Email Letter to Lisa Gill

[this is a rather recent email I sent to Lisa Gill April 16, 2012. for an introduction to Lisa and her comprehensive and important work in poetry in Albuquerque please see:
http://localpoetsguild.wordpress.com/abq-poets/lisa-gill/ ]

Lisa I hope you are enjoying the spring (except who the heck can enjoy the wind!). Lenore is getting out when she can to continue her photographing and identifying and mapping wildflowers in situ. http://lenoregoodell.blogspot.com/

I am struggling with a rather massive archive here trying to find digital or other publishing solutions, but mostly beating my head against the wall, it seems. But I keep experimenting ahead moving toward E-books and POD I’m sure as a way out of the mess I’ve created for myself by not getting my work published (some of the deepest failings have not been on my account though).

So I urge you, but I think you are already doing this, do everything you can to publish your work. I believe in the “Poet As Publisher” and my 3 books published were done by poets. My emphasis has been so largely on performance (in fact I’ve had people say to me “your work can only be appreciated on video”) that the hard fact of hard copy was sometimes dismissed when, in fact, I’m simply a poet who sees the back of the page as well as the front, the audience in front of me and the appropriate look of what is around me in reference to the particular sequence of poems. But most importantly for me is using the voice not in an over-dramatic way but in a natural Philip-Whalen way (a bit more enunciation) to get over to any listener the tenor of the poem. Unfortunately, without publication, as time goes by, obscurity builds and builds, and that’s what I’m up against at this point in my life, with my many collections of unpublished poetry (about 20) and lesser bundlings of plays, event poems, songs & commentary staring me in the face and saying, “Larry, what the fuck are you going to do about this?”

Actually it’s kind of funny, but I am working hard trying to find solutions after having given up on finding a publisher (like that “adventurous publisher” Gertrude Stein longed for) . . . I have been getting to bed very late at night and starting out early in the morning working & exploring digital solutions. And dealing with the severe problems of my son’s severe disability takes sometimes hours out of each day: I’m not a professional — I do the best I can. (Funding has been cut all the way around and his Guardian can’t find a place for him.)

Thanks for letting me know about the upcoming P(EAR) [poets speaking on their poetry] and thanks for having me as a participant. At some point I would like to give a combination reading and discussion based on my “thing” development. I would use the following Artspace article as a starting point. I just finally made this available again since it does pretty clearly express how I developed the performance aspect of my work in which, I listened to the poem’s message about how it wanted to be presented and never, as far as I can remember, added stuff to what the poem was telling me what to do at the time of writing: in other words I tried always to honor the integrity of what the poem told me to do. Sometime, if you can, please check out this Artspace article: http://issuu.com/larrygoodell/docs/artspace_1976_larry

My idea is, someday, to present some of the work from the Staff, the Bowl & the Book of Ometeotl (each of which was originally meant to be the major part of an evening, followed by newer work).

Should I update the information in the Local Poetry Guild? For instance I’ve been working on this as a convenient nexus of the stuff I’m trying to get online: http://about.me/larrygoodell

I think it wd be nice if Margaret Randall or Tony Mares could receive some laureate type honor someday — poets being native to the state and with many years experience are important. Now is the best time to honor Tony. And Margaret’s accomplishments including El Corno Emplumado are astounding. On the other hand, having a really vibrant, super-active young poet like Hakim [Bellamy] crowned will undoubtedly be a healthy jolt in the arm for our poetry community. As far as I’m concerned I’ve already been dubbed “the Poet Lariat”!

I still don’t have Beauty Is A Verb and let me know if I shd order from Amazon or get it locally? And a friend of mine (who first published me in the early 60’s) has a student in need of this book. http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Verb-The-Poetry-Disability/dp/1935955055

Thanks for being there and doing all the wonderful things you do, and being the fine poet that you are,

larry

[Note: Hakim Bellamy is the first Poet Laureate of Albuquerque!]