00:00:17.550 - 00:00:35.100

Morton Marcus: And with that jolly and very passionate music from my people in Eastern Europe, and my guest's people from Eastern Europe also, this is the Poetry Show and this is Mort Marcus, and tonight our guest is Doren Robbins. And

00:00:35.100 - 00:00:50.490

we're going to have a good time with Doren because what we're going to do is we're going to talk about where his poetry comes from, and what he is trying to do with different forms because of the sensibility and the thought that he has

00:00:50.490 - 00:01:01.730

given to poetry. Doren, welcome to the Poetry Show. Doren Robbins: Thanks, Morton. Glad to be here. Morton Marcus: This has been a long time in coming; we tried to set up this program for three years, believe it or not. It

00:01:01.730 - 00:01:09.290

sounds amazing. Doren Robbins: It's been a journey, across the mountain, through the pass. Morton Marcus: Where are your people from, Doren?

00:01:09.560 - 00:01:17.420

Doren Robbins: Ukraine, all of them, yeah. Morton Marcus: And they came over here and you- Doren Robbins: Is it the Ukraine or Ukraine? People always correct me one way or the other.

00:01:17.930 - 00:01:29.330

Morton Marcus: But I always put "the" in front of everything. It's the Anglo part of me. Doren Robbins: The obsessive article users. Morton Marcus: And you came up here and you grew up in Los

00:01:29.330 - 00:01:39.470

Angeles. Doren Robbins: Oh, yeah. Morton Marcus: And Los Angeles provides a lot of the background of your poetry. What kind of work have you done in your life?

00:01:39.470 - 00:01:50.950

I mean, you have not just been a teacher, but you are now. I mean, you are teaching creative writing and English at Foothill College. Doren Robbins: Yeah. I spent, you know, most of my late youth

00:01:50.950 - 00:02:08.530

early adulthood doing I don't k ow, just the jobs that you do w en you don't have a degree, y u know, and you have a desire to be out in the world and mi ing with people. I think one of my attractions to being a co k and a carpenter was, there's a

00:02:08.530 - 00:02:24.700

definite fraternal mix that g es on in those professions, w rking with people, beside p ople, you know, not worrying a out being what they call n w "a suit," so to speak, ut you're, you know, out there in your working clothes and so

00:02:24.700 - 00:02:35.830

ou know, carpentry, cooki g, delivery work, any number of things. I worked in a bookst re for a couple years, the ld famous Papa Bach Bookstore in LA. Morton Marcus: When did you decide that you wanted to write

00:02:35.830 - 00:02:51.210

poetry? Doren Robbins: Consciously, I'd say when I was around sixteen. Before that, no; we were talking earlier just about the kind of interior monologue that one just carries on throughout their

00:02:51.210 - 00:03:06.420

childhood, I would say, people carry on an interior monologue, particularly in relation to to their senses all the time. We may not be aware of what we're interpreting in terms of impressions as being poetry but I think oftentimes we are, and-

00:03:06.420 - 00:03:24.330

know for me, you were remarkin about imagery, and I wou d definitely identify with that n terms of, you know- LA s overrated for the kind f horrible, you know, megalopol s that it is; it also has n amazing canyon area and so

00:03:24.330 - 00:03:39.900

e beach area which is still wild and I frequented that a lot o my youth, so that the fragrance that come out of the canyons an off of the ocean, etc, ar something that permeated me an my consciousness, I think, as young person. I can remembe

00:03:39.900 - 00:03:54.240

coming back from swimming in th ocean all day and closing m eyes and literally physicall feeling the rhythms of the se in my body and in m consciousness. So that wa something that I think went dee into me, something that drew m

00:03:54.240 - 00:04:12.360

close to sensory experience an that I've felt a psychi attachment, you know, to that. mean, it meant something to m that I was feeling these thing in terms of my senses. And, o course, eros has a has a bi contribution to being a poe

00:04:12.360 - 00:04:24.350

too, in terms of love poetry an libidinal energy and that sor of thing that Morton Marcus: So that's what I'm trying to get out because, you know, I've got this letter here that you wrote me, which

00:04:24.350 - 00:04:28.400

you will never live down. Doren Robbins: Okay. Morton Marcus: And- Doren Robbins: I'm accountable.

00:04:29.200 - 00:04:44.950

Morton Marcus: And it really is a fascinating letter because it really talks about a lot of these things that I want to talk about tonight. And it really seemed to show to me, even as you went into, "but I'm someone who views the dream

00:04:44.980 - 00:05:01.480

da-da-da-da," as the fact that it really was a fight for you to find your way to the kind of poetry you wanted to write and by necessity had to write. Doren Robbins: Yeah. I don't know. I think that particularly

00:05:01.480 - 00:05:17.500

now, there's a struggle, or a non struggle, I would say, toward achieving sensibility. You know, recently I was reading an interview and in one of the mags, its name was Kyron(?), or something like that, and there was a poet being interviewed in

00:05:17.500 - 00:05:31.420

there who was from LA. And the thing that was remarkable about the interview was the absence of sensibility. You know, this was someone talking primarily about the Venice Writers Workshop that came out of Beyond Baroque in the old days and everything like

00:05:31.420 - 00:05:47.470

that. Whereas with my group, we were more interested in what the preceding generation had done, which is, in particular, The Beats. And in terms of a specific person, not Ginsberg or Snyder at all, but Kenneth Rexroth, not because he was the

00:05:47.470 - 00:06:02.350

"father" of the Beats, but because he really had a great sensibility in terms of his internationalism, his ability to translate from so many languages and at the foundation of all of this his great working class consciousness and I don't mean

00:06:02.350 - 00:06:19.480

this like as a communist, but just as someone who was extremely humane, and understood the great betrayals and the great corruption that was present in all of the economic systems of our time. So that for me and my dear friend, Yuri

00:06:19.480 - 00:06:35.440

Hertz and John Salt, who are also poets, in our group, we were very much mavericks and outsiders to the, what was then known as the LA poetry scene. We, and I in particular, acknowledged Bukowski. I didn't think that he was such an awful

00:06:35.440 - 00:06:52.390

poet and that he had many things to contribute in terms of his anti-poetic sensibility for one, but that we weren't that attached to this other group because of their absence of this sensibility that had to do with traditions both in poetry and

00:06:52.390 - 00:07:07.960

folk culture, international culture, politics, etc. So definitely my meeting Rexroth and studying with him briefly when I did in my early 20s had a tremendous effect on me because he was the person I wanted to connect with.

