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Morton Marcus: This is Morton Marcus and it is an early November day in 1997. And I'm sitting here with Bob Hershon, better known as Robert Hershon to his fans, the New York poet and expert in printing, who is the director of the Print Center

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in New York City. And one of the four editor publishers of Hanging Loose Press. Robert, welcome to the Poetry Show here on the West Coast. Robert Hershon: Pleasure to be here. Nice to be in Santa Cruz

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again. Morton Marcus: It's great to have you here. And this, I know is your first trip in five years but your first time with us and I've been looking forward to this. I have been a Robert

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Hershon fan for years. And we're just going to ask Bob a few questions. First of all, Bob, where are you from? And where and how did you get the idea that you were going to be a poet?

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Robert Hershon: I'm from Brooklyn, and to my continuing amazement I live there as an adult of my own free will after making a sort of a large circle, that seems to be where I'm making my stand. And I started writing poems. I lived in San

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Francisco in the late 50s and early 60s. And the last year I lived in San Francisco, I wasn't working, oh, halcyon days. And one day I was- and I had been writing short fiction. And with a little touch of success, I got a couple of stories published.

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But then I hadn't been writing much of anything. I'd been working as a newspaper reporter, so forth. I was still in my early 20s, I think it was maybe something in the air in North Beach in the 1960s, but one day I- I had an idea for something,

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I walked to my typewriter, I wrote- wrote a few things down. I thought, what the hell is this? I said, it's not a story, it's not an article, this must be a poem, which is about as close to poetry as I'd ever gotten. And I thought it was

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kind of fun. And- And so over the course of the next couple of days, I wrote a bunch of them. And then in a- in a moment of just awesome chutzpah, because I was used to submitting work, you know, writing stories and things when I had about seven or eight

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of them I put them in the mail, and, I mean, I knew nothing about poetry. I never read poetry I- you know, I had- but I, and I sent them, there used to be something called San Francisco Review. And the editors sent me back a nice

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little note. And I've often thought if I just got a printed rejection slip, I might have thought, well, yeah, this wasn't meant to be and I don't know what it is. But- Morton Marcus: Who was that editor?

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Robert Hershon: I can't remember his name, Ray- Morton Marcus: Oh, it was Ray. It wasn't George Hitchcock. No, it wasn't- It wasn't Hitchcock. But he had- he took over and he started to

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do poetry there. Yep. Yeah. Robert Hershon: Before too long and- and it's, you know, there's been such a small press explosion in the decades since but in 1960 there were not a lot of little magazines around,

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there were academic quarterlies and you know, just the beginnings of the silver, the rude energetic mimeo explosion, but I didn't know about them yet. I just knew about, you know, a few things I could find at City Lights and stuff. So I

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sent some poems to the Antioch Review. And they took one, and then Epoch Magazine which can still comes out of Cornell University all these years later, both places I never published again, by the way, and- and I sort of got into the

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habit and I began, you know, to- to- for a long time I thought this is something I'm doing to avoid writing fiction. But then- then I began to think I like this, I don't have to write fiction. In fact I've never really wrote fiction seriously

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again. Morton Marcus: Okay, obviously, something you were doing in these poems really was touching a nerve. Can you identify what that was? I mean, I know what I identify with your work. And

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I'll bet this was in there from the beginning. But I want to hear you talk about and then I'll give my ideas, which are probably inadequate and incorrect. Robert Hershon: Well, I don't know, my- the early poems seemed

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to me- I mean, most of them I would, I would certainly not want to ever see the light of day again. They tended to- they tended to ride on images, you know, kind of snapshot sort of things. It seems to me in retrospect, that- that the- that

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any feeling in them was- was carefully camouflaged. It's funny to be having this conversation just now because, as you know, I just- I just came from visiting Elaine Gill and it was Elaine's husband John, who had a press called New American

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and Canadian Poetry, which over the years metamorphosed into something called the Crossing Press, and also moved from- from the Ithaca, New York area out here to Santa Cruz and they, the first book that John ever published was my first book,

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which had the long- long title of "Swans Loving, Bears Burning, the Melting Deer." And so it's a funny year and that was- that was- that was 30 years ago. Morton Marcus: Do you have any of those early poems in any of

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the books that you have with you? I've got the "Blue Shovel" and the "Selected" here. Published by- Robert Hershon: Probably something very early... Morton Marcus: While Bob is looking that up, one of the

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things that I associate with- with his work is a tremendous sense of voice for them, some- and especially street language, as well as a wry sense of humor and a really humorous eye for the world around him, usually an urban world. And I was just

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wondering if what struck him about writing poetry was this idea that the wryness in which he looks at things could suddenly be given voice and being given voice with a lot of strength, which may not have been what he was aiming for, in

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his fiction. He is of course, still looking for the poem here and I am just taking up air time. Here we go. Okay.

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Robert Hershon: Here's what I was- I was even- even though nobody would know the difference, I'm looking at a book of selected poems that came out from LSU in 1980. And- and no one would know but this actually was in the first book,

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its called BY ORDER By order of the Transit Commissioner, the little blue houses follow the train. Death is crowded, I went there for th

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weekend. The velvet rope aroun the sea was blue, by order o the Blue Commissioner. I don't know what the hell that's about, but it's a nice little poem. And that was- that was in the first book and

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probably fairly typical of the stuff in the first book. Morton Marcus: So its much more imagery? Robert Hershon: Yeah, and you know, sort of, sort of vaguely surrealistic, and it took me a long time to get up the courage

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to- to tell anybody I was writing poems or they- were to show them, show them to anybody. I got a- what's the title upon? [crosstalk]. Morton Marcus: This is another early poem by Robert Hershon.

