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Morton Marcus: Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Poetry Show. This is your host Mort Marcus and tonight we are being visited by three poets from over the hill, in fact to be specific, from Palo Alto. Our guests tonight are Jim Standish,

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Janel Burnett, and Terry Adams. And we will be talking with these three authors and meeting them and hearing their poetry in a moment. Morton Marcus: We are here with our guests, in fact, I want to

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know what happened to our guests here. Right there and you're loud and clear too. Jim Standish: Hello? Loud and clear. Morton Marcus: You are loud and clear. We can hear you. And we

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are here as I said with Jim Standish, Janel Burnett, and Terry Adams. And these are three poets from Palo Alto, California and we're going to meet them and what we're going to do is meet them one at a time and have them read their poetry. And Terry,

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since you were sitting very patiently, why don't you become our first reader. I'm talking with Terry Adams, and why don't you tell us something about yourself? Are you a native Californian?

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Terry Adams: Well, thank you, Mort. No, I'm not. I come from Ohio, and Kansas. I was born in Arkansas, so I guess I've been all over the Midwest and the Great Plains. I've lived in Kansas, Indianapolis, but I say Cincinnati, Ohio is my home. I

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came out here in about 1972. Morton Marcus: And what- did you come out to be a poet or what was though- had you become a poet before that? Terry Adams: Yes, I started writing in about 1966 when I was

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a undergraduate in college, a junior. I'd been interested in it for a long, long time. Both, well, all three of my parents were newspaper editors. And my father used to stride around the living room reciting Edward Dowson, and occasionally the

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Declaration of Independence, and things like that. And so that's how I explained my beginnings way, way back there. Morton Marcus: You decided to come to San Francisco, I take it, because that was one of the hotbeds of poetry in America?

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Terry Adams: That's right. I think I was, actually, at the time I was looking for a hotbed of acceptance in general. I just got out of the air force as a conscientious objector in Omaha, Nebraska and somehow San Francisco seemed like the right

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place to go. And the poetry was- was part of it and the scene I think. I read Casey's books and I read about that whole thing and that was an attraction to me at the time too. Morton Marcus: What do you want to attempt to accomplish in your

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poetry? Terry Adams: Stay alive. No, that's too facile. I'm trying to participate in a communication that I see going on across generations and cultures. I mean, I really am embedded in

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English and I really am not that interested in other cultures, but I want to do, I want to be part of the English language someday, you know, I'm making a start at it, but I really am attracted. It's like hearing static over radio, I used to

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actually think this in about junior high school. I remember listening to radio stations where nothing was happening or between the dials there was a static but you hear these little voices in the background, just this little talkie, talkie,

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talkie, and that always gave me a very comfortable kind of feeling somehow. And I have the feeling that people who are seriously writing poetry, and fiction writers, everybody who is really seriously writing is trying to participate in this

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milieu that's just that subtle, that's really embedded so deep in what we do that you don't get to hear it very often, you don't get to experience directly. The only time I experienced it directly is when I'm writing and when I feel like I've done

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something, right. Morton Marcus: Okay, well let's hear some of your poetry, Terry. And this is Terry Adams we're talking to if you've just tuned in, he is the first of three poets from Palo Alto we'll be

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hearing from, and this is Terry Adams. Terry Adams: Thank you. This first poem is called: I BELIEVE IN ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE, which you might recognize as a line from the Apostles Creed or the Nicene

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Creed. Helen squatted beside me as boiling handfuls of ashes broke away from the trash fire and rolled out onto the snow. She poked them back to the heap of unclenching fists of paper and

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collapsing milk cartons. It was our responsibility to see it all coming apart, to keep it from blowing away. Chicken bones cracking, coffee grounds popping, cigarette boxes puckering around bruised foil. I took my mother's empty pill

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bottles and I filled them, some with some pepper, iodine and milk, pine needles and ivory soap. And I toss them in there with the ashes of box names and scorched cans, or I filled them with my bathwater, some spit, a spoon of beer and nutmeg, or the

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ash of a lucky, a hair from the sink, clay from the cellar, and cologne. And my fingernails, or holy water, some candle tears, a button, a stone, a gold star from catechism, and match heads and pennies. I froze them in the snow by the back door and put

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one in every fire the winter I was nine. And once I saw a Flash Gordon unroll from the flames, his face glossy with melting bacon fat, and he burst into gas before I could read what he was screaming.

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And this next one is quite a bit different in most ways. And it's called: MY UNCLE WAS LIGHT WHEN HE DIED All six pallbearers are experienced gang carriers,

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strong men who know by instinct when to strain and when to trust the other guys have the weight. We've all carried iron bathtubs, girders, heifers, sounds, boats, and old Volkswagens. Strong men always helping with the heavy things. And here we are carrying

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a measly thirty pounds apiece, just a guess, it felt lighter than thirty pounds, and were herded along by this rag of a guy with a black prayer book. So we carried him out of the funeral home into the hearse, out of the hearse into the

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cathedral, out of the cathedral in and out of the hearse again, into the graveyard, up the hill -- you see, we get real used to what little weight this is. We get to the hole which is lined with slabs of black plastic so nobody can see any dirt with

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some kind of sling waiting down there. And this casket is so light that we all let go and it just stays there. He's so light, the casket won't go down. By the time we realize that none of us is holding on anymore, he's stuck. Three feet above grade,

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nine feet over the bottom of that hole. Nobody says a thing. The prayers get finished, the precession of washed cars goes away. And we had to pound the casket out of the air and into the ground with sledgehammers, we were that strong, he was that

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light. Okay, here's- pardon me. This is a poem that came out recently in a small magazine called "Witness , that I'd like to mention becau e I don't think it's very popul r yet. It's relatively new arou

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d here and they do themed issue . This one is an issue and t e theme of it is the Sixties. T is is c POINT OF VIEW They came to me in a dugout listening post outside Dunay.