00:07:09.850 - 00:07:19.720

Morton Marcus: What you really seem to be defining for me, though, it will sound strange because you also, you know, relate to the working man and the common people, is really humanism.

00:07:20.110 - 00:07:30.040

Doren Robbins: Yeah, to an extent, yeah, minus the optimism in progress though. Morton Marcus: Okay, but it really is a sense of the international culture.

00:07:30.040 - 00:07:42.250

Doren Robbins: Absolutely. Morton Marcus: The world of art, the world of thought. Doren Robbins: Absolutely. And, you know, humanists also in terms of humane rather than just the humanist tradition as we

00:07:42.250 - 00:07:55.570

understand it, but something that is truly human. Somebody is talking about, you know, in terms of progress, even though I made a, you know, ironic and facetious side about it, that yeah, indeed that things can get better and they should get

00:07:55.570 - 00:08:06.880

better, but it doesn't seem like the present political structure has that in view in terms of bettering the lives of many of the people. Morton Marcus: Now, I've been going through this whole

00:08:06.880 - 00:08:16.720

preamble because out of this, and how the ideas that you've just talked about, you have developed a very particular poetry of your own. Doren Robbins: Mmm.

00:08:17.110 - 00:08:30.670

Morton Marcus: And it's not just in this book, which was really what we were supposedly- this is the second book we were supposed to be talking about over the years. This is the latest one called, "Parking Lot Mood Swing: Autobiographical Monologues and

00:08:30.670 - 00:08:45.070

Prose Poetry." So what I would like you to do very briefly is to tell us the kind of poetry that has evolved in your years of thought, and that we're going to hear, and I promise you out there, in very few minutes.

00:08:45.150 - 00:09:02.490

Doren Robbins: Okay. I would say, you know, that the main struggle for someone who doesn't work in specific forms is to find a free verse form that not just- that you're comfortable with, but that in fact has a sense of urgency and fulfills

00:09:02.520 - 00:09:23.430

certain requirements that even Whitman would refer to as having a poetic quality. So, for me, one of the things that I was being struck with was I could not find a satisfactory form of lineation in terms of, not necessarily counting syllables,

00:09:23.730 - 00:09:39.450

but also in terms of the rhythmic beats of the imagination itself. It didn't seem to me to be what was happening in the type of writing I wanted to be doing and that I was doing, it didn't seem to me to be honest to start breaking

00:09:39.450 - 00:09:51.960

lines for certain types of writing that I was doing, but to simply let it flow out. If it was going to be long sentences, it's going to be long sentences. If it was to be short sentences that in fact had beats to them, let it be short sentences with

00:09:51.960 - 00:10:05.040

beats to them. But let it be in a prose form so that it wasn't really like faking anybody out with any sort of a- I know what has become a kind of a homogenized free verse form as we see it now. And I'm not saying that there aren't other

00:10:05.040 - 00:10:21.330

people experimenting and doing extremely lively things, but that's just how it was, you know, for me pretty much. I've read things like, I mean by people I admire, I mean a very deep level like Philip Levine in particular, or someone, I think,

00:10:21.870 - 00:10:37.650

less profound but a terrific poet Diane Wakoski, there are just times I just didn't get even in Levine's subtle, rhythmic lines, that it really had to be lineated, you know, for me. I mean, this is someone I know admire to the highest

00:10:37.650 - 00:10:51.230

degree, but for me, I thought that I had to break into more of a prose and just a prose line, letting sentences and lineation just take their form in a justified prose poem. Morton Marcus: And so we come to, "Parking Lot Mood Swing."

00:10:52.700 - 00:11:10.400

And I wonder if you'd read a poem for us from, "Parking Lot Mood Swing," and what I want to say or even read out there is something you said about your poetry, which is, "I'm someone who views the dream as a component of realism, and not

00:11:10.400 - 00:11:29.690

only in an absurdist sense. I noticed so far-" Well, okay, let's skip that part of it. "The notion of synthesizing or juxtaposing curious elements through montage, that is editing, in a larger frame might not be a concern of yours, Mort.

00:11:30.140 - 00:11:52.460

Still, association parallels montage, at least portions of Celine's and Cendrars' elliptical method feed me along this line. I am not an orthodox prose poet. I have complete trust in my autographical narrator's experience."

00:11:52.550 - 00:12:10.970

Doren Robbins: Yeah, the autobiographical narrators experience. Yeah, Celine with the elliptical method, that's the three dots. And Cendrars who spoke about simultaneousism, talking about the simultaneity of emotion, I'd say, you know,

00:12:10.970 - 00:12:28.400

maybe thoughts that are generated by impulses, memory, along with what I'd call the montage of the experience of him riding on that train across Russia so that all things are sort of parallel to and mirroring each other in that

00:12:28.400 - 00:12:44.750

long poem of his, a prose poem of the Trans-Siberian. Let me read a piece. In fact, I mentioned, you know, a film or two in it as a way of montaging in what I think I'm talking about to a certain degree, and also this notion that you

00:12:44.750 - 00:12:59.300

brought up about it being at once autobiographical and at the same time having the dream not necessarily be your dream imagery, not necessarily being something that you recount in a narrative but in fact is montaged into it, so to speak.