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Robert Hershon: This is an epigraph from a poem called "Fresh Air" by Kenneth Koch. Years later, you know, it always struck me as very strange, you know, when you first start writing and you've finally got the courage to read some of my

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contemporaries, you know, and of course, the Don Allen anthology was very important. And I remember, at the time thinking, these are all big name famous poets, and indeed, many of them were but some of them, you know, like, I was with Bob Creeley

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recently and I said, you know, you used to be a lot older than I am. You're only 10 years older than I am. And anyway the epigraph from Koch is- "Ad he said, the subject for this evening's discussion is

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poetry on the subject of love between swans." Great bears on fire, leaping from their caves to watch the loving swans and the deer melting at the lakes receded edge. The swans hate their necks and would be green pigeons

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sucking on sidewalks. I hate your sharp red beaks, says the swan, but you must kiss me. The burning bears are watching the sweet rabbits behind the leaves, shaking. The deer looks to the cave, sees nothing, melts.

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As as I read that I'm conscious of the fact that I often get stuck with the label of: you sound like New York poet, Brooklyn poet, subways, streets, and so forth and of the early poems that- that- that's not there.

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Morton Marcus: Here, okay, we are we're actually in a very tight room here at the studio recording this on a portable recording machine. And we have one mic that we're passing back and forth. So when Bob says "here," or I said "here," or my

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voice suddenly fades away, that's the reason that's happening. Well, I think Bob has found another poem that he might want to read. So let's do that. This is again from the selected poems, which is called "The Public Hug," and was put out in

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1979 by LSU Press. That is Louisiana State University Press, and Bob is looking at a poem now as though he doesn't realize he ever wrote it. So he thought someone else had written it.

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Robert Hershon: I've just come from a week in San Francisco where I did some readings and it was- god help me, 40 years ago this fall that I moved to San Francisco. I was- I was 21. And I just happened to arrive in North Beach by accident. And it

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happened to be the day the Howl Obscenity Trial started, that didn't meant anything to me. And- but in the readings I just gave in San Francisco, I was congratulating myself on not being sentimental and not reading a lot of old North Beach

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poems. But- But now that I'm not in San Francisco, it seems permissible to read one, especially since I had- I had a couple of drinks the other night with somebody who is in this poem, which I wrote a long time ago. And that's-

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Morton Marcus: That's a good rationalization. Robert Hershon: It well, I it happened- the page happened t open there, so it obviously wan s to get read and I need a l t of breath for this one its alled

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FRANK'S BAR 12 ADLER PLACE 12 ADLER PLACE FRANK'S BAR Because of the shape of the hill, Frank's Bar is directly upstairs from 12 Adler Place, yet Frank's Bar and 12 Adler Place each has a separate entrance at street level. A back

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staircase connects the two. You can walk right into Frank's Bar and stay in Frank's Bar, you can walk right into 12 Adler Place and stay in 12 Adler Place. Some however, prefer to walk into Frank's Bar, go downstairs and drink in 12 Adler Place. Others

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prefer to walk into 12 Adler Place, go upstairs and drink in Frank's Bar. Still, others like to have a drink in 12 Adler Place, go upstairs and have a drink in Frank's Bar then go downstairs again and have another drink in 12 Adler Place.

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But they are really different sorts of bars so people who drink in 12 Adler Place usually stay in 12 Adler Place and people who drink in Frank's Bar usually stay in Frank's Bar. The owner of Frank's Bar is Frank, the owner of 12 Adler Place is

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also Frank, but Frank doesn't run 12 Adler Place. Frank Jr. runs 12 Adler Place. Frank's wife helps him run Frank's Bar but never goes downstairs to see her son Frank Jr. at 12. Adler Place, she watches television with earphones. Frank plays bar

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dice and dances the tarantella when a customer plays G- G-nine[?]. Frank's Bar and 12 Adler Place share a common men's room. It's downstairs, it has two urinals. You might see a Frank's Bar drinker pissing at one and a 12 Adler Place drinker

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pissing at the other, they would probably not talk, they would probably not know each other. Now this was a while back everything has changed. Frank is very old, Bessie too, Frank Jr. had other plans, so Frank sold 12 Adler Place to Spec Simmons

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who used to be a regular at Frank's Bar. Then all the Frank's Bar regulars moved down- downstairs to drink with Specs at 12 Adler Place and they became 12 Adler Place regulars. No one drinks at Frank's Bar anymore, and no one knows where

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the old 12 Adler Place regulars drink now. All this happened sometime after I left San Francisco when I was 25 years old. I don't know a lot of the stuff I used to know. You could write to Spec Simmons at 12 Adler-

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gonna turn the page here- at 12- at 12 Adler Place to find out what's new, but I don't know if you'd get an answer. Unless you were one of the old regulars at Frank's Bar, maybe not even then. So I just had dinner with

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Spec Simmons about two nights ago. And then we went over to his bar and raised a little house so it was fun. So some continuity. Morton Marcus: Have you looked at these poems in a long while

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or?- Robert Hershon: I haven't read that one in a long time. Some of the early poems- some of the early poems- well, you know, you know, sometimes early- you just grow away from poems and early

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poems suddenly read like perfectly okay poems sometimes but as though someone else had written them and- and then other poems just aren't- aren't fun to read anymore. I, I've always wondered that- there are poets who travel around and read a

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great deal and do the same sort of big hits reading over and over and over again. And I understand the reason for that. I mean, the audiences are often new to the work and you want to put your best foot- foot forward but it's so, it's so damn

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boring. And- and also part of the kick of reading new work is to hear- to hear how it goes down with an audience, you know, and it's not the same if you just walk up and down in your living room declaiming to yourself. It's just absolutely

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not the same. You don't hear it the same way. So it's fun to read new work. You know, so yeah, a lot of these- I mean, they're also some I read for years and years and years and- Here's one that's about to get a new life. Louise Hamlin who did

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the cover for Punchline here, and is a wonderful artist, is up at Dartmouth, is doing a limited edition set of poems and- and etchings of poets writing for or about their children, which Coffeehouse Press is going to do in this,- an edition so limited

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that the poets are hardly getting any copies at all. And, but it's a poem I wrote when my son was- was an infant, he's now- his hairline is just beginning to recede which makes me nervous. That could be that, it's called the

