Dear Stephen,
I was there that summer of 1977 but I don't remember that the weekly readings hosted
by Ron Silliman might be termed "conceptual poetry". Except for the one on August 16 at
which that infamous photo of me was snapped. Perhaps you are referencing the Summer
of Love 10th Reunion on 6/21 or the readings from Gertrude Stein & myself on 9/20.
http://www.thegrandpiano.org/gpchronology.html
Jack Spicer
On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:44:02 +0800, andrew burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Yeh, liked it. It spoke volumes. Remind me to tell you about the Poem on a
>Chair ... Andrew
>
>On 11 February 2010 05:26, Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> from After Language / Letters to Jack Spicer
>> ******
>> The trouble with comparing a poet with a radio is that radios
>>
>> don't develop scar tissue...
>> from "Sporting Life" in Thing Language from Language
>>
>> Dear Jack:
>>
>> That line, that thing of a line, has never failed to elude me! In fact, for
>> a long time, it hung like an "audio vice" tightened about my head. Once,
>> with the help of a friend, I went theatrical to try to - if not expose it
>> for what is - get rid of it! Naturally, like the ghost imprint of any
>> language, the thing still haunts!
>>
>> Perhaps for your benefit, and maybe for mine, let me tell you the story.
>> Back in the summer of 1977, the Grand Piano, a coffee house in the Haight,
>> hosted a weekly series of what some might call "conceptual poetry readings".
>> One thick foggy summer night, several of us were asked, or invited ourselves
>> to do short theatrical pieces. I made a cassette tape in which I read- quite
>> slowly - the first few sections of "Sporting Life". Then I put three white
>> band-aids around the sides and edges of a small, black leather encased
>> transistor radio. I suspect it was the same kind you carried to Aquatic Park
>> to listen the Giants baseball games.
>>
>> When my friend, Hal Hughes and I, went to face the full & darkened
>> audience, I turned on the recorder to the sound of the poem. We stood across
>> a few feet from each other. Maybe like two clumsy kids, we gently tossed the
>> radio back and forth to each other while the white band-aids caught and
>> reflected the overhead light.
>>
>> ...The poet is a radio. The poet is a liar. The poet is a
>>
>> counter-punching radio....
>>
>> When the poem came to its inevitable end, I turned on the radio. Quite
>> accidentally a voice was calling the night's ball game at Candlestick Park.
>> "The count is 3 & 2." We kept tossing the radio back and forth while the
>> announcer's voice punctuated the room's absolute quiet darkness. You could
>> hear the crack of the bat strike the ball. "Foul out of play into the
>> stands."
>>
>> The Grand Piano audience - many of them your readers, if not young
>> contenders - were stunned, as I was. For just those few moments, there you
>> were, poem and game in hand. I do not necessarily believe in magic, Jack,
>> but that was magic. Then it was over. Hal and I joined our arms in a
>> two-step dance across the front of the audience and, other plays unfolding,
>> the night resumed.
>>
>> Elusive as ever, Jack!
>>
>> Stephen Vincent
>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>>
>>
>> Stephen Vincent
>>
>>
>
>
>
>--
>Andrew
>
>'Beyond City Limits', pub. ICLL @ ECU, available at topnotch indie bookshops
>- list at http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
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