gerald locklin- a critical introduction edited by michael basinski book preview

7/31/2019 Gerald Locklin- A Critical Introduction Edited by Michael Basinski Book Preview

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GERALD LOCKLIN:

A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION

Edited by

Michael Basinski

BlazeVOX [books]

Buffalo, New York


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GERALD LOCKLIN: A CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONEdited by Michael Basinski

Copyright 2010

Published by BlazeVOX [books]All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproducedwithoutthe publishers written permission, except for briefquotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Geoffrey GatzaCover art by Henry Denander

First Edition

ISBN: 9781935402008Library of Congress Control Number 2009920861

BlazeVOX [books]

303 Bedford AveBuffalo, NY [email protected]

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BlazeVOX [ books ]

blazevox.org2 4 6 8 0 9 7 5 3 1


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B X


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I dedicate this book toJames Maynard

AndDiane Marie Ward

They Are Stewards Of The Poem


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Table of Contents

PART I

Introducing Gerald Locklin

Foreword to The Firebird Poems- Edward Field 17

He Pushes Limits, But gently - Gerald W. Haslam 25

The Literary Art of Gerald Locklin - Robert Headley 37

Locklin, the Beats, and Bukowski - Norman Friedman 99

Gerald Locklin - Hugh Fox 115

Chasing the Toad: Gonzo Indexing and Gerald Locklin- Joy Thomas 123

Gerald Locklin: Art & Life - Tricia Cherin 139

Down and Out in Wichita, Kansas: A Literary Memoryof Gerald Locklin - Tom Hibbard 151

Gerald Locklin: However He Does It, He Does It- K. M. Dersley 163

Gerald Locklin: The Academics Bukowski Or Academia:

Inside and Outside the Glass House with the Toad- Diane Marie Ward 169

Gerald Locklin: The Hobgoblin of American Poetry- Michael Basinski 191

Wish They All Could Be California Writers- John Brantingham and Mick Haven 205

The Evolution of a Novelist - Mick Haven 219


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The Case of the Gonzo Critics- John Brantingham and Mick Haven 243

The Toads Wild Ride Continues - The Literary Artof Gerald Locklin from the 1990s - Robert Headley 261

PART II

The Poet Speaks

The Education of a Writer - Gerald Locklin 273

Gerald Locklin: The Email Interview - Michael Basinski 279

PART III

A Gerald Locklin Bibliography 321


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GERALD LOCKLIN:



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Preface

This book found its point of origin any number of years

ago and now it is in hand. Trials and tribulations, strong tides and

storms, war, famine, work, sickness and disease, lawyers, dust

under the bed, electric bills, cats, the dishes, etc. were all

impediments. However, like the small, entrepreneurial press that

we all hold dear, perseverance delivers triumph. Here we stand

resurrected or here we sit reading, relieved. Anyway, lets thank the

Gods. Let all of this babble be put aside and put out to the trash.

Let all the twists in the labyrinth of living be bygone days.

I am most happy to say that this book celebrates a poet,

the poet Gerald Locklin. It is in homage to Gerald Locklin, a poet

in the world of poetry that has been most generous to him and that

realm of poetry is the literary underground, which is the publishing

stratum that has delivered Howland The Maximus Poemsand Ulysses

and The Making of Americans. Not a bad list. We are all part of this

because you, reader, hold this celebration. Toast Gerald. Toast

yourself. Fill your bathtub with copies of this Critical Introduction to

Gerald Locklinand enjoy. Again, slowly, toast Gerry.

I beg forgiveness from those kind authors who let me hold

their essays for so so so long. I must write that this publication


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could not have occurred if it were not for poet Mark Weber, whose

pioneering bibliographic work laid the groundwork and structure

of the Locklin bibliography found herein. He has paved our way

with courage and commitment. This publication could not have

occurred if it were not for poet and BlazeVoxian publisher

Geoffrey Gatza. He is the spine of poetry. This book would have

not become manifest without my colleagues at the Poetry

Collection. They are in name: James Maynard and Diane Marie

Ward and Catherine Dunning. I thank them. This project could not

have become print without the deep research resources of the

Poetry Collection of the State University of New York at Buffalo,

poetrys library of record. As all of poetry, the Poetry Collection

stands far above what is template contained and the malice and

ignorance of the quotidian mind. Long may she wave! I thank

Natalie Basinski and Jason LaBarr because they were there for me,

and they are not color blind as I am. And thank you Ginny OBrien

for watching over me. I thank Joy Thomas who produced Gerald

Locklin: An Index to His Work, 1960-2003. I used the index often

and it kept me from despair. I want to thank Dan Sicoli, Bob

Borgatti, and Livio Farallo, the editors of Slipstream. They invited

me to Niagara County Community College to hear and meet

Gerald Locklin. That first time was a long bit of time ago.


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One pleasure of making a book like this is that it will

launch a thousand ships. Therefore, I would like to call attention to

The Locklin Collection in the Special Collections of California

State University, Long Beach, and its Curator, Kristie French. This

library holds the worlds largest collection of Locklin material,

books, letters, manuscripts, and first editions. For those studies and

books to come, for those scholars intent on improving and

sharpening this sortie in Locklin scholarship, it will be a second

home.

Of course, of course, and of course, there is then Gerald

Locklin. I could not be here ranting and thanking were it not for

Gerald Locklin. A lesser poet would have punched me in the nose!

This book could not have occurred at all if it were not for the poet

Gerald Locklin. I thank you Gerry for allowing us to satiate

ourselves in our literary pleasures. All, now, enjoy.

