Thanks for the question. I don’t know the answer. I’ll leave it to the poet to reply if he likes. I do agree that both poems are top stuff. Lots of rich language. I have my own favorite phrases. How about “overpaid narcissist” and ‘virtuoso nihilist” for starters? And the insights don’t hurt either, i.e.: “What was most lost / was what was least found.”
Jay Jonessays
James, you picked the right connection…the poem is based on a guy that I used to know and sometimes employed as a cameraman on commercials I was directing. In the days when everybody I knew drank a lot, he drank more than us all and was obsessive about Lowry. He became somewhat notorious in the business then suddenly left his wife for a divorcee who had money, enhanced tits and a sportscar. That December he stripped the insulation off a set of Christmas tree lights, wrapped his naked self in them and plugged in. Died a couple days later in hospital.
Christonsays
I respect Jan Herman and I don’t think a poem needs to be either coherent or loaded either [with] obvious meaning to have value. But this batch is, in my humble opinion, such psychotic, insulting horseshit that only an R.D.Laing could take perverse pleasure in it.
Lawrence Christon
Jan Hermansays
Really? I have no idea why these poems got so thoroughly under your skin, but an ad hominem attack makes me suspicious.
Lawrence Christonsays
This is not an ad hominem attack. It’s a comment on the poem.
“psychotic, insulting horseshit that only an R.D.Laing could take perverse pleasure in” sounds ad hominem to me. let’s leave it that the poems riled you and you dont like them.
Is that Malcolm Lowry’s drinking chum? I do like the expression ‘a previous future’ and may have have to steal it. Both top poems.
Thanks for the question. I don’t know the answer. I’ll leave it to the poet to reply if he likes. I do agree that both poems are top stuff. Lots of rich language. I have my own favorite phrases. How about “overpaid narcissist” and ‘virtuoso nihilist” for starters? And the insights don’t hurt either, i.e.: “What was most lost / was what was least found.”
James, you picked the right connection…the poem is based on a guy that I used to know and sometimes employed as a cameraman on commercials I was directing. In the days when everybody I knew drank a lot, he drank more than us all and was obsessive about Lowry. He became somewhat notorious in the business then suddenly left his wife for a divorcee who had money, enhanced tits and a sportscar. That December he stripped the insulation off a set of Christmas tree lights, wrapped his naked self in them and plugged in. Died a couple days later in hospital.
I respect Jan Herman and I don’t think a poem needs to be either coherent or loaded either [with] obvious meaning to have value. But this batch is, in my humble opinion, such psychotic, insulting horseshit that only an R.D.Laing could take perverse pleasure in it.
Lawrence Christon
Really? I have no idea why these poems got so thoroughly under your skin, but an ad hominem attack makes me suspicious.
This is not an ad hominem attack. It’s a comment on the poem.
“psychotic, insulting horseshit that only an R.D.Laing could take perverse pleasure in” sounds ad hominem to me. let’s leave it that the poems riled you and you dont like them.