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They handed me a green trombone with a rubber eyepiece. They said, "Captain, from now on, your name is foxglove, your social security number is secret." I pointed the scope into the dark defile. I found three shapes burning amber

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beyond the wire. Their hot armpits and crotches winked as they stepped around the cool vegetation. Their rifles cast infrared, keep-out bars across them. At ten meters, I got them with the muffled M-16s strapped under the scope. It sounded like

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a stifled sneeze. I looked again, one was moving, I fired again. They were just little, quiet piles of light. All night as I scanned, I saw the bodies cooling, becoming smaller and dimmer. The hot head-crowns fading last. This was the safest

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I felt in months. After dawn I went out there to tag them. There wasn't a sandal, no bodies, not a goddamn fingernail. In my hole, I lit my ration stove, cupped my hands for warmth, whispered my new name into the flames, which were

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disappearing in sunlight. Morton Marcus: Very, very nice. It's a good difference in range that you have, the humor and the seriousness and the subject matter. I know that you've recently been published in

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"Ironwood." Do you have that poem? Terry Adams: Yes, I do. That's the next one on my list. Morton Marcus: How about that? Terry Adams: Actually, there were two in the final issue of

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"Ironwood," which is really too bad that that's the final issue, but I think that energy will emerge somewhere else, I hope. Morton Marcus: Well, also you should compliment yourself. It is certainly one of the finest literary magazines in the

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country and the editing is maybe the toughest to get by, so if he saw fit to do two of your poems, I'd really feel honored. Terry Adams: Well, thank you very much. I certainly felt honored too, it was- it's really a thrill and it's worthwhile. I

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mean, I've been sending things out for twenty-five years, I think, and with little nibbles here and there. Finally, it seems to be coming together for me. Morton Marcus: Great.

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Terry Adams: And it's fine, I've been doing it twenty-five years, I'll do it twenty-five more. Morton Marcus: Right. Terry Adams: Okay, this poem is called, "Linotype." There's just

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a little anecdote about this. I think, my parents were newspaper editors, as I said before, and I think they sometimes they attempted to use the press room tour as an early precursor of daycare sometimes with me. Well, anyway:

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LINOTYPE My copyboy guide walked me down vibrating stairs, into the stomping shuffle clatter of presses rolling under the times, into the smell of ink and heat where railroad kept pressman

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lunged at levers, screamed hand signals in the bedlam. Barrels of ink, car-sized rolls of paper, the belt of news careening stretched taut across rollers like a demented captive worm bird(?), the conveyor stream every hundred folded

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papers saluting. This is where the words of my father took the strength of pounding metal, the certainty of riveted eye beams and welded platen wheels, the abrading truth of the paintless concrete floor. My father's description of the world

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reeling, then forklifted out into trucks that lumbered into the dawn of Indianapolis alleys. The folded-out photos of naked women, wherever a wall was bare between PICA charts(?) riddled with ink blood. And looming above all of this, in the heart

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of the press room, the linotype machine, a mountain of gasping typewriters and Gut Shot jukeboxes, clattering like a spilled closet of doorknobs whose inventor they told me later went insane. And the operator dwarfed at his blazing

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keyboard turns halfway toward me in his chair, and he bends way down to my ear and screams through all of this, "Spell me your name!" So I scream myself out, letter by breathless letter into this ear with the hair bristling out, and way around

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back of the machine, a full minute later, from the unimaginable slicing of precision arms, pinions, vats of oil, flapping shells, squeaking bolts, and heated air, my name comes to me, my name comes right out to me, wet and warm and

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shining with fame, backwards. Morton Marcus: Very good. Is that your selection? Terry Adams: Yes, that's mine. Morton Marcus: Oh, that's it? Okay.

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Terry Adams: I have others with me, we should move on. Morton Marcus: Okay, maybe what we'll do is move on and then when we have time in the end, we will come back. Well, our next reader is Janel Burnett, and she is also- where do you live now,

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Janel? Hold it, don't answer. Okay, now answer. Janel Burnett: [inaudible] Morton Marcus: Wow, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're supposed to be working but you're not working here. Why

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not? You are on number four. I bet number four is not- where as always- no, you should be on. And there's three. Oh, see if there's a switch on the mic. I don't think there is, there shouldn't be. Okay, why don't you just sit in Terry's chair

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because I think that is really what's- I just don't think that's working. Okay, you can pick the mic up a little more, just sort of balance it out. There you go. How's that? Janel Burnett: Is this better?

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Morton Marcus: It should be. Go on. That's- Janel Burnett: Okay. Morton Marcus: Yeah, great. Okay. Janel Burnett: Hi, I'll start over.

