Friday, July 18, 2025

THREE DEATHS IN MY LITERARY WORLD

EDMUND WHITE R.I.P.

 
Ed and I were friends in 1970s NYC. He lived uptown and me downtown, with Miles, my 5-year-old child who I was single-parenting, and Ana, my Costa Rican girlfriend. We had dinner at his place and mine a few times and met for lunch in midtown often during the two years when I had the only 9-to-5 job I ever had, as a writer and editor at The Franklin Library. I didn't know what I was doing half the time so he'd coach me.

He had published one novel, Forgetting Elena, that impressed me with its accessible if coded elegance in exploring being a closeted gay man without saying it. I had already published explicitly gay, sometimes graphically sexual, poems and short prose pieces so was able to return the favor as he began publishing openly gay books.

He was one of the smartest people I knew and often one of the wittiest. He could be tough minded and caustic too, and though I don't remember what exactly happened, our relationship became strained and  then I moved to LA. I'm not great at staying in touch, even though people I love remain in my heart, so I didn't see him much, but I continued to hear his voice and unique way of expressing himself in my head, and still do. I wish I had sent him my love more recently, so for what it's worth I'm sending it now.


JOHN MARTIN R.I.P.

In the late 1960s, John Martin, who I never met in person, started Black Sparrow Press to publish books by Charles Bukowski, and in doing so make Bukowski famous. Known as a "small press," Black Sparrow rivaled the big book publishers thanks to Bukowski's popularity and continued sales, as John added other poets and writers to his roster,

In the 1970s I was supposed to be one too as I garnered some alternative notoriety for my own poetry (one little mag critic included me and Bukowski in what he called "The Raw Meat School of Poetry"). But when John said my book would have to wait a year or more I became impatient and arrogantly demanded it go to press sooner, and John, instead, dropped it altogether.

In the late 1990s I sent a manuscript of prose and poetry to poet/publisher friend Geoff Young and he suggested I send it to Black Sparrow. I explained how I'd burnt that bridge back in the '70s, but Goff said I should do it anyway and let John know I wasn't that arrogant person anymore.

So I did, and John quickly got back to me saying he wanted to publish it. As we got close to going to press, I started having some regrets and wanted to change some of it, but John told me he got sent thousands of manuscripts every year and had chosen mine and a few others because he loved the writing and said not to change a thing, so I didn't. That book, IT'S NOT NOSTALGIA, was followed by another, IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE, and a third was in the works when John's health led him to sell the press.

John was the most gracious and responsive publisher you could want. Despite all the demands on his time and focus, he always answered my letters and calls promptly and patiently, always giving me and my writing his full attention. I was lucky to have had him as one of my publishers.


DONNA BROOK R.I.P.

[I couldn't find a photo of Donna]

Donna was a poet friend since the 1960s, and we saw each other at readings and over dinner and lunches for years, especially after she married the late Bob Hershon, a poet friend I knew even longer. She wass feisty and fun to spar with. I always enjoyed our sometimes intense political and literary discussions and debates.

Her health was often a challenge she faced courageously, and I'm happy she's free of that struggle. The best way to commemorate her is with one of her poems:

Pink Diapers

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During my Joe McCarthy childhood
I was warned to "Never
repeat what you hear in this house,"
but I didn't know
which parts of what were secrets. At home
I was told to be proud of friends going to jail,
at school I learned prisons
are for criminals.
The Pledge of Allegiance was so hard to say
because I'm left-handed and got my sides mixed up.
At age three
I realized SP was salt and pepper
but I never figured out
what CP meant.

Still I vividly remember
a man who had been with Trotsky in Mexico
grabbing my brother by the ears
and lifting him three feet off the ground.
He brought him straight
up in the air saying "Jesus, 
you're a carbon copy of your father.
You poor bastard, you look
just like him."

From Present Tense: Poets in the World, edited by Mark Pawlak. Copyright © 2004 by Donna Brook. Reprinted by permission of Hanging Loose Press. All rights reserved.


