Coming July 5th: "Dismembered"

“She had beautiful legs. I wanted to keep those legs.”

One by one, investigators found the women’s bodies. Each one carefully posed. Each one brutally mutilated. An arm here. A leg there. ... The killer was cutting his victims to pieces…

“At that point, I pretty much went for the head.”

For ten years in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the killings went on. Women of slight stature were hunted down, bludgeoned and strangled. And what the killer did with their bodies in the privacy of his car, his home, his kitchen, and his shower—was beyond anything police could imagine.

“I was pure evil.”

When investigators finally caught mild-mannered, Star Trek fan Sean Vincent Gillis, he couldn’t wait to tell his story. In the presence of shocked veteran detectives, Sean told them every detail of his killings, everything he did with the bodies.... And he smiled the whole time…

Susan D. Mustafa

Dismembered, the chilling true story of Baton Rouge serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis, will be in bookstores July 5. Gillis confessed to killing and mutilating eight women in the Baton Rouge area and is currently serving three life sentences at Angola. Written by Susan D. Mustafa and Sue Israel, authors of Blood Bath , which is the true story of serial killer Derrick Todd Lee story, this book is so disturbing that its publisher (Kensington Books) placed a warning label for readers on the back cover.

A book signing with Susan D. Mustafa and Sue Israel will be held July 30 at 6:00 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at Citiplace in Baton Rouge. The authors will present their thoughts on this killer, along with detectives who worked the case.

Read The Redman Writing Project interview with Susan here.
Purchase Dismembered online here.

Remembering the King of Greenwich Village

Maxwell Bodenheim: A flash of brilliance

Today is the birthday of Maxwell “Bogie” Bodenheim (May 26, 1892 – February 6, 1954), a poet and novelist who was known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. Relatively obscure today, he was widely known internationally during the Jazz Age of the 1920s for his erotic poetry and prose and scandalous womanizing. But by the 1940s he was a homeless wino who wrote hasty poems and sold them for drinks. He was shot dead in 1954 by a mentally disturbed man involved in a sordid tryst with Bodenheim’s wife, whom he also killed. (More on Bodenheim follows.)

We’re marking the occasion of the birth of Bodenheim here with two of his poems:

Songs to a Woman
By Maxwell Bodenheim

                         I
You are like startled song-wings against my heart
Which flutters like a harp-string wounded
By too much quivering music.
You cover me with a blue dream-robe
Whose silk ripples out like imaged water ....
And when, for a moment, you leave,
I am a black sky awaiting its moon.

                       II
If I could be moon-light scattered out
Over the blowing dark-blue hair
Of kneeling, flowing crystal breezes
Breathing a litany of pale odors,
If I could be moonlight scattered out
Over the whispers meeting in your heart,
The marriage of our souls would be
No more complete than now.

                      III
Like a delicately absent-minded guest,
Your smile sometimes lingers after
Your lips are solemn.
And once I saw a tear in your eye
Playing hide-and-go-seek with some leaping, dimpled memory.
These things, to me, are like scattered perfume
Wavering down upon my heart.

                     IV
The struggle of a smile craving birth
Invades her little weeping faun’s face,
And even makes her tear-drops leap ....
She smiles as only grief can smile:
A smile like ashes caught within
A tiny whirlwind of light;
When the light goes, the ashes drape her face
Till even her lips seen grey.

                   V
Wave your veils to pallid gavottes,
Blow them on with dimly-spiced laughs,
And catch them breathlessly against your breast!
You have prayed too long in you sinking temple --
Night has come, with her fumbling release,
Her moment in which you may play with sad thoughts.
So, wave your veils to pallid gavottes,
Blow them on with dimly-spiced laughs
And catch them breathlessly against your breast.

“Songs to a Woman” by Maxwell Bodenheim, 1919. Public domain.

The Rear-Porches of an Apartment-Building
By Maxwell Bodenheim

A sky that has never known sun, moon or stars,
A sky that is like a dead, kind face,
Would have the color of your eyes,
O servant-girl, singing of pear-trees in the sun,
And scraping the yellow fruit you once picked
When your lavender-white eyes were alive. . . .
On the porch above you are two women,
Whose faces have the color of brown earth that has never felt rain.
The still wet basins of ponds that have been drained
Are their eyes.
They knit gray rosettes and nibble cakes. . . .
And on the top-porch are three children
Gravely kissing each others' foreheads
And an ample nurse with a huge red fan. . . .
The passing of the afternoon to them
Is but the lengthening of blue-black shadows on brick walls.