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BOW WOULD NOT PULL ON US For my son Jed. Its for my son, Jedediah, but it's a name that once he got old enough to object to, he did, and he's never used. The bow would not pull so I bought a sky that beat the cat

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but the wind would not sit so I bought a three to chase the four but the bee would not pray so I bought a nail to slay the sea, but the boar would not roar so I bought a swan to carve the pit, but the word would not drink so I bought a bear to pinch the

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hare but the flute would not cut so I bought a blue to scold the green then the shoe kisser would if the ear mender would if the tree licker would and the knee baker did so the road ate the moon and the batter fried the- the hatter fried the sun and the

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maid minced the matter and the judge licked the spoon, but the bowl would not pull and the little children left. So that was another- another tough, gritty street poem. Morton Marcus: Well, then you do move back to New York. From New

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York, as we said, and you move back to New York and your poems really do take on a very definite urban aura to them and- and an urban sound. And the subjects and the contemplations and meditations do deal with the streets, especially the subways

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of the city. And just feel free to disagree with my estimates here but they become sort of the- the points in many of the poems that you leap from. And what do you say to that? Robert Hershon: Yeah, but it also has to do with you know,

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where you are, like I've joked with my friend, Harley Elliott, who's in Salina, Kansas and hardly ever leaves there and, and Harley has all these these things he calls "windshield poems," you know, it's driving up the- the black strip of

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highway and nothing but wheat fields and so forth. Well, that's what Harley sees when he goes to work and, and when I go to work, I get on, I get on the F-train. And, and I often find myself writing in my- in my head on the subways because you're

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sort of trapped in this small space. And it's really- nobody ever thinks of it this way I don't think- but it's it's a very strange and artificial situation where your elbow to elbow and hip to hip with people, often, you know, the

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three inches away from intimate conversations and so forth. So, so yeah, I have a whole- a whole lot of subway- subway poems, and every time I think they're, they're finished, you know, new ones pop up, but I'm still taking the subway.

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Morton Marcus: Someone once said that in New York City, anytime while I remember- I forget his last name, though. I don't know how I did, Leonard- No, it wasn't Leonard Wolf, maybe it was, a guy who used to hang out Cactor's- Hector's Cafeteria.

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Fictions- no, as a fiction writer, not Michael though- So he wrote these huge sprawling novels. And he said, "Anytime I need a face, anytime I need a snatch of dialogue, I just look up and there it is." And, I mean, I even know that one of

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your poems is a diary on the F-train, in which you go through one whole week and you just have these marvelous little haps or mishaps, if you will, that just happened to you and and get you to- to contemplate your surroundings.

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Robert Hershon: I could- I could read- Morton Marcus: Absolutely. These instructions for how to take the Woodlawn Express? Robert Hershon: Yeah, I actually this is the title poem of

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another book, "How to Ride on the Woodlawn Express" and I wrote this- Donna Brook, my wife, is from Detroit and when she first came to New York, I was giving her instructions on how to live in, and survive in New York and and I- kidding

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around one day I- you know, I started- started telling her some of the things that are in this piece and then with the save-every-scrap-of-paper mentality that all writers have, I thought, wait a minute, I'm not gonna tell her anymore. I'm

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going to write this down. Morton Marcus: Could we? Either before or afterwards say what is going on in this poem, because it may lose some listeners, it shouldn't. It's clear. But I know that when I went over this

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poem with my classes, at Cabrillo, I found that the second class I went over it with, as long as I told them what was going on, they were able to follow it. So, that's up to you.

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Robert Hershon: Well basically, it's just, it's just a subway ride, but various things are going through the narrator's mind and- and- and- and some of the things, some of the connections are probably pretty far afield, but that's what I

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like about the poem that- that it's suddenly, you know, reaches out over here or reaches out over there, but then it keeps coming back to- Morton Marcus: But there's also-

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Robert Hershon: The subway- Morton Marcus: Because there's someone carrying- Robert Hershon: Oh, there is yes, there is somebody in the middle of the poem here. Two- two very short people are

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carrying a very large painting. You never know what people- I was- I was on a subway recently where the conductor was shouting himself hoarse about "get that out of the doorway" and so forth. And when I, when I looked there were people who seem to be

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moving a small household of furniture on the subway, you know, loading all these things. It's not designed for that. Anyway, yeah, there are those people and then there are some other things that come in from from far afield. But I suppose

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the common denominator with some of it is that- as the beginning of the poem says- is that- is that subway behavior is necessarily very, very formal and stylized. Some things, you know, you have to follow the rules or you'll get in trouble.

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So this is this is actually prose, by the way. Early in the 13th century, experts from the Emperor's court formulated the basic rules of etiquette for the New York subway system. You may eavesdrop they said, but you may never

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laugh or cry. You may play the radio very loud but you may not hum in someone's ear. You may read the National Enquirer over that lady's shoulder, but you may not ask her not to turn the page yet. You may not look into the eyes of the gods you may not

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throw up you may not sit next to the beautiful stranger. You may not speak to anyone unless there is a fire in the tunnel and it's lasted half an hour or he is gasping for air and clutching his chest or he is- and he is dressed neatly, or he is your

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uncle or he is returning your wallet almost intact. Or he is reading a book you wrote or his hand is on your ass or he is your reflection. Here is an old- I'm sorry, I'm juggling- I'm juggling eyeglasses and

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microphones. Here- here is an old mill by a stream. There is a house with a thatched roof, a young woman feeds her geese, a young man fingers his loot, but the painting is upside down. It is

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going to the Bronx on the Woodlawn Road Express, a huge painting held by two people so small just their hands are visible at the top of the frame. A man is twisting his head around trying to see the painting trying to make it come

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right side up. I am watching him. A man near the door is watching me. There is a certain pleasure. Many subway rules are being broken, can you identify them? If so, get off here, we are riding to the countryside huddled around some other