Tuesday, July 1, 2025

PRIDE

In March of 1972, when I was 29, after my first sexual experience with a man, at a time when by law that was still a crime and by the medical profession still considered a mental disease, I  publicly "came out" as a Gay man and lost friends, extended family members, and eventually my job (teaching at a Catholic women's college!) and in some circles my reputation. And caused a lot of confusion for many folks, including myself.

Because I was still attracted to women too, and in a relationship with my then wife, (see my last book SAY IT AGAIN). I chose to come out as "Gay" rather than "Bi" to express solidarity with Gay comrades by facing the consequences of being openly identified that way. Also, I didn't like the term "bi-sexual" which to me sounded like there were only two kinds of sexual relations and I knew that wasn't true.

I took part in some of the earliest Pride marches and demonstrations, sometimes in a dress or what we called gender-bending garb (lumberjack shirt with clip-on rhinestone earrings e.g.) and took flack not only from homophobes but some people within the Gay Liberation Movement who considered me not authentically gay. Then I got custody of one of my children, a five-year old, and the possibility of losing him because I was identifying as Gay, led me to be more discreet in showing my femme side and eventually let people assume what they would.

But I never stopped being proud of my Gay Liberation activism history or my love of, and place in, the ongoing expansion of who is part of the LGBTQ+ community.   

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

GRATEFUL

couldn't ask for a more insightful understanding of what i intended with this work and  the effort that  went into creating it:

https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2025/06/jerome-sala-getting-it-right-michael.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawK1S3VleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE1SWc0dkZlTHhNbTBFVW81AR6Ml7TM_e2b-u3iKSTQXPFCcpTTkoc9kLRLnUmriq0fSlr0ZLM9xDlS6YZ_WQ_aem_C7Z_F_Y_ppTrCXDIEDdjBw


Saturday, June 7, 2025

THANX

 A BELATED THANX TO ALL WHO SENT ME BIRTHDAY GREETINGS, TRYING TO RESPOND TO EACH INDIVIDUALLY BUT IT MAY TAKE MANY MORE WEEKS OR EVEN MONTHS THUS THIS POST, LOVE YOU ALL

Thursday, May 22, 2025

ALICE NOTLEY R.I.P.


Alice and I met at the U of Iowa in 1967, when she was 21 and me 25, not long out of four years in the military and married to Lee, and Alice would soon be with our mutual friend poet Ted Berrigan. We connected in a deep way and saw a lot of each other throughout the rest of the 1960s and '70s, up until I moved to LA from NYC in '82.

(I ended a poetry anthology I edited in the '70s, NONE OF THE ABOVE, with work by Alice, and opened it with quotes from poems by Lynne Dreyer, Bernadette Mayer, and this one form Alice: "I can't dissipate myself on little star points!" And I mention Alice a lot in the autobiography of my first thirty years, SAY IT AGAIN).

By 1982 Lee was in a coma that lasted six years before she passed, a few years after Ted did. Alice ended up living in Paris, so we rarely saw each other, but when we did I instantly felt that deeply rooted connection. I thought of her often (and kept up with her poetry and growing fame) as she recently wrote to me she thought of me too and kept up with my life through contacts with mutual friends, mostly poets (I had commented on a poem of hers posted by Terence Winch on The Best American Poetry Blog):

"This is Alice writing to thank you for your comment and to say Hello. I think about you and get news of how you are from people like Elinor Nauen and Johnny. It's a long time from Iowa City, where I first met you and Lee, and also Bob Grenier, and The Sullen Art and Ray DiPalma, and heard Bob Creeley read for the first time. And decided to be a poet instead of a prose writer."

Her passing has removed one of the few remaining links to the world we shared in the early years of our friendship. I feel that loss deeply. Condolences to her sons, Anselm and Edmond, and to all her family, friends, and fans. Rest In Poetry, Power, and Peace Alice.

Sunday, May 11, 2025

DOIREANN NI GHRIOFA'S A GHOST IN THE THROAT

 I always said 'poetry saved my life' and what i meant was when i was at my most despondent, reading a poem that I connect with in the often mysterious ways creative arts can personally reach into us, would transform my deep disappointment (with the world or myself) into deep gratitude for that connection.

