Thesis 11, Still
One reader of an early draft of Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine Wrote me with characteristic candor: “Damn you! It fucking hurt to read this book And thank you! It was the final push I…
Tag: Walt Whitman
On Susan Sontag, Trip to Hanoi
Journal, July 2005 Susan Sontag spent two weeks in North Vietnam in 1968, and wrote 90 pages about her experiences. (Perhaps I will cull from those notebooks I kept in Gaza and the West Bank…
Good News
My good news is I’m still employed My good news is I have loads of work that isn’t for pay My good news is I get to meet ordinary, fascinating people like the ones at…
From Walt through Me to You
Allons! the road is before us! It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well. Allons! be not detain’d! Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the…
Note to a Friend on the Back of Allen Ginsberg’s Poem, Death and Fame
This poem is pure Allen, Lovable and vain Allen to the end You gotta love him– Evidently, lots of men did Rereading this poem Lights my fire “He taught me how to meditate, now I’m…
You, Walt, and I (And Most Everybody Else We Know)
Cab, Here’s section 51 of Song of Myself, which you’ve heard me and others quote scores of times, and even today as we discussed The Brothers Karamazov. And you might also enjoy June Jordan’s essay,…
On Ferlinghetti’s Americus, I
For Dianne Lee and Lynette D’Amico When I first read Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Americus,I just before The Book of Mev was published, I was energized by discovering how much it is a mish mash, full of…
It’s About
As I offer to share a 250-page novel/collage (Dear Layla/Welcome to Palestine) With a friend here and there A typical question is– “What’s it about?” OK It’s about good mimesis It’s about memory, resistance and…
Writing To Wake Up Course
Writing to Wake Up: A Course in Creativity and Community Think about it: Even with all our technologies and modes of communication, who has enough time? And yet, we need time, as community activist Grace…