It's good to rememeber both that John did a graduate school stint and that
the disarrangement of his senses had a lot more to do with schizophrenia
than drugs. But whatever the enabling factors may have been, he's left us
transcendent poetry--The Hotel Wentley poems, and also Ace of Pentacles,
Pressed Wafer, Asylum Poems and Nerves, all published by 1970. A string of
perfect games. After that to my mind the work becomes more fragmented, and
often not in interesting ways. But that's very much as it seems to me, and
there are flashes of brilliance throughout.
One of the great lyric poets of the age, and most of the time a gentle
presence and a lovely man.
Mark
At 12:56 PM 3/3/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>John Wieners has long been one of my favorite poets. The Hotel
>Wentley Poems is a book that had a big impact on me many years
>ago. I included Wieners in my 100 Living American Poets
>epigrams, made available a few weeks back. The question below
>smiles, and not that everyone should do it the way he did it, not
>everyone should or can... But in that he went all the way, in his
>way, wasn't he sort of our Rimbaud? Compared to him, haven't
>most of us, poetry-wise, been timid and convenient and ended up
>on William Duffy's farm?
>
>John Wieners
>
>The incomparable beauty
>of much of his poetry
>makes me think, as I lie in a
>hammock polishing my lenses:
>Have I wasted my life on the Ph.D. track
>instead of disarranging my senses with smack
>and driving a blue car through the stars?
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