I rarely get despondent any more, but if i were to be, this new favorite book of mine would be a lifesaver, just for the beauty of the language. Every word seems necessary in the ways only words can. I highly recommend (though everyone's taste is their own) Doireann Ni Ghriofa's A GHOST IN THE THROAT. 


Saturday, May 3, 2025

ANNIVERSARY

On May 3rd, 1957, The BROOKLYN Dodgers moved to LA, and I, about to turn 15, stopped caring about major league baseball, which til then I had cared about deeply.

Friday, April 11, 2025

SIBLINGS

 
Me in the arms of my oldest sibling, Tommy, to our right brother Jimmy who we called Buddy, to our left William, who we called by his middle name, Robert, sisters Joan, and Irene, closest to me in age but still separated by five years during which our brother John was born and died shortly afterward.

This looks like Easter, April 1945, Tommy in the Army Air Corps in a squadron getting ready to join the war in Europe to reinforce the bombing of Berlin but Germany would surrender in a few weeks so he'd never leave the States, while Buddy was about to leave for the Navy and end up in Okinawa when Japan surrendered. 

They're all gone, just me left and still squirming to be let free.

Monday, March 17, 2025

HAPPY SAINT PADDY'S

A trinity of some favorite Irish movies double features popped into my head and here 'tis:

BLACK 47 & THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY

THE SECRET OF  ROAN INISH (with one of  the other Michael Lallys) & THE QUIET GIRL

THE COMMITMENTS & ONCE 

Saturday, March 8, 2025

NEW POEMS

 Two new poems of mine in Innisfree Poetry Journal 40. Thanks to editor Greg McBride, and to Terence Winch (who's got great poems in this issue) for connecting us. Check it out:

Sunday, February 23, 2025

TRANS RIGHTS

 
I have had trans friends since childhood, and trans lovers since my late twenties, as well as times when I felt transgender identification of my own, and I have an adult trans grandchild, so I have little to no tolerance for any judgment or criticism or discrimination against trans people or limitations on what they feel is best for their health, happiness, and well being. 

As a wise person said to me more than once: There's two kinds of business, mine and none of mine. And what a trans person feels is best for them is none of mine. The current scapegoating of trans people for political advantage used by the trolls in charge must be opposed by all freedom loving people, or just plain loving people.

Thursday, January 30, 2025

TBTRIP


That's me in the flowery shirt, my three brothers to my right, Tommy (by then a Franciscan friar renamed Campion), Jimmy (known in the family as Buddy), and William (called by his middle name Robert). In front of me sit my mother Irene (ne Dempsey), and her mother (my widowed grandma Dempsey who lived with us), and down front (from my right) Robert's wife (ne Marie Fennessy known to all as Sis), Buddy's wife Catherine (ne Audia) with their baby Cathy on her lap, my sisters Joan and Irene, and our father (Jimmy). All gone now except for me.

Sunday, January 19, 2025

YET ANOTHER LIST

 My constant lifelong compulsive list making in my head, and poetry, subsided after my 2009 brain operation, but lists still randomly unexpectedly pop up in my mind like in this case while eating lunch, top ten movies whose titles begin with "THE LAST" (maybe prompted by so much coming to an end) (and despite my now finding much about some of these movies cringey) 

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

THE LAST EMPEROR

THE LAST WALTZ

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

THE LAST DETAIL

THE LAST OF SHEILA

THE LAST SAMURAI

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

THE LAST HURRAH

Monday, January 13, 2025

TRAGEDY

Something heartbreakingly tragic is happening somewhere in the world all the time. To paraphrase artist/writer Joe Brainard writing about history, almost every day is the anniversary of something awful.

The LA firestorms are awful, something heartbreakingly tragic for those experiencing them in person. Some of whom are friends of mine who have lost their homes and everything in them, or are waiting at wherever they evacuated to, to find out if their homes still exist or not.

My heart goes out to all of them, and everyone impacted by these fires, as it does to all those around the world experiencing heartbreaking tragedy in their lives.