00:12:59.300 - 00:13:08.450

Let me read this. Morton Marcus: Before you do that, I've got to warn the people out there that this really is associated poetry even though it is controlled and revised and everything, and

00:13:08.450 - 00:13:18.680

there may be some words in here, which people will find offensive. Please be so warned and for the rest of the program as well. Doren Robbins: None of them appear in this poem ever. It's

00:13:18.680 - 00:13:28.000

called: GREEN TORSO I was lying alone in bed remembering how I got out of the green torso. I was just remembering how I had to live

00:13:28.000 - 00:13:43.000

with nettles and plump herbs coming through the dry rot of the casement window. The archetypal psychologists wanted to analyze me, but I wouldn't come into the city, I wouldn't go near his mental gardener's gloves. I was just lying there

00:13:43.000 - 00:14:00.040

remembering how it all ended on a chair with no back, the green torso coming apart, bowed over, steaming in its organs. A few moths and two banana slugs, I think they weren't interested. I think they were mating. And one snail ate the last of the greens

00:14:00.040 - 00:14:14.140

skin and the hair from the back. When I don't have to work, I lie in bed as long as I'd like to right after dreaming. I don't have any realism till that happens. Things don't click right unless I can do that, things generally don't click

00:14:14.140 - 00:14:31.960

right and I want realism. I want- I don't know what I want. That's how it is with only a few rags of what's real. That's how it is with only the gadget that sets the dream going, whatever a dream is, as if the dream is not realism. I go back to realism

00:14:31.960 - 00:14:46.450

when I have to and I don't mean Sergei Eisenstein's immortal, schmaltzy, baby carriage, "Potemkin" film brand of the real. I mean, something more like the "Mona Lis" octogenarian millionaire shooting up sixteen year old prostitutes with heroin

00:14:46.630 - 00:15:02.410

and getting off on it to realism. That film is closer to what's out of control than the unattended baby carriage going down stairs, pictures though not to end at ground level, no, no. Both films are about being massacred, even the green torso

00:15:02.410 - 00:15:17.830

is about being massacred. And all three realisms are skeptical about renewal or find renewal not existent, but affirm renewal, or at least all three realisms confirm my notes on the other one hundred and nineteen other realisms, which are in

00:15:17.830 - 00:15:34.240

fact, mostly ambiguous about renewal. One realism or another always jolting me into, or conformed firming my need, my ritual of the sloppy hunger to dream and think it over as long as it takes, as much as I can hack it, denying none of the

00:15:34.240 - 00:15:48.970

facts. Right from the first film of childhood realism when they ran out of the breasts of realism to feed the kid they argued about having in the first place, and he climbed out of his carriage corpse of realism, dressed in crumbs and dried

00:15:48.970 - 00:16:06.550

tomato sauce, a naked boy with fat balls climbing to dance out a little realism in front of his family on the family's kitchenette table of realism, dancing the realism out of his mind, waving a stalk of celery to the wet eyes.

00:16:09.790 - 00:16:25.450

Morton Marcus: Okay, so we see how this method works. Doren Robbins: Yeah, this is one example of it. Since you mentioned the dream, I wanted to focus particularly on that and, you know, see how, "The Green Torso," works and you know, as a

00:16:25.450 - 00:16:33.560

symbol and things of that nature. Morton Marcus: And also, the language is always the spoken language. Doren Robbins: Spoken, yeah.

00:16:34.070 - 00:16:51.080

Morton Marcus: So that we get- these are really meditations, but they're not meditations that have been edited down to just follow one thought, they're attempting to get like four or five different dimensions going at the same time and that's the

00:16:51.080 - 00:17:02.130

montage. Doren Robbins: Yeah, I would say to some extent, yeah. There's longer pieces in which this- what I may be thinking of as montage is being more exemplary but I don't want to read them

00:17:02.790 - 00:17:12.600

because they're too long. Morton Marcus: Okay, why don't we hear another one? Doren Robbins: And let me read one, yeah, since you started the show with the- with the Klezmer music let me read one which is

00:17:12.600 - 00:17:27.010

really my ode to Klezmer music, called: BENEATH THE JEWISH MUSIC It took twenty-five years to dance alone in this basement room to an unseen clarinet and to become a plangent thread in

00:17:27.010 - 00:17:43.900

the oscillating wind of my desk fan. It takes twenty-five years to dance a stone to pieces, twenty-five years to reach ecstasy, not three years or fourteen years like I bet everything on before. I thought I would dry up from the lack of

00:17:43.900 - 00:18:00.910

it, I thought I would always live in the rooms beneath the Jewish music, rooms I abandon, rooms I was forced out of, room for which I owed, but the garde s outside I would like to dwell a little on the pale mortar f the walls and the viol

00:18:00.910 - 00:18:22.660

t bougainvillea worn-slump-sto a hummingbird that I saw from y mattress on the floor the fir t time I heard Klezmer music - and that same day, listening o Naftule Brandwein's clarine then coming out on the porc

00:18:22.660 - 00:18:40.780

afterwards and sitting utterl still while the smal white-winged butterflies mate in August in the garden on 9t street, some of them spiraling and linking fifty feet up in the air above the date palms, yellow and white pallor linking

00:18:40.960 - 00:19:00.520

and trembling on each other's wings. That' s what the lucidity of ecstasy gets for you, part of it linking and trembling, the dune of gold tep, this fluttering, this mperceptible panting, working

00:19:00.520 - 00:19:15.400

o the Klezmer music. I thought was a torrid bloom, but I was nly in the ninth year toward cstasy, I didn't know yet how any times I would come to ontradict myself -- it was the eventeenth year- no -- the ixteenth I was always such a

00:19:15.400 - 00:19:30.160

ague man -- I was beneath the usic, and I didn't know I ould end up working in a pantry itchen where they would call e Onion Man because of the way tied two damp towels , one over my forehead low on my brows and the other under my eyes forming

00:19:30.160 - 00:19:46.630

a slit I could see through just enough while side-scraping the ut chunks of onion under nother wet towel so the fumes ouldn't burn -- I didn't know would discover purple onions n the pantry room and eat them lain when they were sweet

00:19:46.630 - 00:20:03.040

nough or with just a heel of read as I remembered my great unt telling of the delicacy of ellow onions on hard rolls, and f garlic rubbed on bread h els with butter and salt that w re eaten in the winter her s wing machine froze in Brooklyn.