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tribes- tribal memory of springtime in Sussex, some of the sheep painted with blue numbers, some with red. What does this mean? Which do we prefer? Do we like it? 25 cows are facing north, 25 cows are facing south. Do we have an

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opinion? Should we play by the rules? A thousand Norman archers shot their arrows and waited for the Saxon archers to shoot them back. But the Saxons hadn't brought any archers so they didn't shoot the arrows back and the Normans had no more arrows

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to shoot. This was a clear violation of the etiquette of war and league officials made the Saxons give up England at once. Now, they're very sorry they didn't bring their archers. They burn with shame and regret, the fucking Saxons, they burn

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with shame and regret and try to tell strangers about it, but no one will listen to them and everybody has to get off here. Morton Marcus: And we are talking with Robert Hershon, poet extraordinare, on the Poetry Show tonight, and we are

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going to continue our conversation. And- so subways, what are some of the sub- subjects of the poems? We got subways are a dominant feature. Robert Hershon: Well, I don't know. You know, I look around my

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neighborhood like anybody else and I write about what I see and when I- what I hear and what I remember. As you know, tomorrow night I'm supposed to introduce my- my pal Sherman Alexie was supposed to give a talk on memory in writing. And Sherman

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and I were both saying, well, what else? What else is there? You know, is there a writer who, who who doesn't have a memory? Who- who can- who can write? Morton Marcus: You- [crosstalk] you got one about your high

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school. Well, that's one about memory. Certainly. Yeah. And there it goes. Tell us a little bit about Grover Cleveland Alexander High School. Robert Hershon: Grover Cleveland Alexander Gates, you my friend.

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Yeah. Pulled out the picture. [crosstalk], that's it, but Grover Cleveland High School is, is in the borough of Queens in New York. And- and when I went there, and I'm- I suspect, still is an exceptionally boring place that my family moved from

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Brooklyn to Queens and I took one look at Queens and said "uh-uh", although now Queens- Queens has become kind of an interesting place because there have been huge influxes of immigrants there. So there are neighborhoods where like all the

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writing is in Korean, and others where all the writing is in Urdu and things and you know, but it wasn't like that when I was a kid. So, this is GROVER CLEVELAND HIGH SCHOOL

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This is for Billy Trowbridge, who knelt down in the crowded locker room of Grover Cleveland High School and fixed the zipper on my fly, which had come off the track May God bless Billy Trowbridge. In our junior year at Grover Cleveland High School,

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Bob Johnson, who was covered all over with blonde fuzz as though his mother had never licked him clean, ran away and joined the Marines. He went all through basic training at Parris Island before they discovered how old he was and sent him back to the

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Ridgewood section of Queens and Mrs. Greco's Spanish class and Mr. Boyle's earth science class and he had still, in his whole life never crossed the river to Manhattan. Why have I not run into Nick Carbo on the subway? We hardly knew each other at

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Grover Cleveland High School, but we became pretty friendly on the subway. Every five years without exception I run into Nick Carbo on the subway. Now suddenly 20 years have gone by and I haven't run into Nick Carbo anywhere.

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I might mention that the Nick Carbo in here was a kid I went to high school with, not Nick Carbo, the Filipino poet who is- who is around these days. Morton Marcus: Now there's a reason I asked you to read that,

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not just because of memory. What I identify as part of your poetry is this great sense of the spoken language, street language, as I call it, and the humor in street language and its repetitions and its sudden turns of phrase, sometimes just

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turning themselves inside out, and the humor. But what I've detected in the poems, and that is one of them, that is with this humor and with this whimsy going on, there's a tremendous sense of time passing and the real loss of things. And with

00:28:28.120 - 00:28:45.610

Nick Carbo obviously no longer being alive. We have this again and again, especially another one of your poems, written in Florence, called "A Very Old Bidge." And I believe that's on one [unintelligibe] also. And I mean here filled with total lack

00:28:45.610 - 00:29:06.700

of sentimentality, with total lack of a Chekhovian melancholy if you will, we are brought with an almost Chinese impassivity - how about that for a good phrase - I got- to a real sense of the loss that our lives are. And so we're sort of brought upright

00:29:06.700 - 00:29:22.930

though to me in a totally new way because when you do it, it's usually done with such whimsy and such a sense of humor, not satire as such, but really just a sense of what life is and there's no way we can really change it or anything like that.

00:29:23.020 - 00:29:36.090

We can't be better moral human beings, et cetera. If you want to comment on that, please do. Robert Hershon: Well, but one of the things about about humor in poetry is that, first of all, it's not good for your career.

00:29:36.540 - 00:29:55.920

You know, poets, poets, who are known as funny poets, Kenneth Koch comes to mind, have to work twice as hard for, for people to take the work seriously as though- as though funny and frivolous were synonyms. When- when- when the press is driving

00:29:55.920 - 00:30:12.510

me crazy in dark moments, I solace myself by thinking well at least I get to publish Paul Violi, who's one of my favorite poets and- and a wonderfully funny poet who I'm sure has suffered from, you know, if he was solemn as a ass he could be

00:30:12.510 - 00:30:34.920

a bigger name. But also it's not- it's not something that's superimposed on a poem and then- and a poem can be funny and not funny at the same time and I am- maybe I'll read later, I'll read the title poem for "Punchline," which is sort of commenting on

00:30:34.920 - 00:30:51.960

that really. But the other thing you're talking about, the sort of the street voice, you know, the great compliment people can, can pay you is dude[?] your poems sound just like you, you know, they sound like you're just talking and- and of course,

00:30:51.990 - 00:31:06.930

that- that, I think that's great. But it's not that easy. It doesn't just happen that way. Because the stuff that you put down just in that one take, that sort of, you know, sort of a note to yourself usually sounds just like that. Anyway this is

00:31:06.930 - 00:31:22.110

the poem that Mort was just talking about. And again, it's a poem with that, that kind of jumps around the way thoughts jump around, and it- can't remember whether I announced the title but it's

00:31:22.110 - 00:31:38.800

STANDING ON AN OLD BRIDGE AND LOOKING AT AN OLDER BRIDGE Here's the entire history of Italy, up to the very moment that finds me standing on this bridge, staring attractively into the mist, trying to see the two wild swans on Tisbury Great

00:31:38.800 - 00:31:54.100

Pond, banded in memory for future reference before they took flight. Their wings humming like Ernest thought, and the waitresses, their damp foreheads catching the light, their cigarettes burning down and ashtrays at the end of the bar.