“The Rear-Porches of an Apartment-Building,” by Maxwell Bodenheim, 1917. Public domain.



Poet Maxwell Bodenheim and his wife, Ruth Fagan, having breakfast of tomato juice and sandwiches in their apartment on New York's Bleecker Street, awaiting eviction.

World-Telegram photo, 1952.

Born Maxwell Bodenheimer in Hermanville, Mississippi, near Vicksburg, the family moved to Chicago in 1900, when he was eight years old. Bodenheim had no formal education and was booted out of school by the age of 16. He enlisted in the Army in 1910, but was soon jailed and dishonorably discharged for insubordination after reportedly hitting an officer with the butt of his rifle because the officer ridiculed Bodenheim as a Jew.

Bodenheim met writer Ben Hecht in 1912 in Chicago and they maintained a love/hate relationship to the end. Together they founded The Chicago Literary Times. The Chicago literary group also included Carl Sandburg, Sherwood Anderson, and Edgar Lee Masters, among others. Bodenheim was dispatched to Greenwich Village as the magazine’s eastern correspondent, which, according to writer Jeff Kisseloff, set into motion Bodenheim’s long trail of “empty bottles and broken hearts.”

Ben Hect offers a glimpse into Bodenheim’s mania in Hect’s memoir, Letters from Bohemia . Here he describes a dinner party during which Bodenheim became irritable that he was not the center of attention. Writes Hect:

“Having emptied his tenth wineglass, he proceeded to eat it. He bit chunks of his fragile goblet, chewed and swallowed the bits of glass as if they were the finest of desserts... ‘Good God,’ someone said, ‘You're a poet, not a circus freak.’ ‘Every poet is both,’ Bodenheim answered aloofly... He continued to talk of poetry, and to recite some of his own latest work, holding the diners fascinated by the stream of blood and words from his mouth.”

Bodenheim wrote several novels: Georgia May, Replenishing Jessica, Naked on Roller Skates, the most well-known. They were, in the words of Ben Hect, “hack work with flashes of tenderness, wit, and truth in them, and some verbal fireworks in every chapter.”

In 1926, Bodenheim was hauled into court on obscenity for his novel Replenishing Jessica, whose heroine found "the simple feat of keeping her legs crossed…a structural impossibility." The case was dismissed, but the notoriety bolstered Bodenheim’s reputation and made his novel a bestseller.

A couple of years later he again achieved notoriety, this time as the Great Lover, when a series of spurned lovers attempted suicide after being rejected by Bodenheim.

By the early 1930s, Bodenheim quit writing novels altogether and became largely known as a character – the king of Greenwich Village bohemians. Soon the book royalties started drying up and by the start of the Second World War, he was homeless and a raging alcoholic.

Writes Hect: “The Greenwich Village Bodenheim had no allure for me. I preferred to remember the Chicago version. One rainy day I ran into Bogie on Broadway. His face was gaunt, most of his teeth were gone. But there were some things unchanged about him. He was wearing the same army overcoat, carrying the same worn and bulging brief case; and his eyelids still fluttered disdainfully when he spoke.”

Time magazine in 1952 described Bodenheim’s itinerate life at that time: “He flapped disconsolately around the Village resting up periodically in the Bellevue alcoholic ward, sleeping in gutters, hallways and subways.” It was during that period he took up a third wife, Ruth Fagan, a former teacher with a history of mental illness. They were inseparable as they tramped around the Village from one flop house to another and oftentimes Fagan would pick up men for a place to sleep. One such “friendship” with a mentally unstable dishwasher, Harold “Charlie” Weinberg, went terribly wrong.

After a night of heavy drinking with Weinberg, the Bodenheims accepted an invitation to go to Weinberg's room. What happened after that is uncertain. Weinberg may have tried to rape Ruth and Bodenheim may have intervened. Or Weinberg and Ruth may have agreed to have sex and Bodenheim, who had been asleep, may have woken up and objected. Either way, the result was that Weinberg shot and killed Bodenheim and then stabbed Ruth to death.

