because, if written before, it has a set
rhythm, if afterward, the rhythm will follow the lyric
DV: Though I persist in the effort, usually I think it's pointless to try
to get poets to talk about the writing process. It's like Leonard Cohen once
said, "Talk about the language is the like the pointing
finger and not the moon."
AC: I lived in Hydra, Greece in 1964-5. Leonard and his
Marianne were my neighbors. My former husband and I had many a dinner there. He
wasn't known then, but he had written his first novel which sold well in Canada.
He was mostly stoned and used to pick up his guitar and sing. Nice, but who
knew he would become world famous! In the early 70's Leonard came to Oxford with his troupe
and show. By then he was a household name. I had not yet published. We met
briefly at the Randolph Hotel where I asked him about writing. He said - and it
had a huge impact on my writing - "If you write one page a day, at the end
of a year you;'' have a book." I started to do just that and lo! I did
have a book, rather manuscript after a year. What became of it I'll never know.
When I left my Oxford and my marriage to come to
Sweden,
the manuscript was nowhere to be found. But no matter, the creative flow rushed
out and I've been writing endlessly ever since. The next humongous push came
from learning the computer. It made publishing a possibility. In 2010 I started
to publish, and now, 2015, it's 14 books later. So, thank you Leonard Cohen,
wherever you are.
DV: As I said, you've been around the block a few times! Do you have any other
name-dropping anecdotes you'd like to share?
AC: I was singing at the Crystal Palace in St
Louis (long story about that cult place. Probably the
first theatre/nightclub/restaurant) and Lenny Bruce was heading the bill. We
met then. Spent some non-sexual nights together (damn it) walking around, staying
up until it got light. The relationship became platonic, very brotherly
sisterly. (I guess I wasn't his type). At the time we were both taking
amphetamines. They were new, legal, lovely. Anyway, one night before I was to go
onstage, Lenny gave me some. It must have been like an atom bomb because when I
got onstage and opened my mouth ---- nothing came out. My mouth was so dry, I
simply could not sing. I asked for water. It didn't help. In the end, after
somehow suffering embarrassingly through one song, I had to leave the stage. HE
then came out to roaring applause, of course, being wildly famous. The year? About
'61 - give or take a year. Weeks later, when the gig was over, Lenny insisted
on taking me to the plane. He gave me a large white case for my cosmetics,
kissed me on the cheek and said adieu. I still have it.
DV: That was a wonderful story. You're a genuine, and genuinely
entertaining, truth teller.
AC: I'm candid but not rude or cruel. I think most people find it
charming. They rather say, "Oh, she's from Brooklyn"
and that seems to make everything ok. They love New Yorkers here in Sweden. I could
probably commit a terrible crime and be excused. Been here for 32 years with my
adorable, kind, creative, talented, humorous Kent Anderson. Jeremy Seligson
once spent a week here with us due to my connection with Cid Corman with whom I
had had too short but intensive and rewarding contact. I just love these
chains. My friend in Israel
told me about 'this gregarious, famous poet' in Japan who was very sociable and would
gladly correspond with me. That turned into Cid which turned into Jeremy which
now turns into you. Fun!
DV: I'm sure
you must be familiar with C. G. Jung's notions about "synchronicity"?
AC: I surely
am.I even wrote a poem about it, "Serendipity
& Synchronicity."
My code, my
motto,
Inlet into
Every
earthly something.
Not
concrete. Tricky,
Yet
perceivable:
All
encounter
One and/or
the other.
First is
synchronicity,
Indistinct,
this braid, this overlapping.
Deep within
the all down here,
Perhaps up
there and up, up there?
Serendipity?
If
synchronicity is law,
They are
fraternal twins
You don't
deserve.
Can't
wheedle, pay for.
Simply
'freebees', so it seems --
A seamless
marvel.
DV: When you write something
like this, for you is it more or less spontaneous? Or is it something you have
to stew over first for a long time?
