Feeling simply, directly, sad about the death of Dorn, and testing one
memory against the other, to offer you something that might stand up to
the power of the news of him that came through from time to time, words
from divers winds of how he held himself aloft above his sickness,
wouldnt give it the time of day.
In 1972 or so I was poet in residence at Cal Tech, amongst the
scientists and anxious technocrats. Ed Dorn came to read, and gave one
of his usual, wonderful, 24 minute assaults on the ordinary. The format
permitted questions, and early on, a student I'd never met before asked,
with ill-concealed contempt for poets and their no doubt suppositious
theologies, "Mr Dorn, what do you believe in?"
Ed paused for a very long time, fifteen seconds perhaps, looking at the
student, his face fiercely unchanging, and then said, in a quiet voice,
"Language."
And that was the end of it. Even that audience was silenced.
He surely kept the faith.
Robert
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|