In the end, Bodenheim had written a total of ten books of verse and thirteen novels, as well as a partly ghost-written memoir called My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village. Once the envy of the literary world, the king of Greenwich Village, the Great Lover, today Bodenheim is rarely read and his work has nearly faded from memory.

Emily Hahn, author of an "informal history of bohemianism in America," attempted to sum up his life: "Bodenheim's novels were not immortal. It is for his life and death he is remembered. These were lurid in exactly the fashion Philistines felt they had a right to expect of Bohemians."

Recommended reading:
“MAD MAX: Death of a Bohemian King” by Alan Bisbort

Village Rogue: The poetic life of Maxwell Bodenheim

Passage about Maxwell Bodenheim by Ben Hecht, from Hecht's memoir, Letters from Bohemia (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, 1964)

Naked on Roller Skates: A Tribute to Maxwell Bodenheim

Time magazine’s account of his murder:

Brains, Books and Boudreaux – A techno geek’s venture into children's literature



Stephanie Purser
Photograph by Chad Purser



 Author spices up Cajun lore with 'How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne.'



Stephanie Purser is an elementary education teacher in Slidell, Louisiana with a passion for teaching, literature and technology and she has successfully combined all three with a new e-book, How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne.

The story is a pourqoui tale, a fictional yarn explaining how something came about. In this case, Stephanie has created a very colorful Cajun whose over-the-top temper leads to the creation of a Louisiana staple.



“This initial book idea came at a time when I least expected it,” Stephanie explains. “I was actually participating at a teacher’s technology training. We were asked to brainstorm a word bank of Louisiana terms, and then use those words to create an e-book using new educational software. I had actually just finished a reading/writing study on pourquoi tales with my fourth graders, and decided to give my story that same pourquoi twist.



“It wasn’t until September of 2005—after evacuating due to Hurricane Katrina—that I began the process of transforming this rough, short story into a children’s book. The world’s spotlight was on our little part of Louisiana. Many became intrigued about our southern traditions and way of life. With all the culture and state information I had injected into my book, I felt that it was the right time to move forward.”

While still hoping to attract a publisher, Stephanie has not let the story sit idle. She published it as an e-book and continues using it today in the classroom as a teaching device.

Synopsis:

“I’m gonna fric-a-see a salesman, me!

Wit’ cayenne, tasso, and gra-vy!”

-Mista Boudreaux

Mista Boudreaux (BOO-dro) was a giant of a man, who stood well over seven feet tall. But as big-sized as he was, he was known for being twice as mean! And if there was one thing that really cooked his goose, it was when some poor ol’ body mispronounced his name.
In this fictional Cajun tale, three traveling salesmen make that very mistake. How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne (buy it here) depicts several comical encounters between this ill-tempered crawfish farmer and each of the three traveling salesmen. Stirred together and peppered with Cajun lingo, these chance-meetings lead to the creation of “Lousianne Hot Sauce,” which turns out to be Boudreaux’s temper, all bottled up and “swishing ‘round on the inside.”
This 6-page porquoi twist written in Cajun vernacular makes How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne a unique addition to any library. The intended read-aloud audience for this book is readers ages 5-10, although this clever story will be enjoyed by all ages.
Although the goal of the story is to entertain, it is often utilized by educators teaching units on the Southeast. Throughout the book, there are references to the state flower, bird, crustacean, etc. Furthermore, the story's setting and Cajun lingo paint a beautiful portrait of the bayou region of Louisiana.

The Redman Writing Project (RWP) recently caught up with Stephanie for an interview.

RWP: Tell us how you came to write How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne.

Stephanie Purser – Creative writing has been a hobby of mine, and with my experience as an elementary educator, I’ve developed a true appreciation for children’s literature. How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne started out as a short story written entirely in Cajun dialect, making it a fun read-aloud for adults to share with little ones, but difficult for children to read independently. After several challenging revisions, I think I’ve created a child-friendly story suitable for readers of all ages, while maintaining the Cajun narration experience.

RWP: You chose to publish How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne as an e-book. Why did you decide to go that route?