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Morton Marcus: Okay. Are you from Palo Alto? Have you- alright, let's put it this way, are you a native of California? Janel Burnett: No, I'm also from Ohio originally, like Terry. I've been here since I was ten, in Southern California and then

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I came up here to school in Santa Cruz and lived here for several years in the late 60s and early 70s, and now I live over in the Palo Alto area. Morton Marcus: Are- you are then a UCSC graduate?

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Janel Burnett: Yes. Morton Marcus: That's probably one of the first classes of the university. Janel Burnett: Yeah. I entered I think about the fourth year that

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it was open. Morton Marcus: When did you start writing poetry, or maybe even what started you writing poetry? Janel Burnett: I can't remember what started me because I have

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no cultural type background in my family, my parents were both raised on farms in Missouri. But I remember entering a poetry contest in seventh grade, it was an end-rhyming poem, a little poem, "this old man named Jonathan Blue spent the whole

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day cobbling shoes." And it- Morton Marcus: Do you know, the rest of it? Janel Burnett: Well, I know a little bit of it. It was just a little story poem. And it was- I entered it to a contest there at

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my junior high school, I won first prize so I assumed that no one else entered the contest. The next thing I remember about poetry was in high school, arguing vociferously in favor of a really insipid poem by one of them, I don't remember if it was

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Keats or Shelley. And then I started writing a little bit when I was, I guess, in Santa Cruz, really, eighteen and nineteen years old and picked it up again in my mid-twenties. And then the last three or four years, I've been writing quite a

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lot pretty seriously. Morton Marcus: Great. Well, let's again, hear are some of your poetry. And this is Janell Burnett, for the people who just tuned in, and we are featuring three Palo Alto poets today.

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Janel Burnett: I thought I'd start with a short one that I wrote when I was about nineteen, away from Santa Cruz. Caress me like warm water, come in as though we were the final act. Then arrange your limbs beside me and listen to the

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wolves crying from that small wood behind the barbed wire. I was back in Utah in October, and I met a very beautiful man one day for just a few minutes, and it made such a deep impression on me that I found myself the following day writing

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in some sand dunes with my finger in a deserted place. And when I stood up there were four panels of writing surrounded by my handprints, so I trudged back to the car in the hundred degree heat, brought a pad of paper out and copied it down. This is

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called: FOUR PANELS: WIND THROUGH A BONE FLUTE Among red ragged cliffs, arriving with both hands bloody and scarred, fingers dark, furrowed as piñon, a

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[unidentified] scraper in my pocket, and eyes made holy with the side of prayer sticks chipped in stone, I sought the dead. Where springs seep from rock I sought the dead, and they welcomed me with gourd rattles and lightning, announcing

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themselves in turn, sun clan, moon, water clan, rain, reed, sand, corn, and crow, butterfly. The desert no mirror to my barrenness, but everywhere vegetation and pollen, everywhere the canyon rim sang and sunflower burst its seed.

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The dead walked beside me, staring from canyon walls, and in the cavity of night, triangles and snakes traveled above a cupped moon. I looked up, I looked up and saw you, stranger, smiling, marrying me with your eyes as though I were

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the first woman you'd seen. And I wanted to speak, I wanted to leave my dead when you took my crapped hand, my twig fingers in your gentle palm, asking my name as though I would remember. And in that moment, no sun, no moon, only the bright disk of your

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face, no stars higher than your eyes, no ravine but the stark bone of your cheek. Then you let go. You let go and disappeared, and all that held my mind in a skein disappeared with you, leaving white granite, a blown white sun, juniper limb and

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coral sand dune emptied of all but tracks and a whistle of wind. But my dead, the dead remain in their stone houses encircled by sky and the promise of rain; and I return to them, adding my silence to their voices. I return to them, who

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welcome me back as one of their own. This is another desert poem that I wrote on my way home from that trip coming through Nevada. It's called: NEVADA TEST SITE FROM HIGHWAY 375, and I was fortunate to run

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upon a bunch of wild horses. I believe in evil and that the luminous sky is blameless, though hammered dark with grim metal husk jetting from a desert made not surprisingly barren by fifty-two stars falling outside

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my allegiance. Suddenly in the heat haze ghosts, no, real figures emerge, clicking their hooves against jasper, amazed at my silver blue car and me, gingerly stepping out onto a rainbow of old, very old stone flakes, not knowing when or

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where I am or why targeted by the magnificent young stallion walking toward me and shaking the air with his fierce black mane. As when that [unidentified] man lay beside me in wet grass, calling softly, "The moon is out. I think the

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moon is out," instantly emulating all prior concepts of ecstasy. And now downwind from the death bells, I sink swan-lake into a lake of black eyes, enchanted without understanding, yet by mutual consent, spilling out our

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beauty, each for the other while the unguided missiles at our back command us to be otherwise. I believe in evil and that the luminous sky is blameless. Morton Marcus: Very nice, keep on reading. You seem to be very

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much influenced by the land and by Native Americans. Both the land that you paint is on the land, let's say the Southwest and then American-Indian lore, in fact. A lot of the images of that "Four Panel" poem really just seem to be almost paintings

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and drawings by American-Indians. Janel Burnett: In fact, they are, and I tend to seek that out. When I go off on vacation, I usually choose to go the Southwest, and I just go to ruins.