AC: 'Stew' would not exactly
describe what I do. I get an idea. It comes as a phrase which I usually write
down as a title. Much of the time I file it away under Pending Work and let it
sit there. Sometimes I don't get back to it for months. It sits there while
I've written 20 new poems. Other times, especially in bed morning, night or
middle of the night, I get an idea and write it down - again, as a phrase, a
title. Then I start the thinking, expanding, getting involved in rhyme, getting
leads from them or not. It's real one-pointedness, this looking for better
verbs, accuracy, eventually economy. The first draft always has an abundance of
articles and conjunctions. The next one begins to eliminate those. It's good
when I put what I've written aside for a day because I forget what I've
written, even what it's about. When at last I return, this poem amnesia works
in my favor. I see it with fresh eyes and ideas, fresh approaches, fresh
rhythms, fresh everything. Then the poem really starts to take shape. All that
said, there are times when I just rip away and a poem comes out a perfect unit,
boom: a poem forever. I'm also a tinkerer. I can stumble upon a poem written
years ago. It feels like a pice of crap. I fix or even rewrite the whole. I've
got so many versions of so many poems. A poem can be called version #1 #2 #3
etc. So, spontaneity or stewing, my writing process can include anything or
everything. I think one of my thickest books is all about that. It's called
"The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative." I'm always writing
about how ideas are formed and expressed. In a sense, all 14 books say the same
thing in boundless multifarious combinations.
DV: Going back to Leonard
Cohen for a moment -- he's one who's always worth going back to -- he was asked
if he used the same technique for writing songs and poetry. His reply was
"Yeah -- just one word at a time." So I'm wondering: In a musical
sense, does your compositional pattern, or strategy, follow the same course as
your poetry?
AC: First, let me say that
Leonard has 10 times the IQ I have. Quick, witty - I'm none of those. I could
never answer a question like that in seven words. Anyway, back to my technique.
My technique is described in 13 out of the 14 books. I love to and need to
share it. But, at the same time, unlike Leonard's glib answer, I would say that
strategy has many faces, sometimes being the face on the street as well. When I
write music, I must say I'm more critical and intellectual than when I write
poetry, the reason being my early jazz life. Being married to a successful jazz
musician at 20, and thrown into the thick of the New York 'scene', I picked up all the
prejudices and unwritten rules - which, by definition, meant being picky and
judgmental. I'm only learning to let go of that so-called high standard now -
or at least in the last 20 or so years. Strategy, hmm. I like good harmonies,
so when I write music I'm always conscious of creating them. It's not wasy for
me to write music. Nowhere as easy as writing, thinking through a poem.
Nowadays, when I want a song out of my poetry, I turn to Kent Anderson my dear
and talented partner of 32 years. It's too much to do both. I just sit there
and sit there and nothing original comes out. I once wrote a poem about Joseph Haydn.
It was called "All Beginnings Have An End." Here it is: Pay attention
to the first four lines. (Of course the rest is good too, so do read those.)
The first four lines are how I feel about my writing music. Kent tells me
that my poetry is musically demanding. "You can't simply write three
chords to your poetry. They're a challenge both harmonically and
rhythmically."
Haydn wrote his last, lived on
for six more years.
'Papa' Haydn - prolific Haydn,
productive Haydn
Never stopped.
A last quartet, then he was
through.
Maybe Papa Haydn popped.
Cropped his life and turned
into
A gardener!
Had he lost his 'papa' clout?
It seems he opted out.
Had he broken through
illusion?
Found his still point? Lost
his will?
More to the point,
When gift's become full-blown,
More feels like less and crown
noblesse
Invites a pause and settling
down -
Ambition's push a wish
expired.
Time comes, if you've given
all,
Inventiveness may pall.
The old exciting games a
faulty
Use of time. You're tired!
Endless twists, flicks of the
wrist;
Never tamed and open framed
raw energy
All have an end.
Pretending otherwise is
madness.
DV: What was the mid-50s jazz
scene like in New York?
I guess bebop was cresting, or was it already passé?
AC: Bebop was definitely in. It was 'in' starting in the late
40's, probably replacing the Swing Era. I don't really know my music history
that well, but it seems to me the 50's were a very good time for jazz, East and
West Coast. I know that it was formative for Arlene Corwin. Ella Fitzgerald,
Sarah Vaughn, Stan Kenton, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and lots and lots of
other piano players. Oh, how I was influenced! Even my first husband, Bob
Corwin (pianist) influenced me.
DV: Did you get at all
involved with the folksingers on McDougall
Street in Greenwich Village
or Washington Square?
AC: I do believe that the
folksinger movement and the hootenannies belong to the 60s. Am I wrong?
DV: I'm currently reading Dave
Van Ronk's autobiography, and he definitely places the hootenannies in the
'50s, as he was transitioning from being a Dixieland jazz player into a
folksinger. (His takeaway from jazz was, "Never use two notes when one
will do. Never use one note when silence will do. The essence of music is
punctuated silence.")
AC: Was he implying that jazz
uses too many notes? If so, he hadn't listened enough. There were and are as
many jazz styles as there are stars in the heavens. Or maybe he was simply
classifying all jazz under Dixieland's qualities. Anyway, it's an ambiguous
declaration and not very interesting to me. That said, the 'never use one note
when silence will do' statement could be called a truism, as is 'Silence is
golden'. It is the space between the notes that is often the most telling, the
most moving. We can talk about that sometime.