Michael BasinskiThe Poetry CollectionUniversity at Buffalo,July 2009


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GERALD LOCKLIN:



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PART I

Introducing Gerald Locklin


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17

Foreword to

Edward Field

In London one Christmas, I went to a poetry reading by

Gerry Locklin who was in Britain for a term on an exchange

teaching deal. This event, the most unusual reading Ive ever

attended and already the stuff of legend, was only witnessed by a

handful of people and, in retrospect, continues to amaze me.

It was the first in a series that took place in the upstairs

room of a neighborhood pub in Holborn. But it wasnt very well

publicized and only a small group of earnest poetry lovers came,

most of whom sat across the aisle from me and the group of

friends I had persuaded to come by telling them about the

phenomenon of Long Beach poetry.

The series organizer, a pale, almost inarticulate youth,

barely introduced Gerry, giving the audience no idea of his

background and achievements, and then retired nearby to a chair.

Gerry had just announced his first poem with the words, I need

some space because I have to performWhen I perform this


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piece, I dont know why, but something always happens. As he

began reading, the sound of retching began, and the young series

organizer was bent over in his chair, a hand trying to staunch the

flow that ran over his fingers and puddled on the floor. Gerry

stopped reading and stood there, looking on unjudging, simply

observing the human condition in his bemused Olympian way, a

condition that he understood, sympathized with, and allowed to

run its course.

Staggering toward the door, mouth still dribbling down

his sweater, the poetry presenter stopped to puke once more in a

great wash over the group of my friends across the aisle, splashing

me too (which meant almost the whole audience got it).

Fortunately for us, he hadnt been eating curry and it was only beer,

with no smell. Again by the door he let loose a farewell flood.

Gerry grinned and, before continuing his reading, commemorated

the moment by announcing in an awed voice that hed had some

pretty strange reactions to his poetry before, but this was the most

unusual one hed ever got.

Though Gerry has published fifty-three books at last

counting, making him one of the most extensively-published poets

in the U.S., and one would expect his work to be widely known and

discussed, pro and con, he is, as Bukowski called him, one of the


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great undiscovered talents of our time. Perhaps it is simply that no

one knows what to say. Gerald Locklin is one of my favorite poets

but Ill be damned if I know where he fits into the scheme of

American poetry. In world poetry he is easier to place, with his

droll ironies, his easy (though its not as easy as it looks), quirky,

intelligent responses to the events in his life. There are poets, the

Rilke- and Eliot-types, who wait for the Big Idea, and then again

those others who write out of everything that happens to them,

almost as a diarythe way Picasso said he painted. Gerry is one of

those othershe writes about everything. I always say he is the

only poet I know who writes about everything. Hes also the only

poet I know whose poems about wives and children are not boring.

Though he writes nothing like them, Id compare him to poets like

Germanys Bertolt Brecht, or Yehudah Amichai of Israel, or the

Pakistani Faiz Ahmed Faizpoets from a more secure tradition

than ours, who dont have to keep announcing in every poem that

they are Poets, and whose poems are understood and loved by the

people of their country. Unfortunately, the wall of silence around

poets has kept the people of his country ignorant of this national

treasure.

Though ignored by the poetry establishment, Gerry is a

leading antagonist to it. Not by fighting against it or preaching


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against it, but simply by going on with his own work no matter

what and creating the poetry environment his work can flourish

inmeaning finding and supporting the poetry publications and

publishers that will put out his books.

It is surely a measure of his originality that Gerry

doesnt easily fit the current critical standards, which I believe are

narrow and stifling to real poetry. America prefers its poets to

sound self-conscious about what they are doing, which Gerry

rarelyno, neverdoes. Even the Beats had a sense of mission in

their writingpreachy, prophetic, windy, self-important, that made

it Poetry with a capital P. Gerrys casual style might be compared to

William Carlos Williams or Frank OHara, both of whom dashed

off their poems in spare moments on the job, and when the phone

rang interrupting things, that was it. But hes not afraid of Poetry,

and leaves no doubt that these are Poems. Of course, his earlier

poems have a formality that he later dispensed with, but which are

fascinating in showing what he wrote like on the way to finding his

super-distinctive voice. And he didnt come out of nothing. He

absorbed the literary tradition and developed out of and beyond it.

I have searched Gerrys work for ideology, but have

only found this: If he has any ideology, it is in defense of the male

spirit, suddenly made very fashionable by poet/therapist Robert


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Bly, after years of trashing by activists. Educated by nuns in

Rochester, as he was, and surviving it, this is understandable. If

men in this country have been turned into toads, in every toad, to

paraphrase Cyril Connally, there is a man screaming to get out. The

metaphor has been well explored in Gerry Locklins poetry, which

is a record of impressive staying power, and even an occasional

victory. Hes had more victories than he admits, for the rueful

admission of ones own humanity can hardly encompass self-

congratulation.

But, in spite of his general tone of mockery of the

human race of both sexes, and a claim that he believes more

strongly in / our lower than our better motives,1 the male spirit in

him remains honest, bighearted, sentimental, generous, gentle,

vulnerable, but sassy in the face of adversityqualities that could

be applied to as few American poets as to presidents.

If a poets job is to translate myths into the

contemporary language of the people (whatever, or whoever,

that refers to), Locklin does his job admirably, though as he says in

one of his most memorable of his poems of Self-Assessment, the

people he writes for do not read poetry. Hes got what used to be

called the common touch, finding poetry, as is evidenced in these

pages, as much in the ironies, the insults, the knocks, in the


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repartee of daily life, as in Higher Thought. Reading Gerald

Locklin, I keep thinking of Gertrude Steins nun-like admonition to

Ernest Hemingway: Remarks, Ernest, are not Literature. I wish

Hemingway had answered, as Gerry would: Why the hell not, Id

like to know?

1991/2003

gerald locklin- a critical introduction edited by michael basinski book preview

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