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Morton Marcus: What are your favorite ruins? Janel Burnett: Probably the Betatakin Ruins in northern Arizona at Navajo National Monument but each ruin is completely different.

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Morton Marcus: Great, go on. Janel Burnett: This is not about the Southwest: THE WAY IN, OUT Accustomed to adoration, you sit stone-faced, hands politely

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folded to dead white objects on your black-suited lap. While we cracked women faithfully plant lianas, honeysuckle, sweet basil at your feet, fanning the steep fragrance toward that red, red hollow of omitted rib. Sirens and a man, tone-deaf, saving

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himself like a martyred virgin for one unmistakable, ritualistically ordained love. Darling, there are in enough logicians in hell. Tenderness locked in the throat strangles talk, but your fingertips possess speech all right. Look,

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you, just leap off the cliff, opening your arms like an angel, the wind will carry you. And if petals unfold suddenly from your eye sockets, do not fear death. One of my family members committed suicide about a year

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and a half ago and I was home sick one day, very sick shortly after it happened, and I wrote this piece at home: FOR DESIREE I wake belly-damp in the slow dark. The sun's red shell a mere

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fingertip catching an edge of globe. Already children scatter, cloud-like, chirping and chattering at the daycare behind the fence. A pack of jackals, they pare my nails down to moons and their parents won't come any sooner than when again stars

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ascend the flaking eucalyptus. I wished for them, my parents last night while shivering and retching on cold tile as though dying. All that sickens me has balled up in my throat, sick and searing, nothing to do but sprawl helplessly in a lawn

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chair, eat sunlight and watch sparrows scour the air to feed on sunflower seed and millet. My mouth is shut, finally, against the need to espouse or explain or endear. He whom I loved is not and never was here. And she whom I cradled grew fatally

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beautiful. A single rose, pressed between pages of blessing weight on the shelf, splintered bone rattling a white box. Yet from my chest cavity, something, wintering the slow spell of silence, aches to rise to demand recompense for the

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taking. I don't mind that the dead clutter my nights, but how they quit me at daybreak -- wasted, uninhabitable -- while the living flutter by continuously absenting themselves more deathlike than the dead.

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Morton Marcus: That was Janel Burnett and now we are going to take our usual half-hour break. [Recorded music playing]: [Music] Morton Marcus: This is Mort Marcus again and it is time in

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the show when we read some announcements and there are many, many important literary events happening this week. For example, at Zachary's tomorrow, March 1st at 7:30pm, the National Writers Union readings continue. In this case we will

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have Steve Sandfield, Barbara Hall, and Robert Sward, three very fine and very different poets who will be reading their work. That is at 7:30 tomorrow night, and that is at Zachary's which is on the Mall in Santa Cruz. Also, New York poet

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Kenneth Koch will read from his poetry on Friday, March 3rd at 8pm in the new Engineering Building Auditorium on the San Jose State University campus. If that name sounds familiar to you, Koch is best known for his books on teaching schoolchildren

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about poetry, "Wishes, Lies and Dreams," "Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?" and, "Sleeping on the Wing." If you want further information for the Kenneth Koch reading at San Jose State, call 1-924-4598, that's 1-924-4598. Or better, just go to San Jose

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in the new Engineering Building at 8pm this Friday. On Thursday, however, a very, very important and I would suggest reading that everyone on the air gets out to hear, and that is at the Porter Reading Series at UCSC, Ishmael Reed, reading prose and poetry.

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That is Thursday, March 2nd at 8pm, Oakes 105, so this is at Oakes College in room 105. Ishmael Reed is a poet, novelist, and essayist as well as songwriter, television producer, publisher, magazine editor, playwright, and founder

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of the Before Columbus Foundation, and their city cinema. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and for 20 years has been a lecturer at UC Berkeley. His New and Collected Poems is just out from Athenaeum. His recent novels

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include, "The Terrible Twos," "Reckless Eyeballing," and, "The Terrible Threes," which is due out this spring. Gerald Vizenor, the great American-Indian writer who teaches up at UCSC, will introduce Ishmael Reed, and this is a real opportunity to hear a

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wonderful original imagination in both prose and poetry, and he'll be reading both. That is this Thursday, March 2nd, 8pm at Oakes College, UCSC, room 105. Okay. And well- Also Thursday, March 2nd at 7:30pm, which conflicts in a way

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with Mr. Reed, in classroom Unit Two at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Sol Landau and Terry Karl will be talking about the crisis in El Salvador, elections, US policy, and the peace process. Those are our announcements. I would like

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to say that the first part of the show was presented by Stapleton's Grocery and we'd like to thank them for providing a grant. Stapleton's grocery specializes in organic produce and unadulterated comestibles in the farmers exchange building in

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Santa Cruz, so thank you Stapleton's. And tonight as I said, we are talking to three Palo Alto poets. We've heard from Terry Adams, Janel Burnett and now, we are going to hear from Jim Standish. And Jim, welcome to

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the Poetry Show. Jim Standish: Thanks, Mort. Morton Marcus: You're coming on loud and clear. Jim Standish: Good.

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Morton Marcus: Are you a native Californian? Jim Standish: I'm a native Lala-landian, it's I guess, officially counts as a native Californian. Morton Marcus: Now, Lala-landian, if I translate

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that from Jonathan Swift language, that means Los Angeles. Jim Standish: Yes. Morton Marcus: Right. Okay. When did you think, or not think, but

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when did you start to realize that you were going to be a poet? Jim Standish: I'm not sure if I ever knew for sure that I was actually going to achieve poet-hood.

