As I noted in October, ’76: Good two weeks of poetry acceptance — 12-14 pieces taken.
That confusion some have, mistaking Jimm for Swami Jnana. Though they live together, they are distinct. One is the patron, who pays the bills by laboring on newspapers, complains about things, tries to live in some style, occasionally smokes, sometimes eats meat, likes to dine out (despite his income), listens to classical music, reads Newsweek, snuggles with his wife. Swami Jnana is his guru, appreciates silence, honest laughter, high country hiking, hardline poetry, animals, and fully human circles. Although they share the same household and many of the same interests, they are distinct. They met in early 1972 and things progressed from there. They have lived together in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and now Washington state. Since joining, Jimm has been calmer and happier while Jnana spreads Dharma seeds. Jimm’s childhood and historical roots have become less urgent; he may disappear altogether. There’s nothing more to say at this point. I’m not certain whose journal this is. It doesn’t matter. They each enter lines on these pages.
Rexroth amazing in the number of unknown poets he admires and the candidness with which he demolishes others. The Paris expatriates were, he says, drawn there by booze (Prohibition in the U.S,) and cheap dollars. Frost wasn’t modern at all but old-guard and compares poorly with similar English poets of a century earlier.
Duane Niatum an often bad poet who comes up with some fine lines, “pine cone city in rain.”
My introduction to Marnie Walsh of the Dakotas, sounding as if created by the people and place.
Her flattest possible diction with all of its crudeness almost a parody of pig-Indian English (“Um! You white!”) almost imitation Black and yet, how utterly devasting.
Yet with a freshness that cannot be ignored, especially in its directness.
~*~
Liz Sohappy, given her Palouse name, Om-na-ma, in 1969: “My Indian name has made great difference in my life. I really felt like a floating body until I received my name. My grandmother said that was how it was to be — no one else is here on earth until he has an Indian name”
I resonate with that, having been given the name Jnana in 1972.
As for the Native poet Dave Etter?
~*~
How strange, the Ginsberg’s The Fall of America is filled with place names and realizing he has no sense of place, but exactly the opposite — that is, a loss of place and roots and thus center, as in perspective, turning the Hari Krishna and Buddha to stop the movement, to cease the spinning …
~*~
Reviewing some of my work, wishing there were something more personal, intimate and yet more forceful there …
In W’s novel, it’s haunting freshness. No feeling of the veneer of (& chilling) revisions, editing …
If the book satisfied us, why would we want to read another piece by him or in the same voice, when there is no other
Andy Wyeth confession of losing himself in the character of what he’s creating but his lack of interest in the finished work; also, the difficulty of being watched while working: his need for secrecy, the self-consciousness intruding in the event of observation-in-creation, “Don’t talk out,” don’t analyze, don’t smooth out or you’ll lose the spark. The feeling of a compulsion forcing him to do a piece, submerge himself when there’s that sweeping instant of perception (a certain touch of light, for instance). The need for solitude and for tactile feeling to get beyond the eye’s flat view.
As for Christina, she is the essence of New England — even its witchcraft. (This, before I had ever been to New England.) Sprung something in me, a recognition of America and truths we do not allow ourselves to admit. A strand I kept denying in Binghamton and Bloomington, the Poconos and Fostoria. Some lack, too, in the Anglo culture, despite exorcism-slaying.
~*~
Wed. 17 Nov. 76, see I was reading Robert Bly “Looking for Dragon Smoke” … I would come back to its impact much later, somewhere in New England …
Snyder is to me what Thoreau was to generations of Americans.
But if Henry is the amateur, Gary is the professional.
Ginsberg, meanwhile, runs with old Walt Whitman.
Snyder works from the inside-out, where others try from the outside-in.
The difference is clear meditation.
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
Jnana's Red Barn 