00:20:04.690 - 00:20:20.650

ntil maybe a few years ago I as beneath the Jewish Music -- was only three or four years nto it when I was stunned by he rim of orange dye shaken by hummingbird -- I had only just egun to pull back the rock rom the hole, pull the onion

00:20:20.650 - 00:20:37.030

ut of the ground of ecstasy when I worked in the pantry of The Black Rabbit Inn. I had arely entered the surging I do n w when I hear the clarin ts trembling on the violin , fifty feet up in the air the rging and parting of mysel

00:20:37.030 - 00:20:54.490

, the opening so far, an Onion Man unraveling, the being tunned by it, what I burn, hat I sweeten, the surgin out of the onion I contai and cut open, the one thing grow coming out of its tight lick vest, out of the peels

00:20:54.490 - 00:21:18.710

nd drops of garnet waved within its burgundy stained coils, wild radiance I swayed and ng to beside a radio this morni g, again alone in a loud room to myself. Morton Marcus: Very, very good. Very nice. And of course you're

00:21:18.710 - 00:21:28.190

reading from an older book, which is a book of lineated poems. Doren Robbins: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Which is called, "Driving Face Down," which was

00:21:28.820 - 00:21:47.330

the original book we were supposed to talk about four years ago. But anyway, yeah, please feel free to read from all of your work. And that certainly does fit in with our conversation because I've seen the same method being used now,

00:21:47.630 - 00:21:58.640

in both your verse poems and in the prose pieces which you call either monologues or prose poems. So you wanted to read something called, "The Beast," or something that we've been talking about?

00:21:58.820 - 00:22:09.620

Doren Robbins: "The Beast?" Morton Marcus: Or was in reference to something you said, remind me that I want to read a new prose poem? Doren Robbins: I'm blanking, man.

00:22:09.660 - 00:22:29.190

Morton Marcus: Okay. No problem. Go and read something you want to read. But you know I can tell you something: here's a poem where your attitudes towards different kinds of poetry come up and that is in- it's a little long, but it's in a poem called,

00:22:30.420 - 00:22:42.960

"Chaucer's Quill, Sappho's Libido" Doren Robbins: Yes. Morton Marcus: Is that too long? Doren Robbins: Let me read, "An Homage to Dylan Thomas."

00:22:43.050 - 00:22:48.480

Morton Marcus: That sounds good. Doren Robbins: Since it's good, you're asking me about my beginnings also. Morton Marcus: Right.

00:22:48.570 - 00:23:04.800

Doren Robbins: So, and I mentioned Rexroth, I mentioned a few other people, but for me, the original grounding moment of committing myself to becoming a poet, I mean, occurred when I was around eighteen. I was in LA, and I saw one-man production

00:23:05.010 - 00:23:18.630

called, you know, that play that- I forget the guy's name who wrote it, called, "Dylan," and it's really a story about Dylan Thomas's life. And it was after that, that I went out and got all the spoken, started collecting spoken word, etc. And

00:23:18.630 - 00:23:30.030

this is an autobiographical monologue, you know, reflects back to a time when I was a delivery man, and I was discovering Dylan Thomas: MY DYLAN THOMAS

00:23:33.690 - 00:23:50.820

What a moribund romantic oratory cornball-plaid-on-plaid delight husky dressed-up and disheveled man, distracted by the end of himself at either end, without a chance of a reasonable chance, flying drunk drowned in a shot glass flew into me. When I

00:23:50.820 - 00:24:06.060

delivered in West Hollywood for Mr. James "you-need no-teeth-to-eat-my-beef ” Bar BQ -- when I was the tip slave smiling eighteen year-old at the door with my aluminum covered chicken, brisket of beef, hot links, cornbread, ribs and sauce

00:24:06.060 - 00:24:23.340

-- and I tried to write poems like his, the food beside me, between deliveries, pulled over, hunched in my car, in my head rush of my consonants, my vowels, my slanted moods. His little round boy drunkard's face was right on the cover of the

00:24:23.340 - 00:24:39.030

old Oscar Williams' paperback anthology of poems I took with me everywhere, ignoring the forty-one other non-faces on the same cover because he was the one, he had it, way down he had it inside the rootlet swinging nerve ends. Everything else read

00:24:39.030 - 00:24:56.010

like pallor, those other poets didn't get it. I owned his poems by the voice, by the neck, by the larynx folded mega vowel tide lyric feeding the human throat, his throat anyway. Man, I was eighteen, the once of an excruciating once. I'll take it.

00:24:56.010 - 00:25:13.080

I threw it back quick enough. Too quick. As quick as it takes. His language exotic half comprehensible floating boy only once tragedy talk ecstatic or not so ecstatic in the whiskey gauze boredom living sound that he sang, that swung that way,

00:25:13.290 - 00:25:27.990

that mostly mournful sand hill mine shaft caving in of sound and mood swing, that death in the middle of life closer to the beginning of the middle, in the middle of Jameson whiskey, in the middle of his first son's birth, in the middle of his

00:25:27.990 - 00:25:42.720

daughter wetting the bed, in the middle of a sand crab cracking heron, in the middle of the struck shell salt blood mess, in the middle of his wife's soaking braid behind her wet neck switching, in the middle of "Auld Lang Syne,” in the middle

00:25:42.720 - 00:25:57.660

of a commercial, in the middle of the Welsh woods, in the middle of relocation concentration reservation camps, in the middle of raw eggs and stout. Amazing to be spelled out by those few poems in the anthology, that language of a

00:25:57.660 - 00:26:15.060

legend who can sing like the canary of Rhiannon. I could pass now for the coo-coo of Cardiff Avenue, or the music box of a crab shell shut down on the hollow sand; oil dead, detergent dead, sand, some of it. I have my black birds, my bushtits, my

00:26:15.060 - 00:26:27.180

sparrows, but I'm more of a potato than a bird because I'm more of the ground than anything else. Except for the mockingbirds -- I'm trapped with mockingbirds, as far as the birds go they don't look like they're supposed to stir up

00:26:27.180 - 00:26:42.570

anything: so drab, so way beyond plain, those mockers in singing they are second only to the cardinal, and I've heard them when they make cardinals sound dull -- in singing, thinking of him, the cardinal is alone in that language, languet of his

00:26:42.600 - 00:26:58.950

throatful erections -- she hears him, I hear him, the leaves open their skins to him, just about everything opens to him, I did. I still have the old Dylan Thomas cardinal legend scratched voice roiling waters vinyl pub shore roaring voice tide

00:26:59.160 - 00:27:13.170

receding sound in the middle of the mourning vowels in the consonantal stream in his mouth, in the middle of the wave's folded surging and dropping, in the middle of the day, in his throat still in my head, in my heels, in the middle of the

00:27:13.170 - 00:27:30.150

Ocean Park tram ride, in the June light that started up my eyes on the topping waves, in that voice of his singing over the undertow in my head. Still there. Still, still. I was eighteen at the beginning of the night before I took my ribs, my

00:27:30.150 - 00:27:47.610

chicken, my sauce, when I was offered acid or grass instead of money for tips in the Hollywood Hills and Laurel Canyon, when I walked into the synagogue cantoral leaking blood clot singing whiskey mouth language pollen wail, reading him until

00:27:47.610 - 00:28:03.030

the big order came out and I loaded up at the beginning of the night, mournful syllable sweating dressed to die as he said he always was, wing made of his tongue, height flown down from, leading me somewhere.