00:31:54.190 - 00:32:10.450

Still the shape of cigarettes but all ash. In this crowd who can tell which customers belong at which tables. And [unidentified] strolling around the Duomo with itself in the evening, two businessmen walking arm in arm, two priests walking

00:32:10.450 - 00:32:30.160

arm in arm, mother and daughter arm in arm and young women walking six abreast, their scarves like flags across the Arno. And when they come to that bridge, they cross it and they go on until I can see them no longer and they are presumably

00:32:29.270 - 00:32:48.840

They are presumably dead because- because I can't see dead. Morton Marcus: Well, that may be true, but what I get is more than that. There- there is the suggestion, here you are in this

00:32:48.840 - 00:33:00.000

historic town. The idea of flags certainly in my mind, gave a them anymore. And- and the problem is partly about, you sense of the past history of Florence and the different city-states and what went on in the Renaissance. And here is all

00:33:00.000 - 00:33:16.620

this great history and art in this town, then including Martha's Vineyard, which is thousands of miles away. And it may be the artist's ego, but the fact of the matter is, the current moment becomes the past, you see and then we lose that.

00:33:16.620 - 00:33:28.050

And that is that, it is a very shocking ending to this poem know, the enormous ego of artists, you know, as all these because of the movement in the poem that is in your voice is on the page. And it just comes to, if I can pun, the dead stop in

00:33:28.050 - 00:33:45.510

the end. A very, very interesting poem, because it doesn't prepare you dramatically for it, which makes it 10 times more dramatic. You mentioned the title poem of "Into the Punch ine." And this talk we got into n the last half hour of the

00:33:45.510 - 00:33:56.370

dea of humor in poetry being eadly serious and you know, you people didn't- didn't have a real life of their own and ay that it is harder on comic oets or on poets to use humor, can tell you, and I certainly ill get my axe grinding in

00:33:56.370 - 00:34:12.270

ere, I feel the same way. I ontinually have problems with eople who think that poets hould be bleeding on the thorns f life, and should be suffering ll the time. And if you don't, ou don't. And even as a film istorian, I- in this book that

00:34:11.050 - 00:34:21.690

existed only to walk through my poem. 've written, I've talked about he great comic geniuses of film ho are never taken as seriously s the serious filmmakers. I'm alking particularly about uster Keaton, and of course,

00:34:21.840 - 00:34:39.970

haplin. Anyway, this is the, he- the title poem, to poems 984/1994 that Bob put out in 994, called INTO THE PUNCHLINE Robert Hershon: I used to tell this story about how Vern was in

00:34:39.970 - 00:34:53.590

prison in Georgia and we began printing some of his poems and one of our subscribers began corresponding with him and then we heard that she had visited him there. Soon, Vern was getting weekend furloughs and spending them with Julie and

00:34:53.590 - 00:35:08.890

Julie was helping him with his petition for parole. I wrote in support and then, no surprise at all, Vern and Julie got married just a week before Donna and I did and Vern said it was the largest wedding and the first interracial wedding in Georgia.

00:35:09.040 - 00:35:26.500

Prison history made the guards very nervous. We exchanged photographs, his wedding party in green tuxedos, mine in blue jeans, and soon Vern was out. And so was the book we published and Tamara Eve was born and Verne's poems weren't as strong

00:35:26.500 - 00:35:42.910

as his prison poems, but let him write about flowers and daughters and be happy. He was studying computer science and his letters didn't come frequently anymore. That's a nice story, people would say, why was he in prison? For

00:35:42.910 - 00:36:00.610

killing his first wife, I would say quietly, enjoying their discomfort while experiencing minor regret having turned Vern into a punchline. A few years went by I had a photograph of Tamara on the bookshelf for a while, then it got buried.

00:36:00.700 - 00:36:18.070

Vern's book sold four copies a year, I thought of them occasionally a smiling family rising gently through puffy middle class clouds. Then Julie called me from Utah where she had been living since she and Vern broke up. Who knows when, a

00:36:18.070 - 00:36:36.280

year ago, two, to tell me Vern had been found beaten to death in Waycross. Now, excuse me, no one knows who or why. Found in his shoes and underwear, drenched in blood, his face battered, bones broken. Looks like normal causes the detective

00:36:36.280 - 00:36:53.650

told her. That's what kills black ex convicts in Georgia, normal causes. And she told me more about Verne's life in five minutes than I had learned in 10 years, how, violence seized him up and shook him, how their life together was stormed by despair,

00:36:53.650 - 00:37:09.430

how Vern sued for death and its attorneys found him. I don't know whether I want to stop telling this story or keep telling it over and over. All the facts in there are facts, by the way. I changed the

00:37:09.430 - 00:37:25.420

names of the family but they're real people. Morton Marcus: Well, again, yeah, that is the unquenchable also, that the nice sweet answer does not happen there. And that's, that's the punchline of the poem goes on from there.