DV: What were the highlights
of your early career?
AC: Well, if we consider that
the verb 'career' means to move quickly
and in an uncontrolled way in a specific direction then I would have to say
that my path doesn't exactly qualify. I did indeed have a specific direction.
It was always music. That I wound up doing two and a half films (the half was
one I wrote the score to), but practicing yoga and writing poetry were always a
sideline - at least in my mind. However, since I was an unsure,
unknowledgeable, you might say shy creature, I shied away from singing in the
film (stupid of me, really) and didn’t know how to push myself and since I was
studying acting at the time, it never occurred to me that I should tell anyone
involved that I really was a singer.
DV: What was your biggest
success at the time?
AC: Secretly ambitious, I was
in Manhattan a
great deal of the time, my mother taking care of my son. How I read about it or
heard about it I don't remember, but somehow I heard that Jay Landesman was
auditioning for a show he'd written called "The Nervous Set." I went
down into a small studio where Jay was sitting, sat down at the piano and
played and sang Frank Loesser's "Spring Will Be A Little Late This
Year." The job was mine. I suddenly had the lead in a musical to open in St Louis. How was I to
know that the Crystal
pa;ace, where it was to take place and the show itself would become cult
places, cult events and would contain songs that would later become classics.
So to answer your question about 'highlights', I would have to include the
years that included starring in a film ("Juke Box Racket"). writing
the score for another, getting a bit part in a film that later won the Venice
Film Award (John Cassavete's "Shadows") -- these were important
stepping stones, although where these 'stones' were leading I had no idea.
DV: Were you already writing
seriously then?
AC: While doing "The
Nervous Set" I wrote two of my best songs, "I'm In The Market For A
Love Affair" and "April Is the Coolest Month". So I would say,
Arlene Corwin the writer, at least the songwriter, was concretized then.
DV: A very busy, productive
young life.
AC: Another period that I
would have to classify as a highlight was the period in which I had my own
trio, my own manager, toured, became a protégé of composer Johnny Burke, who
took me to Hollywood:
these were more 'stones'. All this took place while living in New York from about 1958-1962. In between
there were music jobs, love affairs, marriage highlights too. Eventful years.
The next series of so-called highlights take place outside the USA from Paris
to Hydra, Greece to Beir Meri, Lebanon, Oxford, England and finally Harryda,
Sweden where the writing and the yoga took full speed or, 'in full career'.
Music still going on, of course, with the next concert-like performance in two
weeks.
DV: How did you develop an
interest in mysticism?
AC: Arresting question. The
most primitive answer would be I was born with it. Then to trace it is another
matter. I remember being about 7, 8. 9 and walking by a Catholic church and
being tempted to go in, a real no, no for a Jewish girl. Somehow, I remember
going and seeing the little votive lights. I was entranced. The next thing I
recall is that my father had a picture bible in his bookcase, reading it and
having my first spiritual dream - about David or something and being in an
elevator and the elevator falling, then waking. I thought and thought about it
but could not come to any conclusions. Again about 7,8. Then I remember
believing in God, and then being aware that I was becoming dependent (very
sophisticated for a little girl, I would think) I decided to stop believing.
Years went by and I never thought about it. My friend George McClain took me to
a Unitarian church in Manhattan.
There I saw my first yoga demonstration - a yogin and his yogic wife. It was so
exotic. He swallowed a long bit of white cloth (took it out again, of course),
lectured about yoga. I was moved to go further, went to the Vedanta Center
(also in Manhattan), was told to visit a certain woman who turned out to be the
widow of the owner of the New York Times, living in luxury in a Manhattam
hotel, was a mediator -- started to read the Gita, read "Cosmic
Consciousness" by RH Bucke, the life of Ramakrishna. What can I say? The
flower opened. I wish I could find my friend George McClain.
DV: Other
than when you write an overtly mystical poem, how has your mysticism
contributed to or informed your artistry?
AC: Short answer: It underlies everything I write. It's what the Swedes
would call 'the red thread'. This poem, for example:
My I Is
Always You
I have no
secrets.
Every here
is revealed in each under-text
For you to
find, identify
And see
yourself in.
They are
signals -- call them semaphores.
Your world
may not be mine,
Yet all the
same. my mine is you
Though your
existence is your own.
DV: Well, to amplify a bit what
I said at the outset, you have indeed been around several blocks a few times.
On behalf of the readers of this blog, I want to thank you for all the
scintillating conversation, all the poetry, and all the wonderful memories you've
shared.