00:28:06.030 - 00:28:16.830

Morton Marcus: That's a great homage. And again, you get into that bardic celebratory tone of his that I can really hear Thomas at times- Doren Robbins: Yeah.

00:28:17.280 - 00:28:28.370

Morton Marcus: -really talk. Doren Robbins: Yeah, I think that the euphonious- the allusions are all consciously made, if that's what you're getting at, absolutely. That's part of the homage to him that

00:28:29.150 - 00:28:45.710

he was just such an unbelievably musical poet who with a voice that, you know, is unforgettable, you know- I forget who said it, but they said that his voice was greater than his poems. I would- I'd say they're equal at least.

00:28:46.230 - 00:28:56.970

Morton Marcus: Well, I've got to tell you that over in England, of course, for years now, he has been on the bottom of the list. Doren Robbins: Oh, wow. Morton Marcus: They just can't abide him because the one thing

00:28:56.970 - 00:29:05.610

that he had, which is this earthiness- Doren Robbins: Yes. Morton Marcus: Is been totally siphoned out of British poetry. Doren Robbins: Huh, I'm not up on current British poetry other

00:29:05.610 - 00:29:19.350

than what I see in the anthologies. Morton Marcus: Anyway, we are going to take a break. We are talking with Doren Robbins who is our guest tonight and we will be back with announcements and more poetry by Doren.

00:29:33.480 - 00:29:51.150

[Music] You can hear KUSP's public affairs program Talk of the Bay on the audio archive section of KUSP.org. If you miss Talk of the Bay when it broadcasts at 10am, you can listen at your

00:29:51.150 - 00:30:15.330

convenience at KUSP.org. And the Favorite Poem Project will be, that is coming up reading, I guess, people reading their favorite poems will occur April 26th, that is Tuesday at 7pm at The Attic on lower Pacific Avenue. That's the Favorite Poem

00:30:15.330 - 00:30:38.430

Project at the Attic on April 26th, a Tuesday at 7pm. And finally, I would like to announce a poetry contest called Water Poems, and it's poems about water, any kind of water -- oceans, tap water, bottled water, makes no difference. And

00:30:38.460 - 00:30:58.890

it is for people only living in the San Lorenzo Valley. The judge will be Amber Coverdale Sumrall, and it is in three categories out there: one, an elementary school category, that means for people who are still in elementary school; two, the

00:30:58.890 - 00:31:31.140

high school category; and three, the adult category. Poems about water, and to find out more about it, call 335-9553, that's 335-9553. The deadline is April 30th and you can send the poems to Water Poems, box 38, Felton, California 95018. Again, that's

00:31:31.140 - 00:31:54.120

only for people living in the San Lorenzo Valley. Water Poems, box 38, Felton 95018, poems about water. So, got a lot going on still here in Santa Cruz County, and a lot of poetry. And need I say that our program, that is your Poetry Show is

00:31:54.120 - 00:32:09.540

supported by UCSC Extension: art, design, humanities department, offering classes in Santa Cruz including "Poems in Progress" with Gary Young, who you've heard on here many times and actually is a former host of the show. For more information

00:32:09.540 - 00:32:36.450

on "Poems in Progress" with Gary and other classes, call 427-6620, 427-6620, or go online at ucsc-extension.edu, E-D-U. Right now we're going to continue with the wonderful poet, Doren Robbins, who I have been extracting theoretical

00:32:36.450 - 00:32:53.130

comments from, which I know he actually- he does like because he has given great thought to what he's writing and has really come to this poetry, I'd say- would you say in your late thirtys or something like that you really came to these ideas

00:32:53.130 - 00:33:12.600

of amalgamating all these different aspects of your life and your thought? Doren Robbins: Yeah, I would say late 30s, early 40s, and then middle 40s up till now, really. You know, as you work on this --

00:33:12.600 - 00:33:31.710

sort of any craft I think, I mean, I know this as a carpenter and also as a cook but particularly as a poet -- after thirty some years of working at something and studying it as well, you begin to see the direction that you want to go

00:33:31.710 - 00:33:47.280

to, you know. It's like that Neruda title to his book. I mean, whatever the quality that others judge it as, you feel that fully empowered, I think, kind of feeling like you know what you're doing, what you want to do with it, and it's just a

00:33:47.280 - 00:34:03.780

matter of taking the time, you know, to perfect it, I think, at that point. And I'd say that's what I wanted to- I wanted to read something basically- before we were talking about, it wasn't the beast but we're actually talking about-

00:34:04.200 - 00:34:20.520

Morton Marcus: Well, actually talking of the beast in a way. We are both lovers of the island of Crete and have spent time there, and I have lived there, and my first time going over there was 1975 and Doren was over there in 1976 for the first

00:34:20.520 - 00:34:37.290

time, so we have only sort of, in one way or another, when we met, we've always gotten onto subjects such as Greece and Crete and how it really changed us -- it's earthiness, its sense of overlapping times, and just a real sense of mystery. So Doren

00:34:37.290 - 00:34:49.860

said, "Remind me to read a poem called not beasts, but traveling music." Doren Robbins: Yeah, "Traveling Music." The poem begins I'm actually going over on the boat to Crete and then it takes off

00:34:49.860 - 00:35:02.200

from there. SOME TRAVELING MUSIC For all I knew, the Fats Domino of the accordion was going back to Athens. He smelled of oregano and batch, and he woke me with