Stephanie Purser – I actually had begun the publishing process with a popular children’s book publisher. We had gone through the revision process together, and I made the final changes that were requested. As we were about to take the last step and begin the publication process however, things fell through, as they often do. I decided that I would publish online to get my work “out there” and see if this book would be unique and interesting enough to draw a reading audience. Also, with the obvious increase in the use of mobile reading devices, I believe that more authors will consider publishing their works in this easily accessible format.

RWP: While on that subject, what impact do you think e-readers will have on the future of book publishing?

Stephanie Purser – I have already begun using iBooks and Kindle books, as have other teachers within my school and district. The availability and affordability of the devices and books has actually made it more cost effective for schools to use digital books. These books are often less expensive, able to be loaded on several devices, and their “pages” don’t rip or wear out. These advantages, combined with the portability of large amounts of reading material, make digital books a viable option for 21st century reading.

RWP: Had you written anything previous to How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne?

Stephanie Purser – I had actually published Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) standardized test practice material and I’m writing a how-to book about teaching with technology, but this is my first literary work.

RWP: I understand you are working on another book. Please tell us about it.

Stephanie Purser – Well, without giving too much away, I’ll say that the spice salesman who you met in How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne attempts to take his new product on the road, when he ends up stranded among an eerie group of settlers in a remote part of the swamp. Don’t worry, though. It looks like the spice salesman may stir up this community and make something bitter into something tasty in the end—and profitable, too!

RWP: Let’s go back to when you were a kid, a teenager, did you write when you were younger? Did you enter any writing or poetry contests in school? What did you do to foster the writing bug?

Stephanie Purser – I actually wrote my first poem as a fourth grader. My teacher submitted it to the Baton Rouge The Advocate daily newspaper, where it was published. This was probably the jump-start to my aspirations of one day becoming a published author. In high school, I continued writing poetry and short stories while serving on the school newspaper’s staff.

RWP: What are your interests? How do you incorporate your interests into your writing or how have they influenced your writing?

Stephanie Purser – I am a teacher by occupation, but also by choice. I am passionate about finding “out-of-the-box” ways to present information and engage my students. I love to read just about anything, I’m goal-driven in all that I do, and I enjoy working with and learning about the latest technology.
I think I closely relate to the spice salesman in my book. He is an original thinker who comes up with an out-of-the-box solution to that mean Mista Boudreaux’s temper. And his sense of accomplishment at the end of the story reminds me of that competitive side of myself—that victorious feeling of accomplishing a goal.

RWP: List five of your favorite authors:

Stephanie Purser: I’m going to go with children’s book authors:
1. Rick Riordan
2. Lemony Snicket
3. Robert San Souci
4. Max Lucado
5. C.S. Lewis

RWP: List ten books you’ve read that you’ll never forget:

Stephanie Purser:
1. Diary of Anne Frank
2. Gone With the Wind
3. I Know this Much is True
4. The Five People You Meet in Heaven
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. A Child Called It
7. Where the Heart Is
8. Tara Road
9. Redeeming Love
10. The Bible

RWP: What are you reading right now?

Stephanie Purser – I am actually just beginning a juvenile fiction series that is very popular, called The Sisters Grimm, by Michael Buckley. These books are a twist of mystery and fairytale. I try to weave juvenile literature into my reading time so that I can keep abreast of the latest, most popular works available. This is advantageous to me as an elementary teacher and a children’s author, as well.

RWP: Where can people find your work and where can they follow you?

Stephanie Purser – My book can be found at www.amazon.com (here) and at http://www.bn.com/ (here). I plan to begin an author website in the near future, which will have activities for children, and lesson plan units for teachers to use along with my book.


More About The Author: Stephanie Purser currently teaches a class of fourth graders at Bonne Ecole Elementary School, and also leads the St. Tammany Parish School Board’s writing curriculum – “Write...from the Beginning” – and INTECH, an instructional technology course offered to teachers. A veteran educator with more than a decade of experience in Louisiana, Stephanie’s professional work and dedication to her field have been widely heralded across the state. She’s been named St. Tammany Parish Teacher of the Year; Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators (LACUE) Educator of the Year; and PTA Educator of Distinction.

She resides in Slidell, Louisiana with her husband Chad Purser and their two children.

