MARY BETH HURT R.I.P.

When I heard that Mary Beth Hurt had passed, my first instinct was to call poet Ray DiPalma, forgetting he passed years ago. I first knew of her through him, when we were all students at the U of Iowa in the 1960s and her last name was still Supinger (I wrote about this in "The Iowa City Sonnets" section of my last book SAY IT AGAIN).

She was in the theater department and I was a married veteran working on a BA and MFA in poetry (simultaneously) on the GI Bill, after four years in the military. Ray was in the Poetry Workshop too, but also acted in almost every play the theater department put on, which is where I first saw him and was totally impressed.

Mary Beth was an incredibly nice person to me always. Born and raised in Iowa, no matter how many awards her acting garnered her, she never lost that midwestern down-to-earth unpretentiousness. One of my favorite memories is of a day we spent roller skating in Central Park probably in the the early 1980s.

I had done some roller disco skating but never outdoors and it had been a while, but when I arrived at her place she had already made this plan for us, and though I was afraid I might fall on may ass or make a fool of myself in some other way, I didn't. Partly because she didn't make it competitive or in any way about showing off.

As for the photo, here's what I wrote in a post from 2014:  

"I have no idea who took the shot, my copy is a slide from which I had this photo made and then scanned it. It's the great film actress Mary Beth Hurt caught reading my book HOLLYWOOD MAGIC. Not sure when, but the book came out in 1982, just after I moved to L.A. and Mary Beth still lived in New York, as I remember it.

I visited her apartment there once when she was dating Kevin Kline, I think, or just afterwards, before she married the director and screenwriter Paul Shrader, and while I was sitting in perhaps that chair, I noticed a big flower pot with a plant in it had words painted on the side and they seemed familiar, so I asked where they were from. She thought I was messing with her but finally realized I wasn't and said they were from a poem of mine [in the book JUST LET ME DO IT].

I no longer remember what they were or which poem, but I remember how happy it made me. I was just at the beginning of the change that would later come from which I would grow into the understanding that it isn't how many people read your work or see your work, or experience your work in whatever way they do, but simply that someone who does, actually gets it. Which Mary Beth did, and for which I am eternally grateful."

The last time I saw her was at a WGA Awards event at The Beverly Hills Hotel where a friend was nominated and invited me along. She wass there with her husband Paul but we found a spot away from the hubbub to sit and catch up, and though I felt like I'd gone through a thousand changes since we first met so many years ago, and I'd guess she may have felt the same, but for me she was just Mary Beth from Marshalltown Iowa, my longtime down to earth friend.

Condolences to her family, friends, and fans, of which the latter two I count myself among. 

IN AWE OF STILL

Fifty-eight years ago I was awestruck by the miracle of Caitlin's (my first born child) presence in my life and the deep and immediate connection we had. This is only days after her birth in Iowa City, where I was in graduate school.

Me and Cait in the 1970s in the kitchen of the feminist commune in DC where she lived with her mother and other women for a few years.

Cait in the 1980s in high school in Santa Monica where she and her brother lived with me after we had lived in NYC for several years. 

Me and Cait in the '90s I think, (I meant to find photos for the next two decades too but my parkinson's keeps thwarting that for now).

CHOOSE LOVE NOT FEAR

Recently my twenty-three-year-old trans grandchild, Deak, had top surgery, and I’ve never seen them happier or more at ease in their body and the world.

We are fortunate to live in a part of the country where there are doctors and medical institutions that support transitioning people, though there are still plenty who don’t even here.

How sad to be so frightened by another human’s finding their joy and comfort in life that you would advocate for preventing just that. Yay for my grandchild and others who are finding their happiness for themselves.  

NEW LIST

I watched LAST CHRISTMAS with my daughter the other night and dug it even more this time, my new favorite Xmas movie. Woke up the next morning with a new list forming in my head. Surprisingly it wasn’t ten favorite Christmas movies but ten favorite (at one time) movies whose titles begin with the word “last” (or “the last”). Some, like THE LAST OF SHIELA can be very cringey, (John Ashbery recommended it to me back in the day, because it was written by Tony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim) or have lost their luster. So for what it's worth, here ’tis: 

LAST CHRISTMAS

THE LAST  DETAIL

THE LAST EMPEROR

LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN

THE LAST HURRAH

THE LAST OF SHIELA

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

THE LAST SHOWGIRL

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

THE LAST WALTZ

TINA DARRAGH R.I.P.

Too many deaths (as always) to comprehend, but wanted to mark the recent passing of poet Tina Darragh. I met her when I started teaching (Modern Lit, Creative Writing etc.) at Trinity College (now University) in the Fall of 1969 in DC, where she was an undergraduate and one of my students. At the time, she was the head of the Young Republicans on campus, but soon moved away from that choice.

Tina reminded me of some of my first generation Irish-American aunts, so I treated her like family. One of my favorite poets at that moment was Francis Ponge and Tina and I got deep into his unique approach to prose poetry (admittedly in English translations from the French). She also helped me and  my then wife Lee Lally, and Terence Winch and a few other poets, start a weekly open poetry series, Mass Transit, and Some Of Us Press to publish slim volumes of poetry (chapbooks) by local poets we all agreed on. 

She lived for a while in the commune my household turned into, (while she worked as a waitress in a nearby Toddle House) and was a great supporter when I came out as gay (identifying as bi-sexual seeming like a cop-out) and Trinity "let me go." She organized a school-wide strike, but I talked her and others out of it, deciding it was time to move on anyway. She also helped me organize a protest calling for statues of politicians and military men all over DC to be replaced by statues of poets and writers and artists etc. like Gertrude Stein and Billie Holiday.

She had a small press for a while called Dry Imager, and published a side-stapled xeroxed collage art and poetry double book by her (called My First Play, if I remember correctly) and me (called Malenkov Takes Over). She is recognized (but not enough) as one of the pioneers of the "Language Poetry" movement, but her work transcended any categories. She and her creative output were unique. 

She remained in the DC area while I moved around the country, but whenever I saw her over the years, I felt the connection we had from the beginning of our friendship and hope she did too.

Condolences to her husband and son and all her family, friends, and fans.

AIDS DAY

i lost a lot of dear close friends as well as ex-lovers to AIDS, and don't know why it missed me, but that's my personal and all of our international history, and these jokers trying to erase that history can try all they want but will always fail cause you and me aint gonna forget or shut up about it

NOVEMBER SONNET

On a perfectly clear Fall day, heading back to

Fort Monmouth, I watched as other cars on

The Garden State Parkway veered onto the

shoulder and stopped, the drivers not getting

out, just sitting there. At the toll booth the man

said The president's been shot. As I drove on,

more cars pulled off the road. I could see their

drivers weeping. Back in the barracks we stayed

in the rec room watching the black and white

TV, tension in the room like static. When they

named Lee Harvey Oswald, I watched the

black guys hold their breath, hoping that meant

redneck, not spade, and every muscle in their

faces relax when he turned out to be white.

[(C) 2018 Michael Lally from Another Way To Play]