00:35:02.200 - 00:35:17.860

his music and the sour flow of Turkish smoke. He wasn't dressed any better than the one in the news they called a looter and he lives in a box on Spring Street in L.A. I was listening to the bouzouki of that Sonny Boy Williamson of the Greek slum of

00:35:17.860 - 00:35:35.020

Istanbul, and I thought the Etta James of the rat traps of Ankara took everything out of me. I slept on the deck for the fifth time in five overnight voyages, laid within the moisture that muted the burning in my throat. And it was almost ceremonious

00:35:35.020 - 00:35:49.150

the way they see to the Stephane Grappelli of the blind, and how with gratitude they watched his hands adjust the strings. They were half an hour into their music when the mandolin player stopped to finish off his brandy and the bouzouki player waved

00:35:49.150 - 00:36:05.110

for him to stop playing with a gesture, signaling it was a disgrace to Stephen Grappelli. And the Little Anthony of the mandolin lit two cigarettes and hurriedly placed one between Sonny Boy Williamson's lips, and then tilted and closed his eyes

00:36:05.110 - 00:36:20.290

again. If it weren't for their driven music, if it weren't for the village, I'm not exactly sure which one. It was in the mountains of Crete. There was nowhere to pay for a place to sleep and no one offered, I took my pack into a field. I'm saying

00:36:20.290 - 00:36:36.070

there's such remote villages, so many ruined paths, unpredictable depths, and I stood there adding up my arms, my dealing arm, my sawing arm, my arm that squawks, pressing out marks of blue ink, and the tight arm, the pleading arm, the arm that binds me, the

00:36:36.070 - 00:36:51.220

arm I see through, the arm unarmed, and the arm that will return to the weeds and the micro organisms with their rows of patient teeth. I lay there waiting it out, cataloguing my arms, adding up the stocks of which I am the fruit. I'm saying

00:36:51.220 - 00:37:06.010

there's such remote villages, and that the Lady Day of the Greek Netherlands has not sung of them yet. I won't sing of them either, the Odysseus of false starts, the one who goes on composing his ode to a sponge. And I will have left

00:37:06.010 - 00:37:19.990

Heracleion with the little Esther Phillips of Marseille with her hands that were roughed up from working in a Michelin tire factory with her hands that waved through cigarette smoke to the music of the Fats Domino of the accordion, playing to the

00:37:19.990 - 00:37:36.370

crew in the broiler room. With her cracked hand she was waving as we stopped on the narrow spiral stairway leading back down to the lower deck where the curve and the bend of the stairs was not wide enough for the two of us and little Esther turned

00:37:36.610 - 00:37:53.530

so the movements of the melody in her hands continued over the railing. And I will have left Greece after compiling my ode to sloth written on a food wrapper after getting poisoned on Corfu. I will have finished it after drinking mountain tea in the

00:37:53.530 - 00:38:08.710

greasy heat of a kafenion after two days and nights of sweating and shitting. I will have written it down with my arm that wasn't poisoned, and it will have come to me while I was trying to make out the barren layers from the sprouting layers

00:38:08.920 - 00:38:22.480

of the dusk sanding my window. Morton Marcus: There's that overlap and that montage again, the musicians over there change to the musicians from your own culture.

00:38:22.750 - 00:38:39.460

Doren Robbins: Yeah, I'm kind of giving them monikers, so to speak too, by making allusions to- in rhythm and blues and delta blues, NHS, and then rhythm and blues in terms of also pop rhythm and blues, someone like Little Anthony --

00:38:39.460 - 00:38:57.850

who I still think is remarkable, you know -- that there's also a communal experience of music, that they're interrelated, that I'm sure you could play, you know, Lady Day in a Greek kafenion, and if they didn't know the language, they would

00:38:57.850 - 00:39:10.120

know the voice and they would weep, you know, just as Lady Day if she would hear this blind man play the violin that I heard would be moved, you know, so. Maybe it is a universal language.

00:39:10.000 - 00:39:28.480

Morton Marcus: We hope. Read some more. Doren Robbins: Oh, okay. Let me read another one about this Greek experience, a sort of play with my own name in the third person here. This one is called:

00:39:28.660 - 00:39:46.320

SUBDORN THE SAILOR, and that's on page 19. Nature can kill you. Look at Ahab, vengeance made him lopsided. "As if a man did flee from a lion and a bear met him." And that ain't the way -- that ain't the way. Most of it ain't

00:39:46.320 - 00:40:03.270

the way. Nature, not a whale, killed Ahab. His nature. He wasn't Ahab or one of his likenesses, though we're all his bastards more or less. He was just a little Subdorn the Sailor for a while. In Athens before the tiny epiphany on the island

00:40:03.270 - 00:40:17.700

of Crete for a while. Some people took low wages and kept their mouths shut for a while. Some people shot protestors and strikers for a living for a while. Some people shot heroin in their eyes for a while when they ran out of veins for a

00:40:17.700 - 00:40:34.740

while. For odious henchmenesque uniforms and mediocre but adequate amounts of food some people ran over student demonstrators with tanks when they had to. Some people left infant Chinese girls to die from exposure off roadsides not just

00:40:34.740 - 00:40:53.430

because there wasn't enough rice for a while. The explanations were not humanly memorable. Some teachers taught Death Squad 101 at a fort in old American Georgia and a few other forts we won't know about until some future declassified time, for

00:40:53.430 - 00:41:10.080

quite a while. Some people said," there are reasons," but those reasons were omens. He worked a lot of shit jobs cooking in restaurants to make it over to Greece for a while. He felt the numbness over there, the commonplace sense of ruin

00:41:10.290 - 00:41:26.340

from the military coup seven years before, the matter-of-fact tolerance for the cover-up and body-count for a while. That was the Athens he was in for a while, with memory and writing and the Tyrants' hatred of both. And the smog was eating up the

00:41:26.370 - 00:41:42.060

pentellic marble of the Parthenon for a while, all that industrial vehicle waste eating the hats of police, star jasmine, the already crushed shirt-collars of the vendors, metallic dust eating the stone eyelids of Athena and the

00:41:42.090 - 00:41:58.920

tropical-fish-blue eyelids of the whores, all the while. And the archaeologists had official plans to encase the Parthenon in glass, and that would be just the solution for a while. And the military that helicoptered the several hundred something