About The Photographer: Chad Purser is an aerospace engineer, but his passion is photography. He created the cover art for How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne from an old boathouse he captured in his lens years ago. His photography has appeared on two other book covers, a CD album, and on a popular ABC sitcom. More of his images can be found at http://www.chadpurser.com/.

Copyright 2011 Donald G. Redman. All rights reserved. Photo copyright 2011 Chad Purser. Reprinted here with permission.

"when walking on earth is miracle enough" - a poem by Dennis Formento

when walking on earth is miracle itself
by Dennis Formento
(printed with permission)

when walking on earth is miracle itself
when cities are heat islands
where will you be, ten years on?
          if you know what's coming
          can you hope?
can you say so, can you say so
if you know what's coming
         and will anyone believe you?
         can you say so?
if you don't know what's coming and you act anyway
          is that hope? or the moment calling?

     maybe hope is
a work of many voices, all of them one voice
     the vision of many eyes, all of them one eye
when you see with one eye you see further
    “you live with your people as well as your ghosts.”

To keep your footing in the tidal wave,
     get used to the water,
take a ride down Carr Drive.

      Objects gathered on Carr Drive:
a wooden pelican, a weedy shrub grown in a concrete crevice,
          a child's life preserver,
a pair of pink goggles, a hard hat, and half a St. Joe brick.
          a morning glory twined around a tall weed
one nearly perfect pair of women's sandals.

Bridge up, bridge down, the train approaching, the expanse of water growing wider,
the acceptance of change, and the readiness to move on,
     strategy for survival-

maybe hope is the quality of non-expectation radiating love
struggle as if every second counts, or the line goes slack, & you're lost,

doesn't the earth create and maintain the conditions of life?
doesn't the moon rise and counter the steady sun?
where will you be, ten years from now?
where are you now?

what act restores the asylum
when walking on earth is miracle enough?

         Cities are heat islands
radiating deep into the night
         I woke up early,
quit driving by ten,
         the day bicycled under shade trees.

Is hope the desire
          for the arrival of
          the ideal state of things,
          the better day, tomorrow?
          Today
          Is.


(From “Blow,” commemorating the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, 8-29-07, commissioned by the St. Tammany Parish Arts Association.)

About Dennis Formento: He is a poet and performer with free jazz/free verse band, the Frank Zappatistas, and a publisher of Surregional Press. A New Orleans native, he now lives in Slidell, LA, with his wife, visual artist, Patricia Hart. His most recent book, Looking for an Out Place, was published in January of 2010 by FootHills Publishing of Kanona, NY (buy it here). His first cd of poetry and music has just been released, recorded with guitarist Ed Barrett as the duo Vecchio Frak (“old tail coat”).

Dictators make for lousy writers ...

Qaddafi wrote disturbing children's books like "The Astronaut's Suicide"; Saddam Hussein penned novels laden with profanity and laced with bestiality; Stalin wrote uninspiring poetry; and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wrote shockingly secular poetry. In all, dictators make for lousy writers.

A fun article examining the literary aspirations of some of the world's ruthless dictators can be found here.

Here is a quick sampling of their writings:

“Morning”

By Joseph Stalin

The pinkish bud has opened,

Rushing to the pale-blue violet

And, stirred by a light breeze,

The lily of the valley has bent over the grass.

The lark has sung in the dark blue,

Flying higher than the clouds

And the sweet-sounding nightingale

Has sung a song to children from the bushes.

Flower, oh my Georgia!

Let peace reign in my native land!

And may you, friends, make renowned

Our Motherland by study!

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini  wrote this unnamed poem I've dubbed "Tavern." It's actually not that bad and quite surprising considering the subject matter.

“The Tavern”
By Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

Open the door of the tavern and let us go there day and night,
For I am sick and tired of the mosque and seminary.
I have torn off the garb of asceticism and hypocrisy,
Putting on the cloak of the tavern-hunting shaykh and becoming aware.
The city preacher has so tormented me with his advice
That I have sought aid from the breath of the wine-drenched profligate.
Leave me alone to remember the idol-temple,
I who have been awakened by the hand of the tavern's idol.