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Morton Marcus: Okay. Jim Standish: But I guess I- the earliest effort that I still keep dates from 1956. I think I started about two or three years before that. I wrote a series of sonnets which were ghastly and

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then I threw them away. But I think they at least- I wish I'd still have them because I think they at least showed a good ear, but they were horrible stuff. But I don't know, I would just, I guess I just got the creative urge, and language was something

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I was skilled at so that's what I used. I would have rather have composed string quartets, I think, but I didn't have the skill at that kind of stuff. Morton Marcus: Well, let's hear some of Jim Standish's poetry.

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Jim Standish: Okay, this first one's called, "Murphy's Law." Oh, and I should say, when I read poems that have names of religious figures in them, the disclaimer is that the opinions here are the opinions of the poems themselves, not

00:32:45.850 - 00:32:54.980

necessarily of the poet. [Laughs] Morton Marcus: Okay. Jim Standish: MURPHY'S LAW I believe in God, the Father, the Mother, the Child, the Holy

00:32:54.980 - 00:33:10.670

Ghost, and Murphy. You know, the one who makes things go wrong, but not always. Every time a car doesn't jump the sidewalk and run you down, every time you swallow a bite of something and don't choke, every time the earth doesn't open up right

00:33:10.670 - 00:33:26.180

under your house, every time you speed and don't get caught, every time you step out of the shower without slipping, every time you forget your raincoat and it forgets to rain, every time somebody likes something that you did, every morning that

00:33:26.180 - 00:33:50.910

you wake up: Thank Murphy for his mercies. He says, we measly mortals have no notion all the things that could go wrong. He says, all blame and no praise makes Murph a mean God. And this one's called, "At the Races," and the first part of it

00:33:51.540 - 00:34:04.880

is lifted straight out of a letter to "Dear Abby." And then I put in my own editorial, and then I go off on it but anyway, the incident came out of "Dear Abby." I love it. AT THE RACES

00:34:04.000 - 00:34:20.710

A boy at the racetrack sees a man drop his wallet. The boy picks it up, looks inside, two thousand. He chases the man, gives it to him. The man grunts and goes his way. All the boy's friends tell him he was crazy not to keep the money. You must

00:34:20.710 - 00:34:36.250

know this is in America, in th time of Reagan. In such place and times, people actually thin like that. They think the craz ones are the ones who won't sel their honor for two grand. I should have gone like this, th man says, "Hey, thanks. Here

00:34:36.250 - 00:34:49.900

you keep the money. I was jus going to spend it on horse anyway." But the boy says, "No I only did what folks i supposed to do, what should b taken for granted." And the ma likes this boy so much, is s happy to find another soul i

00:34:49.900 - 00:35:03.190

this wasteland that he says "Tell you what, let's ar wrestle for it. Loser has t keep it." This tickles the bo who plays football in hig school and is sure he can bea an old man, so he says, "Great. But the man's strong too. Soon

00:35:03.400 - 00:35:17.260

the muscles are bulging, th teeth are gritting, the arms ar not moving. "Unh, unh," the both say. "Err, err," they sa and their sweat is flying al over the place and still th arms do not move. But at last as it must when strengths ar

00:35:17.260 - 00:35:29.770

equal, the stamina of youth win out. "Okay," says the man, "be gracious winner and allow me t take you and your family t dinner." "Alright," says th boy. "All right," say hi parents. The boy calls hi girlfriend, the father calls hi

00:35:29.800 - 00:35:41.620

newly-divorced sister, and the go to the fanciest restauran they know of. They order th fanciest food and the fancies wine, nobody cards the you g people, they all get very joll , they go to the hottest dan e spot in town, the boy and gi

00:35:41.620 - 00:35:54.370

l decide they're really in lov , the mother and father fall ba k in love, the man and t e father's sister fall in lov . They go to a swell hotel a d take the three swankiest suite . Next day, the wallet's empt . "Best two grand I ever spent

00:35:54.370 - 00:36:13.040

" the man says. "Me too," says t e bo This next one is called, "Footnote," and it's got the F word in it, so I'll just say fudge? Morton Marcus: No, I will warn the people out there that if you

00:36:13.040 - 00:36:28.090

are offended by four letter words or a language which generally not considered proper, that word or those words will be used by the writers present. Jim Standish: Okay. It's not used unduly but you'll see from

00:36:28.090 - 00:36:45.800

the context why it's inevitable and it's a reference- Mr. Ed Sanders, who back in days of yore was editor and publisher of a magazine called Fuck You, a magazine of the arts. We met in physics lab, you couldn't miss him as he plied

00:36:45.800 - 00:37:00.560

the halls of NYU with his calculus book, Greek dictionary, and Pound Cantos. One night, we went to a party uptown, the people there were strictly bourgeois, so we made our own party in the hallway, giggling and rifling coat pockets for

00:37:00.560 - 00:37:14.750

bottles and taking one swig a piece out of each. Oh, and there was Scotch and Irish, Canadian and Bourbon Brandy and rum, gin and vodka to taste, all the Chianti and Rheingold. Erelong, I was filling that nice uptown bourgeois apartment with

