Long ago, and far away, at the Port Townsend Poetry Conference 1980. I was with Sharon Doubiago, Linda Macaluso, Tobey Kaplan, and Leonard Cirino. In this photo I'm listening to Meridel LeSueur, sitting on the floor at her feet. Her daughter Deborah LeSueur took the photo with my camera. I found it much later among some old slides. We crashed the Centrum conference—oh, how they tried to bust us, and Meridel said, “the California poets stay or I go.” Jane Bangs, whose middle name was spite, backed down fast. But then she spent the rest of the conference vociferously bad-mouthing us, and generally making our lives miserable. We were sleeping in the empty dorms, she had the janitors lock the doors, so we had no place to stay. We wound up sleeping on the beach in our sleeping bags. But it was the full moon, and then the tide came in, nearly floating us away. But the upshot was that Sharon Doubiago read from her new ms, Hard Country—it got published, and the rest is history. Meridel said, "I've waited all my life for this book and before I die I'm going to get it published."
Shout out from Sharon Doubiago on the publication of Hard Country.
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| Facebook conversation that this photo generated is newsworthy |
FACEBOOK CONVERSATION June 25, 2013
Rebecca Cintron Osvold LoL!
that look says "don't let the flower fool ya big guy." were u playing blanche du bois at the time? i realize when we met, i
was living in a communal house off campus w ricky appelbaum who was
rehearsing & then playing stanley kowalski in judy navas' ssu
production for quite a long run! or at least for
him... he never got over it. as i moved out he stood in the doorway in
his wife beater & ragged bathrobe screaming "reBECCa! reBECCA!" glad
i left when i did, God rest his soul.
Maureen Hurley Yeah, you're right. Or I'll take ya to the mat. And not in a good way. I didn't like being hit on. Who
was the guy who lived in the white farmhouse at the railroad tracks?
Was that Ricky? He used to call me the china doll—because I looked so
pale and wan. I remember Charles Bukowski was crashing on his couch. Drunk on a
gallon of red wine, asking me for a reading,
then hitting on me. I kicked the Buk to the curb, hard—I was so pissed
off. John Martin of Black Sparrow Press, his publisher, no less, wasn't even letting him stay on his couch.
(I am probably the only person in literary history that kicked the famous Charles Bukowski to the curb when he asked for a reading. I was so hopping mad, I could have spit. To say that Bukowski was surprised, was an understatement. He tried to call me back, but I was fuming, already out the door and driving off, gravel splattering the driveway, as I peeled out in my VW bug. Memory is so odd, I even remember what I was wearing: my grandmother’s antique1940s lace insert crêpe silk blouse, and a long teal pencil skirt.)
Lyle Daggett The
photo is (at the moment anyway) not coming through in the Facebook feed—I'll visit your page and see if it shows there. However—from the
details you give here, that would have been just a month or so before
Sharon D. and I first met, August 1981
in Minneapolis when she was here to (in part) meet w/ John Crawford at
West End Press to talk about details of publishing Hard Country. I've
heard bits and pieces over the years of Sharon's account of the trip to
Port Townsend. *
The evening Sharon and I first met, in a living room in
south Minneapolis, I asked if I could see some of her poems (a couple
of people had been telling me about her earlier that day), she got up
and left the room, and came back and plopped the 300-page manuscript of
Hard Country in my lap, the pages held together by extra-long brass
fasteners. I read the first dozen or so poems in the ms., and I lay back
on the couch just blown away, most amazing stuff I'd ever read. One of
the great ecstatic moments of my life.
Maureen Hurley Ah,
John Crawford—He also published some of my prose in an anthology. House
on Via Gombito. Meridel was crucial for that link to happen. Leonard Cirino and I brought Sharon’s manuscript to Meridel, and the rest is history. BTW, I'm
"Lacy Murphy" in some of the later stories w/ Bill Bradd. I said she could use my real name but she preferred Lacy. Sharon was the
one who was always encouraging me to write prose. So she put me in her stories.
Lyle Daggett I
remember the anthology House on the Via Gombito, though it was
published by New Rivers Press (not West End), edited by Madelon
Sprengnether and C.W. Truesdale (Bill Truesdale was the founder and
publisher of New Rivers Press until he died some years back).
Not aware of John Crawford ever having any connection with New Rivers
Press, but what do I know? I think I remember the "Lacy Murphy" name.
(As far as I know, I've never turned up in any code names in any of
Sharon's stories, though I keep wondering if I'll spot myself one day.)
Maureen Hurley Shit,
you're right, Lyle. Crossed wires. But I did also meet John Crawford. You do
know that Joan (LeSueur) Crawford was Meridel's first cousin, right? Deborah
LeSueur was my neighbor in Forestville for years. She lives in Graton now.
RIP Lyle Daggett. Died too young, on Christmas Day, 2018.
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