And finally, an excerpt of Saddam’s Zabiba and the King

Even an animal respects a man's desire, if it wants to copulate with him. Doesn't a female bear try to please a herdsman when she drags him into the mountains as it happens in the North of Iraq? She drags him into her den, so that he, obeying her desire, would copulate with her? Doesn't she bring him nuts, gathering them from the trees or picking them from the bushes? Doesn't she climb into the houses of farmers in order to steal some cheese, nuts and even raisins, so that she can feed the man and awake in him the desire to have her?

 (The book's English translator believes the bear is supposed to represent Russia.)

"American Spring Song" by Sherwood Anderson

American Spring Song

By Sherwood Anderson

In the spring, when the winds blew and farmers were plowing fields,
It came into my mind to be glad because of my brutality.

Along a street I went and over a bridge.
I went through many streets in my city and over many bridges.
Men and women I struck with my fists, and my hands began to
     bleed.

Under a bridge I crawled, and stood trembling with joy
At the river’s edge.
Because it was spring and soft sunlight came through the cracks
     of the bridge,
I tried to understand myself.

Out of the mud at the river’s edge I molded myself a god –
A grotesque little god with a twisted face,
A god for myself and my men.

You see now, brother, how it was.

I was a man with clothes made by a Jewish tailor;
Cunningly wrought clothes, made for a nameless one.
I wore a white collar and someone had given me a jeweled pin
To wear at my throat.
That amused and hurt me too.

No one knew that I knelt in the mud beneath the bridge
In the city of Chicago.

You see I am whispering my secret to you.

I want you to believe in my insanity and to understand that I love
     God –
That’s what I want.

And then, you see, it was spring,
And the soft sunlight came through the cracks of the bridge.
I had been long alone in a strange place where no gods came.

Creep, men, and kiss the twisted face of my mud god.
I’ll not hit you with my bleeding fists –
I’m a twisted God myself.

It is spring and love has come to me.
Love has come to me and to my men.


American Spring Song, by Sherwood Anderson. Public Domain



Portrait of Sherwood Anderson

by Carl Van Vechten (1933)

Sherwood Anderson

(September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941)

Sherwood Anderson was a writer best known for his short stories, most notably the collection Winesburg, Ohio, which he began writing in 1919. Critics trace his influence on several American authors including Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe and John Steinbeck. In fact, it was through his influence that first books of both Faulkner and Hemingway were published.

A native of Ohio, Anderson forever endeared himself to the Arts community when, on Nov. 28, 1912, he "left business for literature," simply walking out of his office as president of the Anderson Manufacturing Co. in Elyria, Ohio, not only giving up a dream of becoming rich in American business, but also abandoning his responsibilities as a middle-class citizen, including a wife and three small children.

He and by-then his third wife, Elizabeth Prall, moved to New Orleans in 1924, settling briefly into the historic Pontalba Apartments adjoining Jackson Square. He quickly became part of New Orleans's vibrant literary and artistic scene, drinking with the likes of writers, William Faulkner, Lyle Saxon, Hamilton Basso, and artists William Spratling, Caroline Durieux and Ellsworth Woodward. Visitors like John Dos Passos, Carl Sandburg and Anita Loos dropped in now and then. Faulkner lived with Spratling for a time, and together they wrote and published Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles in 1926. Anderson wrote of Faulkner in his short story A Meeting South.

According to writers Robert Phelps and Peter Deane in their tome, The Literary Life: A Scrapbook Almanac of the Anglo-American Literary Scene from 1900 to 1950, Sherwood Anderson was responsible for encouraging Faulkner to complete his first novel in 1925:

“En route to Europe for the first time, Willliam Faulkner stops over in New Orleans, meets Sherwood Anderson, and lingers for six months, during which he completes his first novel, Soldier’s Pay. A little later, reportedly in gratitude for not having been asked to read the manuscript, Anderson recommends it to his own publisher.”

During this period, Sherwood Anderson wrote Many Marriages (1923) and Dark Laughter (1925). F. Scott Fitzgerald praised Many Marriages, saying it was Anderson’s finest work. Dark Laughter, a novel rooted in his New Orleans experience and Anderson's only best-seller, was famously satirized by Ernest Hemingway in his novel The Torrents of Spring.

The poem “American Spring Song” was published in 1918 in a collection of his poetry, Mid-American Chants.

Sherwood Anderson died of peritonitis on a trip to Panama when a broken toothpick perforated his intestines, aged 64. He was buried at Round Hill Cemetery in Marion, Virginia. His epitaph reads, "Life Not Death is the Great Adventure".