00:37:14.750 - 00:37:27.530

wretched sounds of barf, clutching the toilet like it was a rock in the rapids, which it might have been the way the room was reeling. The hostesses best friend, was going, "Aren't you ashamed! A fine thing coming to a nice girl's party and acting

00:37:27.530 - 00:37:39.260

like a bum?" or whatever, you know how it goes. And of course, I was ashamed. I was mortified. I kept going, "I'm sorry, yes, I know it's a terrible thing." And she kept telling me to be ashamed, and I kept being ashamed, and she kept telling me

00:37:39.260 - 00:37:53.030

until I wasn't ashamed anymore. I wasn't sorry anymore, all I could think was, "Fuck you." And I came staggering out of that bathroom, sputtering, "Fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh," and right then he tells me now, thirty years later, he had the name for

00:37:53.030 - 00:38:08.390

his magazine. "You never told me that before," I says. "No," he says, "I never told you that before." But now it's out, my footnote in the history of the literature of the Beat Generation. I would also like to mention how he seemed the

00:38:08.390 - 00:38:22.310

world's only one that night who didn't think me scum and how he took me gently in hand and led me all the way saying, "Calm yourself, calm yourself," downstairs and through subways to my Chelsea room and said, "that's what friends are for,"

00:38:22.310 - 00:38:30.680

which nobody ever told me before. Morton Marcus: Now, Jim, is that a true story? Jim Standish: That's a true story. Morton Marcus: You, and Sanders go back thirty years?

00:38:30.720 - 00:38:44.010

Jim Standish: Yeah, we went back- we went to school, yeah, about thirty years ago, we went to NYU together. We had physics lab together. And the true story- and it's also true, just a short time ago when he was in San Jose, he told me that that

00:38:44.010 - 00:38:51.830

was where he got the name for his magazine, which was the inspiration for the poem. Morton Marcus: I'll be darned. So you went back to school in the East instead of staying out here?

00:38:51.890 - 00:39:01.790

Jim Standish: Yeah. Well, my folks, my whole family moved back East in 1950. In fact, we were in Missouri the time the Korean War broke out. Morton Marcus: Uh huh. And how old were you then?

00:39:01.820 - 00:39:07.610

Jim Standish: Seventeen. Morton Marcus: So yeah, you did have your youth still in California? Jim Standish: Yeah.

00:39:08.720 - 00:39:17.460

Morton Marcus: Okay, continue on. Jim Standish: Okay. I don't think I have any more bad words for tonight so we can- Morton Marcus: Okay, then you people out there who are

00:39:17.460 - 00:39:21.520

offended by bad language, you can listen again. Jim Standish: Okay, right. Morton Marcus: Because if you're not listening you don't know- [Cross talk[ [Laughter]

00:39:22.650 - 00:39:32.940

Jim Standish: Unless you just started tooting every now and then find out if you get told. Okay. This is called: LIKELY STORY Suppose you say there's a big fierce dog in the yard and a man

00:39:32.940 - 00:39:47.610

goes in and there's a lot of snarling and the man runs out with his pants torn and his leg bleeding. You haven't said the dog bit the man. Suppose you go on to say they treated the man for rabies and shot the dog, still haven't exactly said the

00:39:47.610 - 00:40:02.880

dog bit the man. Suppose you add for the rest of his life this man had a morbid fear of dogs, even that isn't 'dog bit man.' For all I know, a giant rat from hell materialized in the yard just as the man went in, and that's what the dog was growling

00:40:02.880 - 00:40:15.600

at and the rat was rabid and bit both dog and man. And this was all too much for the man, so he blanked it out of his mind and fixated on the dog. So if there's something you want me to know, best you come right out and say it.

00:40:20.910 - 00:40:27.420

Morton Marcus: I'm not commenting, I'm just letting you go on. Jim Standish: Is there more time? Morton Marcus: Yes, I figured that you'll be reading in

00:40:27.450 - 00:40:33.960

fifteen minutes. Jim Standish: I don't exactly- really haven't timed it, so I just kind of count on you to tell me, "That's enough." Morton Marcus: It's getting close to five of the hour. And

00:40:33.960 - 00:40:46.080

what we'll do then is I will ask all three of you, starting once more with Terry and then going to Janelle and finishing with you, to read another poem or so Or maybe two short poems, on moderate poem. How's that sound

00:40:46.350 - 00:40:51.320

Jim Standish: Okay. Morton Marcus: Okay, go ahead. Jim Standish: Me start? Okay. Starting now? I got one more? Morton Marcus: You still got time, yeah.