00:37:25.900 - 00:37:40.630

There's also in your, in your work that element of surprise, which to me is one of the most important things that I think an artist has to learn. You have to surprise, in our case readers, because if you're not going to surprise them, then art's going

00:37:40.630 - 00:37:56.260

to be boring. And though you can't be different on purpose, you know, it's- You've got to realize that there is a way of looking at the world, of using language even in our case and in just looking honestly at the world and not having those same

00:37:56.260 - 00:38:13.210

journalistic or TV human interest endings that everyone likes to go "aw" and "coo" when a baby comes on a screen or something like that, all of this, the use of language, that what you're seeing just really gives the surprise again and

00:38:13.210 - 00:38:24.260

again as the last line of the bridge poem. And of course, the unending story, or unfortunately, the ending of the story of Vern also. Robert Hershon: Well, I was saying to a class, that you see

00:38:24.260 - 00:38:38.180

this point that, you know, one of the things they never tell young writers in classes is that your first obligation is to be not boring. You know, you could, you could- everything could be technically correct. And if the poem is dead, then- then who

00:38:38.180 - 00:38:54.680

cares? And I've often over the years, as I'm sure you have, I've known lots of people who were, you know, writing poems and publishing books who suddenly stopped and they don't know why. And, and sometimes they come back to it after,

00:38:55.160 - 00:39:08.810

after many, many years. Dick Lourie, my co editor who was on the show a year or two ago, I know has a new book coming out, I'm delighted to say, after- after almost 20 years since his last book, and Dick doesn't know why poetry went away for a

00:39:08.810 - 00:39:24.170

while, and then- and then came back and, but, but for me, the kick in writing poems, and these days, that's about all I write, I used to do a lot of freelance journalism, I used to write some fiction, I don't have to write that stuff anymore. So I don't.

00:39:25.190 - 00:39:39.020

But I never had to write poems in that sense. There's never anybody holding a gun to your head saying, "write more poems." In fact, everything of the socie y says, "Don't write more poems " But what keeps- what keeps t fresh to me is that element

00:39:39.020 - 00:39:53.150

f surprise that I don't know whe e it's going to go, and I can t remember who, somebody said, I write to discover what I think " And, and it's, it's true, y u know, when you when you star , you don't know where it's gon a go. And that's what makes

00:39:53.150 - 00:40:06.800

t exciting. And the way I' e always written is to put a pie e of paper in the typewriter, w en I used the typewriter. And 'd write the poem, I would take it as far as it could go, I'd ip it out of the typewriter, 'd put another piece of paper

00:40:06.800 - 00:40:22.100

n, start all over again, with ut even looking at the first dra t. I might, I might produce exac ly the same words again. ut eventually it would sudde ly take a zig where it zag ed before and often in unpredictable ways- ways tha

00:40:22.100 - 00:40:38.090

I could never have predicted. nd that- that keeps it fresh nd exciting for me. So it rea ly is, you know, this- this pro ess of exploration is- is what k eps writing a kick. And if it's not a kick, then I suppose I'd uit

00:40:38.070 - 00:40:51.810

Morton Marcus: Well, there's a phrase that you use also, you use several times, I don't know how often you use it, but you've used it in letters and and phone conversations we have in talking about a work you say, "it's lively." And I think that I took

00:40:51.810 - 00:41:05.580

that to mean, you know, just that there- there is some life n here, there's- there's an en rgy of surprise of non-boredom which can open the world mayb for the writer himself. And I, don't know, whether I was the ne who made it in that particu

00:41:05.580 - 00:41:21.840

ar case, but I said in- how ma y thousands of cases that I d write first and foremost for myself because I want to see what the heck I'm thinking about, and where this image came from and where it's going. So it is a discovery. And then- the

00:41:21.840 - 00:41:34.710

this idea of of the surprise, f not being bordom and lively You said that on the phone to m , one time you'd written it, sev ral others, and I said, Yeah that's it. That's it. It's got o be lively and so much stu f I read is competent, and it'

00:41:34.710 - 00:41:49.480

dead. It's not lively t all. It Robert Hershon: Yeah. Yeah, the the manuscripts that I go through for "Hanging Loose." We don't get too much out now amateur, you know, eyebrow pencil on brown paper bags

00:41:49.540 - 00:42:06.700

dropped from a hayloft in the Midwest somewhere, because those people don't know about us. But the- most of the stuff we get that we don't like is very competent grey poetry, you know, that has no reason to exist. You know, it's- it's poems, you

00:42:06.700 - 00:42:23.020

know, you get the feeling somebody had a quota to fill, "I have to write seven poems this week. Thank God, I've gotten to the last one," you know. You always- and lively, when I say lively, I'm usually thinking of language as opposed to subject

00:42:23.020 - 00:42:41.140

matter. I mean, you can write an energetic poem on the bleakest of topics, but the energy- the energy, a poem is about language. And so, it's the poet- it's the language that has to- has to have that energy. And it's something that's very hard

00:42:41.000 - 00:43:01.040

There- sometimes there are poets who send you work over and over to tell. again, and- and you can- you can tell a good poet where he's gone wrong, but the one thing you can't do is tell a- someone who

00:43:01.040 - 00:43:16.400

badly wants to write poetry and has no talent for it, what he's doing wrong because if he could see it, if he could feel it, he'd be able to fix it, you know and- and it's sometimes ver painful. Give me somebody yo like who, you know, sends poems

00:43:16.430 - 00:43:35.760

time and time again and you can't say, do something else. It's not- not your role, you know, but- but it's painful Morton Marcus: Okay. What now, would you like to read? Robert Hershon: Well, you wan a hear-, I was thinking.

00:43:35.760 - 00:43:54.270

was- I was thinking that reme bering that your film connec ion, and in this new book man script I've put together whic I'm sorry, wait a minute then- all of them sound alike- would you- I've got a bunch of poems in "Punchline" that that that

00:43:54.270 - 00:44:12.930

sort of take off from movies, I thought maybe I'd- I'd read one of those or- a lot of these poems have the names of obscure character actors in them. And- and when I read that- I read some in Boston a couple of years ago which everybody in Boston's

00:44:12.960 - 00:44:25.470

21 or under, most people don't know- it's a big student town, and these kids came up to me and looked very worried because, you know, "We don't know the names of those people- We don't know who they are." So I assured- I assured them there wasn't going

00:44:25.470 - 00:44:38.040

to be a test but- but actually, there was a test and they were all- they were all executed. So this- this is called- what's, what's actually scary is, it's one thing not to know who Laird Cregar is, but there are other poems that are talking about