00:41:58.920 - 00:42:14.310

dead bodies of students and protesters to remote islands in the Aegean after the military take-over, would supply the equipment necessary for as long as long a while as it was needed. The Athenian newspapers with their hatred of writing

00:42:14.460 - 00:42:32.040

reported eighteen dead because it was only mandatory to report the deaths of foreigners, ever and all the while. Some kind of loathsome world for a while. Our personal and collective little while, together or alone. Some students, some natives, some

00:42:32.040 - 00:42:49.200

peasants, some labor organizers wouldn't be able to resist labor slavery, Diet Coke, and E.T. for a long Western while. Because the faster the better, the cheaper the better in the factories, in the shops, in the barracks, in the mines, on the

00:42:49.200 - 00:43:08.670

pipelines, in the rain forests, and on the farms. Old half-ass Democracy Athens, of all the cities for a Subdorn the Sailor to twist himself into and then begin to see it a little more clearly and recall it a little more patiently after a while.

00:43:12.230 - 00:43:30.140

Morton Marcus: And there's a lot of history illusion in there to things that were happening in '74 and '75, the end of the colonel's control of Greece. When I went over there, in fact, in '75, and I've just been writing about this, we started

00:43:30.140 - 00:43:51.140

off with almost a celebratory rebirth concert by Theodorakis, and Maria Farantouri, and Stelios Kazantzidis. And wherever I went, they were following me around the country. This concert was just moving and every concert I attended, around

00:43:51.140 - 00:44:04.490

four of them, and every one I attended, everyone got up in the audience and put their arms around each other and just sang on, I mean, it was really- When we were over there, it was the rebirth of Greece, it was a very celebratory, deep time.

00:44:04.550 - 00:44:11.890

Doren Robbins: This is in '74? Morton Marcus: '75, '76. Doren Robbins: Yeah, there's still a little bit of that spirit when I was there, there seemed to be a lot of bitterness

00:44:11.890 - 00:44:28.780

about what happened at the Polytechnic, when the de onstrations were going on and st dents, and there was also r gular citizens too were ki led, and I'd call it a ma sacre.

00:44:24.000 - 00:44:34.770

Morton Marcus: Yeah. Eighteen, nineteen. Doren Robbins: People who knew about it. But again, the number one song in the country, I don't know how you say it in Greece, but it was Theodorakis's, "We're one, and we are two and we are

00:44:34.770 - 00:44:44.320

three," and that's when they'd start to get up and the audiences I think, and everyone put their arms around each other. It's a beautiful song. Morton Marcus: Well, go on. I didn't mean to interrupt.

00:44:44.860 - 00:44:59.720

Doren Robbins: That's okay. Anything from here you want to- Morton Marcus: Well, you know, just alone and, "Subdorn the Sailor," was one of them. So, anything you want to go to- you might want to talk about your relationship with Gargantua and

00:44:59.720 - 00:45:14.550

Pantagruel. Doren Robbins: Oh, well, Francoise Rabelais, the author of the great book, who was also hounded across, mostly France, but wherever he went in Europe for using the whole lexicon in

00:45:14.550 - 00:45:30.870

his language being all words that humans speak. I would say with someone like Rabelais that it's not so much a free speech issue for me even though that's a part of my love for him, but it's just absolute sense of freedom, you know, which creates

00:45:30.870 - 00:45:48.840

the kind of delirious energy and humor and complete abandonment to any type of subject matter, you know, worthy of his imagination. Apparently, for him, that was everything. So he's a great reader, a great writer for people to read in

00:45:48.840 - 00:46:04.290

terms of, I think, what a lot of people even now read Henry Miller for, some people even read Bukowski for, because he's the liberator, you know, and he liberates all of the sort of artificial, I don't know, inhibitions that we may maintain

00:46:04.290 - 00:46:18.300

regarding language and subject matter. And I believe that for Rabelais -- and I would agree with him if he were to come forth and say this -- that there's really no human- human experiences beneath the dignity of being human along the types

00:46:18.300 - 00:46:32.480

of subjects that he pursues. Although he'd probably be appalled to see what's going on, as I'm sure any of the great writers from the past would be to see what's going on today. Morton Marcus: But in many ways, he's a humanist, and a

00:46:32.480 - 00:46:46.850

synthesizer just like you because he's taking all these bits of information and knowledge and they just all get melded together and synthesized and come out in totally unexpected different ways, absurdist at times.

00:46:46.880 - 00:46:55.970

Doren Robbins: Yes. Morton Marcus: Very optimistic in others, and dark humorously in others. Doren Robbins: Yeah, he has everything. You know, like

00:46:56.000 - 00:47:10.850

Whitman who could say he contains multitudes and contradictions, I would say that Rabelais probably even does more so, he has a much greater subject matter in some ways. Eros, you know, though there's a lot of criticism, you know,

00:47:10.850 - 00:47:24.260

toward Rabelais for his language, there's really not that much erotic subject matter in the writing at all, you know? So that's what's curious about it. Whereas you come to someone like Henry Miller, and there's- it's not entirely erotic subject

00:47:24.260 - 00:47:38.010

matter, but he even opens it up to that point, so. Morton Marcus: Absolutely. You know, one thing that I wanted to talk to you about, and time's going, and it's something that you also said in the letter, and it was a comment on an interview

00:47:38.010 - 00:47:52.260

that I had done and that is the subject of masculinity in poetry. And I'd love you to talk on that a little bit, because we hear a lot about feminism in poetry and the feminine voice, but no one's really talking about you know, the masculine

00:47:52.260 - 00:48:05.550

voice and the masculine sensibility in poetry. Doren Robbins: I think people got sick of it, I think that because of the tradition of the canon and the upholding of the tradition of the canon -- canon being just the, you know, the

00:48:05.550 - 00:48:25.680

great books of specifically Western literature -- that was mainly white men. So that, you know, a lot of the the feminists and whatever other cultural and ethnic protests against that can and I think is to me viable.