00:40:51.320 - 00:41:03.530

Jim Standish: Oh, okay. This is called, "The Sixth Day," and I didn't bring my harmonica in so but I have to sing it so. This is sort of my answer to gospel music or something. Called, "The Sixth Day-" Oh, I have to, in case any of you have forgotten

00:41:03.530 - 00:41:15.090

your Hebrew mythology, the sun was made on the third day and people were made on: THE SIXTH DAY Oh, we count days by the rising of the sun but God started

00:41:15.090 - 00:41:32.340

counting before there was one, so maybe God's days are longer than ours and it's early in the morning. Early in the morning, early in the morning of the sixth day. Be patient with me, the little girl said, God hasn't finished making me yet. Reckon

00:41:32.340 - 00:41:46.800

that goes for the whole human race because it's early in the morning, early in the morning, early in the morning of the sixth day. Sitting on a mountaintop I said, "Hey, God, I really got to thank you for a wonderful world. But how can you

00:41:46.800 - 00:42:00.690

let so much hurtin' come down?" He said, "It's early in the morning. Early in the morning, early in the morning of the sixth day." "Be patient with me," the good Lord says, "I haven't finished to makin' you yet. Sun, moon, mountains,

00:42:00.690 - 00:42:18.570

rivers, oceans are done but it's early in the morning. Early in the morning, early in the morning of the sixth day." Alright, that's that one. Okay. This one's called: BUCHAREST

00:42:20.970 - 00:42:35.880

I should call my daughter tomorrow or the next day; she may be in Bucharest already. I'll be sorry I missed her. They have outlawed hair due to a terrible shortage of curling irons. Her cowboy will meet her at the station. They'll walk in

00:42:35.910 - 00:42:52.140

the rain to their cottage by the Danube. Her eyes glistened whenever she spoke of him. He's a pretty smooth character, that's how they make them in the West. Here I've been thinking I wasn't gonna get this long. Oh, well-

00:42:53.370 - 00:43:06.000

Morton Marcus: One more. Jim Standish: One more. Okay, this is one's called, "New Dreams, Old Awakenings," Which was a subject given by Gail Clark if you know her, so she proposed:

00:43:06.030 - 00:43:21.920

NEW DREAMS, OLD AWAKENINGS, the poem goes: You bet, awakenings are the same, morning after morning, but dreams change. Like the borrowed house with no end of rooms, each with no end of drawers, full of intriguing stuff and I'm never

00:43:21.920 - 00:43:36.650

sure what's okay to use. The last time I was there, the owner showed up. I'd never seen her before; she was pleasant, and seemed to say she thought she wouldn't stay after all, I wouldn't have to move out, I could go ahead and use this

00:43:36.650 - 00:43:52.430

stuff. And my sanctuary room, just big enough for a futon and some books that can be reached only through an air duct that can be entered only by a trapdoor in a broom closet. The last time I went there, it was a huge dining hall packed with

00:43:52.430 - 00:44:05.270

people having a good time and happy to see me. And the busy boulevard where my legs always turned wooden and I barely managed to roll across before the trucks get me the last time I walked across.

00:44:09.020 - 00:44:25.130

Morton Marcus: Thank you very much, Jim. And again, if you just tuned in that was Jim Standish. We are -- that is I am, I'm not two people yet -- I'm talking to three Palo Alto poets who have come all the way over here to grace us with some

00:44:25.130 - 00:44:40.850

of their wonderful and very different poetry. We talked to Terry Adams, we talked to Janel Burnett. And we just talked with Jim Standish, and I'm now going to ask, since we have this time, if the poets in the same order they read before, will say a few

00:44:40.850 - 00:44:49.940

more words and read two poems, and we'll start with- let's make it two poems, even if they're moderate length. We'll start with Terry Adams. Well, thank you, Mort.

00:44:50.900 - 00:45:07.250

Terry Adams: Okay, this is a strange little poem called: THE CELLOPHANE DRESS ON A CIGARETTE PACK Practically right off, I was given very little chance to be wrong. I put the cellophane skirt from a lucky pack around

00:45:07.460 - 00:45:27.140

my two walking fingers. And then I looked up there and I had them doing splits. My fingers were doing splits. Then my fingers were kneeling and spreading. My aunt saw me and said quit. I asked why, she said, because we are Catholic. I can't imagine to

00:45:27.140 - 00:45:46.760

this day how she knew what I was imagining unless we were approximately the same person, which was a wilder idea to grow up with than anything having to do with fingers. Okay, and here's a- this poem is called:

00:45:46.760 - 00:46:04.010

I'M NOT DOING MUCH I'm not doing much now spring has arrived. My mother is the mother of my body. She makes me raise my arms above me on the bed. She does something, I don't care what at all with my shirt.

00:46:04.790 - 00:46:21.860

Then my pants come off the clothesline. She brings them in, holds them up so I can imagine how they go on me and do it myself some day. But now she fits them around my feet, pushes upward while I somehow naturally know where to put my weight.

00:46:22.610 - 00:46:34.970

This day is just like that. I raise my arms so the out of shape pectorals pull my lungs. I throw the covers down and whistle for my pants. Morton Marcus: Very nice.

00:46:35.000 - 00:46:45.230

Terry Adams: Thank you. Morton Marcus: And that was Terry Adams. And I want to tell you three that I just had a phone call from a listener by the name of Alan and he just wanted to let you know how much

00:46:45.230 - 00:46:57.290

he was enjoying the poetry night. Janel Burnett: Hi, Alan. Morton Marcus: This is Janel Burnett. Janel Burnett: EARTH LIGHT, for John Stack.