A detailed account of his life can be found here.

(Portrait of Sherwood Anderson by Carl Van Vechten (1933) Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Van Vechten Collection, reproduction number LOT 12735, no. 52.)

Nature Poems in a Post-Natural Age

Poet Gary Snyder thinks the landscape of contemporary poetry should include wildflowers . . . and highway fast food joints.


By John Felstiner

Reprinted with permission

Poetry Media Services

Gary Snyder. Photo by Leon Borensztei.

One of the original voices of the Beat Generation, Gary Snyder has been publishing poems for over 50 years. In addition to writing poems, Snyder has had a firm commitment to sustainability, a concern that is echoed in both his poems and essays.

John Felstiner: Do you remember some moment in your recent or remote past when you got the connection between poetry and environmental consciousness, where you felt it as a kind of absolute truth?

Gary Snyder: I grew up with it. Beginning when I was four years old, five years old, in the countryside, in a wooded landscape north of Seattle, back in the days when kids weren’t programmed. We just ran loose around the family dairy farm and went through the gap in the fence and right back into the woods. I felt as welcome and as much at home in the forest, second-growth forest growing back, as I did anyplace else, and I was comforted by it. I was always easy being alone. And if I went with a friend, that was fine too.

JF: How would one distinguish an environmental poem from what is sometimes called an ecological poem?

GS: Look at the words. “Environment” means the surroundings. The surroundings can include an oil refinery, can include all of Los Angeles and the I-5 strip. That’s the environment too, whatever surrounds us.

JF: So there’s an “us” in “environment.”

GS: Everything surrounds everything else. Yes. What is “ecological”? Etymologically, the "household of nature" is what's being called up. “Ecological” refers to the systems of biological nature, which include energy, and mineral and chemical transformations and pathways. “The environment” is used more commonly to also include human and technological productions. And it’s not an absolute, hard and fast separation. . . .

JF: Have you written poems that could be qualified as one way or the other, or as both together—environmental and ecological?

GS: The best example is in this little book right here, Danger on Peaks.
“In the Santa Clarita Valley”: That is the first valley north of the San Fernando Valley on Interstate 5. There’s a little river there, and it has become almost entirely suburban development now. Here's the poem:

Like skinny wildweed flowers sticking up

hexagonal “Denny’s” sign
starry “Carl’s”
loopy “McDonald’s”
eight-petaled yellow “Shell”
blue-and-white “Mobil” with a big red “O”

growing in the asphalt riparian zone
by the soft roar of the flow
of Interstate 5.

This is playing with the possibility that we might look at the human, physical, made environment as if it were natural environment.

JF: So we move from “Mobil” into a “riparian zone.”

GS: Yeah.

JF: And hear that word “flow” for the highway.

GS: Right, it’s ironic. I comment when I read this in meetings, that this is to help prepare us for a post-natural age. For writing nature poems in a post-natural age.

JF: We were speaking of (William Carlos) Williams’ “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.” In 1950 or so he took his Western tour, and he came to Reed, where you were with your poet friends. Is there anything specific you remember about that event?

GS: What stayed with me was how he said ultimately the poet, the artist, brings to society and to the world "conviviality.” That surprised me and stayed with me: conviviality. He said art is about conviviality. I saw instantly that this goes past the idea of the solitary, romantic, lonely artist suffering for his art, which I never trusted. And the acknowledgment that artists have a role in society, which is to contribute to the community — to the heart of the community.
Take Williams’ statement that people “die for lack of what is found there,” I think this means lack of open-heartedness, lack of sweetness and tenderness to each other. But then a little later I saw that meaning also as ecological, that openness not just for the human community but for the natural community; it’s for our immediate neighborhood of all the other species, all of us passing through time. I get angered when the bears eat my apples right off the tree. But I can say well, okay, they got to them first; they must have enjoyed them.

John Felstiner’s translations and critical work have been widely published and awarded. He teaches at Stanford. John's newest book, So Much Depends, dealing with poetry and environmental urgency, will be published by Yale University Press in 2008.
© 2007 by John Felstiner. All rights reserved.
Distributed by the Poetry Foundation at www.poetryfoundation.org.