00:44:38.040 - 00:44:49.590

Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper and they don't know who they are, and that's- we need more historical continuity than that. Anyway, this is called LAIRD CREGAR AND THE ACADEMIC EXERCISE

00:44:51.760 - 00:45:07.660

What if Laird Cregar had spent all his spare time perfecting his imitation of Nat Pendleton to perform at Hollywood parties so everyone would say, God that's Nat to the life! And what if Ron McAllister had kept working in front of the mirror

00:45:07.660 - 00:45:23.500

practicing his Laird Cregar imitation, and Billy Gilbert welcoming every ballroom with his impeccable McAllister or say you are a professional working the weekend at the Club Sanssouci in Allentown, Pennsylvania and the climax of

00:45:23.500 - 00:45:41.260

your act is your splendid impersonations. Your uncle, the old master told you to play it safe. Do people everyone knows, do Lionel Barrymore and Lionel Stander and Lionel Atwill. But no, you had to follow your own stars. Your uncanny Ned Sparks

00:45:41.260 - 00:45:58.300

your brilliant fuzzy St. John. It's as though Red Barry was really in the room but no, it's the prom kids in their baby blue dinner jackets. You might as well just sit in the car talking to yourself and the passing trucks in a voice that is truly

00:45:58.300 - 00:46:16.780

your own with maybe just the touch of Eduardo Ciannelli. Kill for the love of killing, kill for the love of Kali. Which is for- from "Gunga Din" for Eduardo Ciannelli as exhorting of a horde of tens of thousands of Mad Men to go out and kill

00:46:16.780 - 00:46:26.480

and Cary Grant gets up, all by himself, and says "You're all under arrest, in the name of the queen." It's a magic moment. But- Morton Marcus: You don't say, what's interesting about that,

00:46:26.480 - 00:46:42.320

too, alas, is that you're playing another game in there, which is the people who the character actors who are imitating each other have totally different physiognomies. Laird Cregar is very heavy, Ron McAllister is very thin, and you

00:46:42.320 - 00:46:57.800

keep playing one of these, then we go back to Billy Gilbert, who's very heavy. And so we're playing that great game and these are great names. One of my favorites is a story that was written by JD Salinger, which immortalizes the great Akim

00:46:57.800 - 00:47:12.420

Tamiroff. You remember Akim Tamiroff? He's wonderful. Anyway, re-read some more of these because there are people out there over 40 who remember these names with great fondness. Robert Hershon: Well, here's here's here's one with an actor-

00:47:12.630 - 00:47:28.560

Here's one with an actor who's still alive so it's CLINT EASTWOOD AND THE PERFECT SMILE First, I called the dentist at the last minute to cancel my appointment pleading an emergency at work. Then I would

00:47:28.560 - 00:47:44.310

have told the people in my office that I was leaving early to go to the dentist, but I work alone so I just left. Out into the sunlight then into the animal mouth of the subway, then the sunlight again, but the less compromised sunshine of Brooklyn

00:47:44.310 - 00:48:00.660

and finally, into the not dark enough yet Cobble Hill theater to catch the first show of the last day of the new Clint Eastwood movie in which, the critics say, "Clint is sick of killing every time he kills someone he feels rotten. When he

00:48:00.660 - 00:48:17.190

kills a whole roomful of people, he feels very rotten." Interminable time before the show begins when the lights are on, and bad rock music plays softly and anyone could walk in and bother you. At last, darkness and Clint is haunted by

00:48:17.190 - 00:48:34.080

his past life of badness, and it takes at least 10 minutes of fast talking before he straps on his guns again, and goes riding off to trouble. And a good thing too, a gentle gunslinger is a violation of form and we all came here to see bodies fall in

00:48:34.080 - 00:48:54.510

the dust and many do, many do. Lights slowly up as the credits crawl, and I unbend from my traditional movie prenatal slump, and discover that I'm the only person in the theater. What joy and doubled; if I had known before what hoops and mumblings

00:48:54.510 - 00:49:08.250

I could have indulged in. Through the bright lobby dead dentists crumbled everywhere. Into the darkness of the street, a lone figure with fiery eyes and gum trouble and an unfixed schedule.

00:49:11.750 - 00:49:36.360

Morton Marcus: Well, why- just keep reading poems you like and like to talk about. This is a new manuscript that he is opening up now. Oh we have- we're way- we've got a lot of good time Bob. Bob

00:49:36.600 - 00:49:55.020

whispers, he doesn't know that everything is- it comes out live and spontaneous on these shows. We're doing fine. We got around 10 minutes, until this show is over and- Robert Hershon: This is- this- this book has- has a whole

00:49:55.020 - 00:50:14.190

section of poems, the titles of which are names. And contrary to habit, these are all real names even though some of the- some of the real names belong to fictitious people. But in this case, this is the real name of a real person. And it's called

00:50:14.220 - 00:50:30.420

ED HEAD And it's for a friend of mine, a poet named Ron Overton. April 23rd, flowering trees burst into bloom, eyes water. Shoulder is no better. Throwing on a jacket is a 12 step

00:50:30.420 - 00:50:47.910

procedure and I think of all those sore armed pitchers marching backwards into dugouts and on out of the world. Although 50 years ago today, Ed Head pitched his no hitter for the Dodgers. The first major league game I ever saw. I went

00:50:47.910 - 00:51:02.640

with my uncle and cousin. My father stayed home in Sunday sloth mode. "How was the game?" he asked. "A no hitter," I said. "You don't mean a no hitter," he said. You mean a shutout, you don't know the difference. He was angry that he'd missed the

00:51:02.640 - 00:51:19.680

game and he stayed angry for years and years. And what happened to Ed Head? Did he open a saloon with his uncles and cousins, Egg, Fat, Lunk, and Swelled, or just grow fat coaching in the three-I league with Rollie Fingers and Bill

00:51:19.680 - 00:51:37.410

Hands, Jim Ray Hart and Barry Foot? There's no time to be that disorganized now, he'd be part of the Gold Head Value Pack card set with Shirley Temple and Louis Lipps, Frank Chin and Maurice Cheeks. Two Ed Heads get you one Peter Elbow. Five Ed

