Snyder, Whelan, Waldman at National Poetry Week

It's come to this: after an emotionally draining day, I leave John's house to photograph poets at National Poetry Week in Fort Mason. Gary Snyder is good, Will is smutty. I cringe when he reads his raven love poem. Phew, I'm off the hook. Another lover recorded in blank verse. Not me.

Will introduces me to Philip who smiles at me knowingly as I chew Will out for smoking a cigarette. Gary Snyder doesn't remember me. Again. But Phil does. And hugs me. I'm assuming Gary's just being cold. Later, he puts it all together, and says, You're Maureen Hurley who took that photo? I said, I feel stupid reintroducing myself every two years. He said, I didn't recognize you. Grief does that to you.


I recounted, Yeah last time I saw you, you cut off all your hair, and mine was long. Now yours is longer than mine was, and I've cut off all mine. Remember sitting zazen at the zendo? Gary gives my hand a warm squeeze, and says, Yes. And we talk about the nesting habits of peregrine falcons in cities and the plumpness of pigeons.

I hand Gary our chapbook, Falling to Sea Level (John Oliver Simon). David Bromige testily commented, with a bit of an edge: Yeah, I heard you two had connected up. Awkward pause. Makes me sound like a hitching post. Or a fishing rod. He didn't think I was capable of pulling one in, and landing him too? He's always ready with his subtle English digs. Doesn't want me to swim in the big poets' pond?

I was so distracted this morning, I nearly hit a parked car leaving John's house. It was difficult to arouse myself. Sleep, sweet oblivion. How desperate he was, saying, Please please please. We fought in whispers as the girls are in his daughter's room. Quarrels over relationships, and his daughter. How desperate we've both become. We cry, kiss, and cry again. Lunch sticks in my throat. I'm determined to fight it out. His daughter stays central to our conversation. It's all Oedipus and divided loyalties. We both bleed the same time each month. Tonight the full moon pulls it out of me, a few days early.

Ann Waldman knocks me over when she reads a poem called Cracks in the World. I am reeling, stunned after her reading. Imagine Snyder and Whalen and Waldman on one bill! I am already tortured. I feel shaky, in need of a friend. And I seek out my friend Will, who is busy sniffing out poontang, and he slinks off like a coyote in low profile. Duane BigEagle, too is less warm. Why do I expect lasting faithful devotion, or friendship from ex-lovers?

The other photographer at National Poetry Week turns his brown spaniel eyes on me. I want to tell him, I'm not the one. And he is smitten in less than 24 hours. Whereas I'm facing borderline mania. The bubble of grief boils over as Ann Waldman reads. I am in tears at the end of her reading. The other photographer tries to offer solace.

Herman Berlandt gives me a copy of his anthology. It's come to this: I count how many ex-lovers are included in the poetry books before I read them. It reads like a shopping list of ex-lovers. I scrutinize dates, and compare notes. I look for some grain of myself in all that male ego. Of course, John's poem is about Here, a woman, and there, a woman. What was I expecting? That his womanizing past would change?

How we remain faithful to each other is by not using a third-party option as a way out. It's not just fear of AIDS, he says, monogamy is a new leaf for me. I guess I should be honored for reforming John. He is the Bill James Encyclopedia of broken hearts. Ever the statistician, John adds up the various scores. An almost wife, I rank in at #16 in the Here a woman, there a woman, category. A dubious distinction, at best.