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
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.