00:48:25.720 - 00:48:44.140

Morton Marcus: Yeah but I'm not talking about the K.C.(?) element, I'm talking about what I find so seldom in poetry which is a sense of what a man is. Doren Robbins: Oh, I got you, yes. Yeah, you know, for me, you

00:48:44.140 - 00:48:58.960

know, people are Rabelais and Henry Miller, but you know, Lawrence has also, especially when I was much younger, tremendous influence on this level and his attempt to understand, you know, what it is to be a man -- not so much as

00:48:58.960 - 00:49:14.650

Whitman did, I think he was coming out of Whitman -- but I think primarily in the erotic relationship. And you know, when you read Lawrence's books about Italy in particular, he's often talking about and romanticizing, you know, like the men working

00:49:14.650 - 00:49:26.170

in the vineyards and, you know, guys building things and all that and it makes me wonder, you know. Lawrence is kind of this frail tubercular. He was a marvelous poet, and I'm sure he was an extremely erotic man based on his writings, and the

00:49:26.170 - 00:49:40.780

letters that I've read to him and about him, and bios and all that. But he was kind of a- seems like kind of like a bookish kind of frail type, you know, kind of like a Keatsean type of person in some ways. I'm probably generalizing here.

00:49:40.810 - 00:49:50.960

Morton Marcus: Yeah, no, because you know, this happens over and over again. And Lawrence is a great example. The other is Nikos Kazantzakis because especially in,"Zorba the Greek-" Doren Robbins: His alter ego.

00:49:50.030 - 00:49:58.550

Morton Marcus: "Zorba the Greek," really- Doren Robbins: Yes. Morton Marcus: There you go, you see. And Zorba is continually making fun of him, you know, get out of yourself-

00:49:58.580 - 00:50:11.510

Doren Robbins: Yeah. Morton Marcus: And just dance. Doren Robbins: Yes, yeah, I've always been kind of attuned to this dialogue that's going on in literature as- just as a man. I

00:50:11.510 - 00:50:27.080

mentioned Miller, I've mentioned Lawrence, Whitman, Rabelais, I mean, these are all writers who I believe we're trying to discover themselves, primarily in almost a kind of, you know, St. Augustinian sense as a person, as a person who happens

00:50:27.080 - 00:50:44.720

to be a man. And that, you know, it's such a giant subject, I mean, really to even begin to think about in terms of what makes one feel connected, and in terms of their gender specifically.

00:50:44.750 - 00:50:52.020

Morton Marcus: Do I dare have you read what you wrote in the letter to me? Doren Robbins: Oh, sure you can say- Morton Marcus: Because it's really great. Why don't you read

00:50:52.020 - 00:51:01.670

it, it starts down there. You don't have to read the parts about Bly, but it really goes up there and it really is some very interesting stuff. Doren Robbins: So, where you think- oh, I see, there's an

00:51:01.670 - 00:51:13.120

important subject but, okay. THE NOTION OF MASCULINITY However you answer to it convincingly with your sense of groundedness, I feel very close to this subject aside from

00:51:13.120 - 00:51:27.130

economic necessity, the pleasure of serving, of being a man who serves, who is capable of serving, of preparing, of knowing what's what, and the pleasure of eating, of course, involvement absolutely on a Rabelaisian level, and that of

00:51:27.160 - 00:51:43.960

Trimalchio's feasts -- that's to the Satyricon, Petronius. The whole evocative reality of sustenance and fertility, and on a communalistic level with coordinated mutuality and labor, one of the reasons I veered toward becoming a cook, had to

00:51:43.960 - 00:51:56.470

do with the groundedness of standing and preparing food, the reeking of oil, herbs, my own sweat, animal blood, vegetable and fruit stains, and knowing the herbs, the temperatures, the quantities, et cetera.

00:51:56.510 - 00:52:13.370

I would add to that, you know, like being a carpenter also. Yeah, I think it has to do with- you know, without going into Jungian things and things that have to do with alchemy, things would probably bore most, you know, listeners and myself at

00:52:13.370 - 00:52:28.010

this point, because it seems to take a very, very long route around, say, things that are very simple about being connected with materials. You know, whether the materials are your food, the things you build with, connected to the point

00:52:28.010 - 00:52:41.810

where you have at least a moral acceptance of the injustice of wearing clothes made by sweatshops, you know, rather than going purely hemp, if you can't do that. But I mean, all of these things, I think that one is just as fully conscious

00:52:42.260 - 00:52:55.460

and capable as a person as possible would be, you know, closer to what I'm thinking about in terms of being a man or a woman for that matter. And it's not only obviously one gender, I mean, the woman's image is probably much more

00:52:55.460 - 00:53:09.140

profound and they're thinking about this, I would say. Morton Marcus: We have just about run out of time. Do you have some very short poems or sections of a poem that you could read to us in-

00:53:11.870 - 00:53:18.170

Doren Robbins: Let me- I'll end with a love poem. Morton Marcus: Great. Doren Robbins: Okay, let me read a love poem. Morton Marcus: And this is Doren Robbins we've been talking to

00:53:18.170 - 00:53:29.630

tonight and his book, "Parking Lot Mood Swing," and also another book we've named, he's the author of around six, seven books. Doren Robbins: And I have a book forthcoming from Eastern

00:53:29.630 - 00:53:43.850

Washington Press called, "My Piece of the Puzzle," which is- the, "Traveling Music," comes from that. And let's see, I'll read a very short poem called: ALONE TOGETHER

00:53:44.890 - 00:54:02.470

I need to know the name of that bird and find out who's making such music I never heard before. I'd have a start if I could see a wing or a tail or something, but it stays hidden away in the crowded bamboo-thick, dark. A stone with a pit wrapped inside

00:54:02.470 - 00:54:21.460

of it, a lifted voice inside the pit, a made up world. Partly awake, the bird's still going. My wife's heel resting against my shin and the dense bamboo moving suddenly all in one motion. The leaves pressed apart, the bird's voice in there

00:54:21.460 - 00:54:34.900

singing to me about the birth canal she let me feed from, th breathing gill she held m inside of Thank you. Morton Marcus: Thank you Doren Robbins, a delight to have you

00:54:34.900 - 00:54:46.360

down here, finally. This is Mort Marcus. I'll be back in three weeks. Bob, thanks again for doing the boards. And stay tuned out there for Gary Shapiro and tonight's "From the Bookshelf