00:51:37.410 - 00:51:53.290

Heads get you one Johnny Blood. Ten Ed Heads get you one Tom Thumb. In fact, you can't give away your Ed Heads, you might as well just learn to love them and put them back in the box. There's a well known writing teacher named Peter Elbow and

00:51:53.860 - 00:52:07.810

Ron was working in his program. He called to tell me, "I'm working for Peter Elbow." And I said, "I'm wearing a dress by Edith Hand. And we were- we were off and running. And we've developed, over the years, the world's greatest collection of

00:52:07.840 - 00:52:25.450

people whose names are body parts. And- But they have to have some degree of celebrity, you can't just go through phone books. And the other day we currently are having some controversy over a poet I found named Jennifer Kidney. And I've

00:52:25.450 - 00:52:36.100

seen two poems by her and I think she should qualify and I'm sure all your listeners will agree with me. I can read another one that's a name. And it's ANDY SIBOVITZ(?)

00:52:38.080 - 00:52:54.790

Detective Sibovitz assures me, it's a one way mirror. The men in the lineup can't see me. They straggle in, wrinkled and unshaven, even though some are probably cops or corporate officers. "Do you see the one who threatened you? Take your

00:52:54.790 - 00:53:12.250

time." I try to look into their eyes. I can't be sure but I don't think it's the ones on the left. Sibovitz flicks on the intercom, "Okay, TB, Cirrhosis and Tertiary Syphilis, you can go. You other guys move toward the center."

00:53:16.140 - 00:53:39.630

Morton Marcus: Yes. Well, that is an unfortunate poem about our getting on in years. Well, that's great. Yes, I my daughters and I used to play a game which had to do a whole sentence like "What got Ezra so angry he had to pound," or "What

00:53:39.630 - 00:53:55.140

made Arthur Ashe[?], you know, something like that. Any rate, what I would say is we've got time for around one or two more poems. So choose what you want to leave the air floating through the universe with your words.

00:53:56.080 - 00:54:16.420

Robert Hershon: I'll read- I'll read one slightly longish poem, that as Morton knows, I've been doing some readings with Sherman Alexie and and it's been fun because Sherman and Donna Brook, my wife, and I have spent a great deal of time together

00:54:16.420 - 00:54:35.800

over- over the past few years and a lot of the same material pops up in his work, her work and my work. And- and this is a poem that starts out with Sherman's first visit to New York, which was to visit us after we published his first

00:54:35.800 - 00:54:53.590

book and, and he has also written about this same trip the other night, we both read. So that's- that's the beginning here and- and we have also gone out to visit Sherman in Seattle. So some of that's happening in this poem. And it's called

00:54:53.590 - 00:55:06.620

LIGHT AND DARK, EAST AND WEST and it's for Sherman Out West, there is apparently such a dearth of African Americans that they must use Native Americans as n*ggers. So

00:55:06.740 - 00:55:21.560

during his first visit to Brooklyn when Sherman went to the store with Donna, he was amazed that the manager didn't watch him from the end of every aisle to ensure that he wasn't boosting cupcakes and me with a white woman too. Except the

00:55:21.560 - 00:55:36.890

manager is Lebanese and it's business as usual. On the subway I point out other models. If you live here, you could be Pakistani one day, Puerto Rican the next, and Algerian on Sundays. Why do you think of yourself as so dark? You don't

00:55:36.890 - 00:55:51.980

look so dark to me, says Larry, whose nephew is Jewish-Italian-Korean, whose former wife is Japanese-Czechoslovakian. "Where I live," Sherman tells him, "you'd be dark." And zoom, here I am in America talking to

00:55:51.980 - 00:56:09.800

Americans. Guy on an outlet mall bench in Utah in NRA cap says he's never been to New York, but I'm an American. I walk anywhere I like. I'd like to drop him off in Red Hook one night where you don't hear many cowboy tunes. The Westerners all talk about

00:56:09.800 - 00:56:24.980

being Westerners and what it means to be a Westerner and what the people in the East really think about Wyoming. Actually nothing. And they are open and friendly. So if I say I'm talking to a perfectly pleasant man, it's foreshadowing of plot,

00:56:25.100 - 00:56:42.440

and I am indeed talking to such a man about how Mormons have large families, about how every small religion finds theological reasons to have a dozen children. Very similar to the Hasidim in New York, I note. Except he says, the Mormons

00:56:42.440 - 00:56:59.450

don't have a lot of money. In Vancouver's Chinatown, we can't find an open restaurant but every doorway has a Black hooker and an Indian wino so why isn't it called Hooker Town? Wino Town? Dead-eyed and Washed-up Town? Let down Fall down Break

00:56:59.450 - 00:57:16.790

down Town? Curse God and Die Town? End of the Line for you Babe Town? So we walk on to Gas Town which used to be Skid Row, but is now scrubbed and open for business: Jazz bars, Burden Baskets and Veal Scallopini. On the Washington coast everyone

00:57:16.790 - 00:57:31.490

has a personal sunset over the bay and asks, "Hey, when are you going to move here?" And there are Espresso moves at the Pow Wow. What? You've never seen Grass Dancers at the Pow Wow? What, you've never seen [unidentified] dancing down the

00:57:31.490 - 00:57:48.590

middle of Eastern Parkway? Even now, Haitian cab drivers, who cannot get across are snarling at their Russian passengers. But the drivers in Calcutta have already started to roll for who is more dangerous and carefree than a New York cab driver with

00:57:48.590 - 00:58:04.100

a guarantee of paradise. Morton Marcus: And we've been talking to Bob Hershon, who is out on the West Coast doing some readings, and who I've wanted to get on the show for a long, long time. Bob, thanks so much. It

00:58:04.100 - 00:58:08.450

really has been great. This is a marvelous show. Robert Hershon: This has been my pleasure Mort, thanks a lot.