A note to Andrei Codrescu on Life of Crime

I sent Andrei Codrescu a jpg of the just released Life of Crime.
Andrei,
Have you seen the book yet? At long last....

Maureen

He said, It' a wonderful book! What scurrilous characters! What grand times! Fine pics, too, made me nostalgic (a bit). Oh, Ron, we love you! We were such boys! And now they write books about us we didn't even preorder! I'm enjoying Andrew Epstein's BEAUTIFUL ENEMIES -- I met him in Florida, read the intro on the plane. Terrific.

O yes, when you were such boys! I grew up on some of those tales—er—should I say tails? Marianne Ware's young daughter Laurie (now my landlady!) couldn't get your name right, and called you Andrei Undressyou which had something to do with you ravaging some young willowy sweet young thang (a poet-ess, no less?) over the top of of the McPhail's propane tank....OMG, I miss those days!

He said: A propane tank? Boy, were we limber!

I continued: Somebody on Facebook found my name—and wanted to know if I was the one doing standup at West of the Laguna, Sebastopol ca 1980. Er, I thought it was poetry (sigh). But then Alastair Johnston says he treats all his poetry readings like standup comedy. There's comedy in that.

Worth it all just to see Ron Silliman snort & fart over "Life of Crime." Ah, yes, those were the days. Maybe we should sic some Jeffrey Miller poems on Ron—or maybe a copy of Huntsie's treatise on Brooklyn Bridge...

I see my photo of Hunce Voelcker made its way to Exquisite Corpse—thx for giving me photo credit BTW. Must've been Pat Nolan that sent it to you. Weirdly, I can still hear Hunce's laugh in my mind's ear—after all these years...

If you want more geezer pix, I'll be posting them in my Poet Archives album—and if you want pix of someone in particular who haunted The River ca 1980-1996, I might have a negative or two somewheres. Sorry, none of you...

Maureen

Harte Crane’s birthday party photo

Blast from the past: Hunce Voelcker's annual Hart Crane party: Ann Erickson, Betty Garrett, Gail King, Hunce Voelcker, Pat Nolan, Paul Mariah (& me behind the camera, as usual). Hart Crane was born in July 21, 1899, and it says 101 year birthday party, but Hunce died in 1990, so it’s 1989.

Journal entry, Forestville fossils

Now that I've begun editing my student homes for the final book, only now am I beginning to feel the urge to write. It's been a long slow drought. Teaching takes away from my writing energy, like any other job.

In Berkeley we diligently conserve water, but here, on the river, we take it out and put it back in again. Even during drought, you can't ask the river to conserve water.

The orchards here are so impoverished and sterile, not the variety of plant life we come to expect from nature. Even in the creek, there's little to look for.

Was this a shallow inland sea that stretched to the Farallones? Why are there no clams here? When the embankment on River Road, they tumbled from their beds to the road cut like an Indian midden.

Beneath the fossil beds, it's hollowed out. I crawled inside and under 10,000 years' worth of history. It made me realize that every place we walk has an equal pedigree of age. 

The clams gave us something to anchor our own limited perceptions of time upon.

I find tooted clams—what species? And an olivine snail shell, 10,000 years old, clearly recognizable with today's species.

Did the farmer who first cleared and plowed these fields ever wonder about the clamshells planted here?

Susie the cat has plans for that bluejay. I can tell by her silence.

The next time I want to walk along the beach, I can do it right here in the orchard. shells and all.

I think of my grandmother daily, the pain eases somewhat. Still in dreams, she claims it's all been a mistake. She's not dead. What am I supposed to do with that?

W

Hunce Voelcker, just back from India, says Link, his old lover, long since dead, also visits him regularly, claiming it's a mistake, and leads him into trouble.

Hunce says Shasta, Benares, and the Brooklyn Bridge are his three favorite holy places on earth.

I contemplate mailing Huncie the last of my Brooklyn Bridge stamps on Hart Crane's birthday. I will be sad to miss the party, perhaps by then, we will be in Peru.

There's so much turning and turmoil in my soul. The air is filled with anticipation, something is about to happen. But what?

Susie attains the posture of the stoic, the bluejay continues to call  aii, aii, aii.

Blue and salmon clouds huddle, quail in the undergrowth, bedding down for the night.

Twice now I've sat up in the middle of the night, still sound asleep, and I talk to a presence who is dwelling in John's back house where we sleep. I don't know who it is. My grannie?

The first night, I said, I love you. The second night I said, I am profoundly unhappy, and though I don't have any intention of committing suicide, I'm beginning to understand what drives people to it.

The sound of my own voice woke me enough to remember what I said in the morning. It left me spooked. This time John never heard me. Perhaps it's the beginning of healing, perhaps now, it will lift somewhat. Or I've gone and disturbed some other ghosts.

The clouds grow more dramatic with each minute. I can't get any elevation from the top of the orchard to see the sunset on the horizon. So cold for May, my fur coat is like a bear hide.

The blue spears of wheat I gather from the sewer barrow, taste like any other unknown grass seed. Sour, milky, and mildly sweet. 

We are all fossils, uncovering fossils. And more fossils.

5/6/1988

added 9/2016

RRWG demise? The reports of its death were greatly overexaggerated

Missing page 2

Obligatory Hug, June, 1984, Russian River Writers' Guild, Maureen Hurley

RRWG memorial reading for Boschka Layton, with Steve Petty, Michael Morey, Hunce Voelcker, Gerrye Payne, Mary Hoffman, Mary Ellen O’Banion, Laura del Fuego, Barbara Baer, Peggy Ellingson, Donna Champion, Zara Altair, Paul Mariah, Bonnie Olsen, Maureen Hurley, Jane Flood,

RRWG Erotic reading at the Burbank Activity Center with Donna Champion, Marianne Ware, Lee Perron, Pat Nolan, Gail King, Zara Altair, Bonnie Olsen, Maureen Hurley, Paul Mariah, Hunce Voelcker, Joe Pahls, Helen Dunn,

Benefit reading for California Poets in the Schools in Sonoma County at the Cotati Cabaret, journal

Journal 11/13/1979 

My Cotati Cabaret benefit reading for California Poets in the Schools went well. Poets who read, Marty Goldstein, Pam Rafael, David Bromige, Leonard Cirino, Hunce Voelcker, John Kong, Susan Maxon, Marianne Ware, Boschka Layton, Pat Nolan, Lee Perron, and Jere doing poetry and dance. Second half of the reading was Will Staple, myself, Chaz Abate, Jerome Reiter, Jonathan London etc. 

We made $143 at the gate and it was a great turn out. Also, it was mostly community people not as many students from Sonoma State. Definitely Public Poetry Center’s goals have been met. We are bringing the Sonoma County poets together. River folks participating with town folks and reading poetry and maki g art together. John’s mime piece on suicide was excellent. Lee and Jere’s dance and poetry ensemble, Silent Crow, was superb. 

 I think we will need to tour Sonoma County with this entourage of poets to raise more money for California Poets in the Schools, it was definitely a high night. The poets were wonderful, the audience was wonderful. Next time only two sets I think people started to leave before the third set was finished. I published a chapbook of their work, called The Program as a memento for the audience to take away with them.