00:46:58.800 - 00:47:19.080

You tell me to name every star, as though a flame were still burning in the hollow of space or my hand, as though I could decipher the shapes of spirits or translate voices in the shuttering oak leaves. I am long exiled into midnight, even the

00:47:19.080 - 00:47:40.200

faintest light a meteor burst. And here you come, turquoise eyes, hair of jet, touching fingers of water to my wrist, yet declining to dream in my body. How then can I name the stars? How can I tell you their names? Imagine a radiance,

00:47:40.410 - 00:47:58.200

channeled from forehead to rib cage, your chest coming unfastened, the bone slat trellis, floating blossoms above your hungry belly and your cock shell smooth, a divining rod leaping in its cylinder of blood, citing the earth and

00:47:58.200 - 00:48:19.740

thigh of the enchantress. Hidden spring, distillate smile of the enchantress, capturing the moon inside you, your heart of hearts finally translucent. Calculated [unidentified] plus spirit, the break measures your distance. And when you come to me in your

00:48:19.740 - 00:48:38.250

sexless ardor telling me to name every star, I pretend I am dead, though your hair be fine as cornsilk, your eyes the Northern Lights. Morton Marcus: Thank you very much, it's amazing the

00:48:38.490 - 00:48:47.060

difference in the three of you. It's just three voices, three different visions. Jim Standish: [inaudible] are all alike, doesn't it? Morton Marcus: But you people aren't in the workshop.

00:48:47.520 - 00:48:57.760

Jim Standish: Yeah, but we've all been through the same workshop. Morton Marcus: Yeah, no, I think and that is I've known this and I'm playing coy. The three Palo Alto poets here have, at one

00:48:57.760 - 00:49:14.590

time or another, been members of Dick Maxwell's poetry workshop out of Foothill College, really. And Dick is a very, very well-known teacher, and it is a credit to him, it's a credit to any creative writing teacher, when poets come out of his great

00:49:14.590 - 00:49:27.970

writing workshops, not only who are fine, but who write with completely different styles and completely different visions. That means he has let them grow and he has not put an authoritarian hand on them. So that's- you all three of you are

00:49:28.270 - 00:49:41.430

a great feather in Dick Maxwell's cap, and he's listening out there. So Dick, you see, we did talk about you after all. Anyway, we finish with Jim Standish once again. Jim Standish: Okay. It's called:

00:49:41.430 - 00:49:53.560

GOOD NEWS, sort of my Christmas poem. Really, when you think about it, it was pretty crummy of God to throw us out of the garden and condemn us to all this misery just for eating an apple. And God did think about it and send

00:49:53.560 - 00:50:05.590

his only begotten son with the good news: God's not mad anymore, he's sorry he was so mean. He loves us, we're not guilty. Well, we all know what happened to him, "Eek," went the priest, "Agh," went the governors, "how are we going to

00:50:05.590 - 00:50:18.280

keep them down on their knees if they don't feel like dirt anymore?" So they nailed him. But you can't keep a good idea down, the news was getting around in spite of all. But meanwhile down in hell Lucifer, who at the beginning of this

00:50:18.280 - 00:50:31.900

story was the good guy, had been nursing his grudge too long and by now is nothing but a bitter old devil. "Jesus Christ," says he, "God's turned out to be a good guy after all, where's that leave me?" So he looks around and what to his wondering eye

00:50:31.900 - 00:50:47.060

should appear but Saul of Tarsus, on his way to cast many a stone. "Ah, just the man," called Old Nick and he sends the binding light and Saul becomes Paul and the rest is history. Morton Marcus: Very provocative comments on organized religion,

00:50:47.060 - 00:50:56.870

Jim. [Laughter] Jim Standish: [Screams] I don't know. I guess it's not against Muslims, so maybe they'll leave me alone. Okay, okay. This is called:

00:50:56.920 - 00:51:07.440

TELL ME YOU LOVE ME They think they're so damn sensitive and perceptive but they make you say it. I love you, yes, dear, of course, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you,

00:51:07.560 - 00:51:20.940

though that poor dead horse is kicked to mush. You come home from work and she knows she's the only reason you put up with machinery that beats your ears and constantly schemes to chew your fingers with the nervousness of speeded up lines

00:51:20.940 - 00:51:33.510

and the yelling of asshole bosses. You're looking for a little peace and comfort and it's, "Oh, boohoo. You brute, you don't love me at all." "Hey, honey, what's wrong?" "If you really cared, you wouldn't have to ask." And finally she tells

00:51:33.510 - 00:51:40.690

you it's your anniversary. Jesus Christ, you're giving her your life and she worries about dates like some damn junior high history teacher. Morton Marcus: [Chuckles]

00:51:44.500 - 00:52:01.510

Well, we have been listening to three very different Palo Alto poets, products of Dick Maxwell's Creative Writing extravaganza. And you heard Terry Adams, Janel Burnett, and Jim Standish, who told us why we should not be concerned with

00:52:01.510 - 00:52:15.490

dates. Maybe with bananas [unintelligible], oh, God. Anyway this is Mort Marcus saying that Plaza Books has provided a grant that helped make the last hour of programming possible Plaza Books is located on the Pacific Garden

00:52:15.490 - 00:52:29.080

Mall in Santa Cruz. And we do really appreciate your support for the last two and a half years they really have been great. I want to tell you that you should stay tuned for that wonderful musical show with Tim Folger called, "Things Ain't

00:52:29.080 - 00:52:41.170

What They Used To Be," which will be following us within the next ten seconds. Joe Stroud will be with you next week. This is Mort Marcus saying thanks to our guests, and thanks to you out there for listening. We do appreciate your ears.