Ccarlsson at 05:26, 21 May 2024

2024-05-21T05:26:44Z

Ccarlsson at 04:55, 20 May 2024

2024-05-20T04:55:58Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:55, 19 May 2024
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	But let me end this in praise. Praise for a voice, a mountain of a voice. I loved to hear.		But let me end this in praise. Praise for a voice, a mountain of a voice. I loved to hear.

	[[category:Literary SF]] [[category:Beats]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:Haight-Ashbury]] [[category:East Bay]] [[category:North Beach]]		[[category:Literary San Francisco]] [[category:Beats]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:Haight-Ashbury]] [[category:East Bay]] [[category:North Beach]]

Ccarlsson at 04:55, 20 May 2024

2024-05-20T04:55:03Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:55, 19 May 2024
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	::eye.		::eye.

	::However, as I tell the class, the completion of the poem really disturbs me;		However, as I tell the class, the completion of the poem really disturbs me:

	::II		::II

Ccarlsson: Created page with "''' Historical Essay ''' ''by Stephen Vincent, January 15, 1972'' 720px '''Lew Welch and Allen Ginsberg outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, October 30, 1963, (the day of the Madame Nhu protest).''' ''Photo: © John D..."

2024-05-20T04:51:54Z

Created page with "''' Historical Essay ''' ''by Stephen Vincent, January 15, 1972'' 720px '''Lew Welch and Allen Ginsberg outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, October 30, 1963, (the day of the Madame Nhu protest).''' ''Photo: © John D..."

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← Older revision		Revision as of 22:26, 20 May 2024
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	[[Image:Lew Welch and Allen Ginsberg outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, October 30, 1963, (the day of the Madame Nhu protest) – photo c. John Doss.jpg\|720px]]		[[Image:Lew Welch and Allen Ginsberg outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, October 30, 1963, (the day of the Madame Nhu protest) – photo c. John Doss.jpg\|720px]]

	'''Lew Welch and Allen Ginsberg outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, October 30, 1963, (the day of the Madame Nhu protest).'''		'''Lew Welch and [[Allen Ginsberg\|Allen Ginsberg]] outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, October 30, 1963, (the day of the Madame Nhu protest).'''

	''Photo: © John Doss''		''Photo: © John Doss''
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	Dear Lew,		Dear Lew,

	I’m in the beginning of teaching a course at the Art Institute that I’m calling BAY AREA ART & POETRY since WWII. (I come out of the poetry end of it and am learning a lot about the art). Anyhow we started down around Point Lobos with Jeffers, moved over into ~~theValley~~ with early Everson, then up into the mountains with Rexroth & going north with the earlier Snyder and Roethke. Coordinating poets, painters and photographers where possible (Weston, Morris, Graves , Toby). Anyway, in a couple of weeks, we’ll be coming down the coast to finally get into the City.		I’m in the beginning of teaching a course at the Art Institute that I’m calling BAY AREA ART & POETRY since WWII. (I come out of the poetry end of it and am learning a lot about the art). Anyhow we started down around Point Lobos with Jeffers, moved over into the Valley with early Everson, then up into the mountains with [[Kenneth Rexroth and Barcelona by the Bay\|Rexroth]] & going north with the earlier Snyder and Roethke. Coordinating poets, painters and photographers where possible (Weston, Morris, Graves , Toby). Anyway, in a couple of weeks, we’ll be coming down the coast to finally get into the City.

	Here’s where I’m hoping we can get together. I’ll be having the class read ON OUT, and The Song Mnt. Tamalpais Sings. What I want to propose is bringing the class over to Marin County, say either Muir Beach or somewhere on the Mountain and spend a morning with you reading and rapping about the poems, any way you would like to handle it. I’d like to suggest Monday, March 22. About ten in the morning. Some students have studio classes in the afternoon, so I don’t want to cut them out, in case the thing should extend into the afternoon…		Here’s where I’m hoping we can get together. I’ll be having the class read ON OUT, and The Song Mnt. Tamalpais Sings. What I want to propose is bringing the class over to Marin County, say either Muir Beach or somewhere on the Mountain and spend a morning with you reading and rapping about the poems, any way you would like to handle it. I’d like to suggest Monday, March 22. About ten in the morning. Some students have studio classes in the afternoon, so I don’t want to cut them out, in case the thing should extend into the afternoon…
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	It’s Monday morning. All weekend I’ve been looking for Lew Welch. A month ago we exchanged letters, tentatively agreeing that he will meet the class. However, we have lost touch. I fail to get a letter off to him in time to his temporary address in Washington. The letter I leave at Serendipity Bookshop gets rightly forwarded to Gary Snyder’s place above Nevada City while I’m off to New York at Easter, but apparently doesn’t get back to him. Back in the Bay Area, I work on a few leads. Jack Shoemaker, at the Bookshop, says to try the No Name bar in Sausalito. A week ago I start. One day one bartender says he saw him on Saturday. But that he’s gone to Nevada City. A couple of days later another bartender says he saw him last night. I leave a message for him to call. No luck. On Friday night I hear Allen Ginsberg has come to town. Lew mentioned that in his letter. Perhaps they’re together. Ginsberg must be going to the Peace March. On Saturday at the Polo Grounds, I look all over for Allen, half expecting him to be leading chants in the middle of somewhere. No luck. Just people, people, people. I call City Lights and get a clue that he might be staying up at the publishing office, up on Grant.		It’s Monday morning. All weekend I’ve been looking for Lew Welch. A month ago we exchanged letters, tentatively agreeing that he will meet the class. However, we have lost touch. I fail to get a letter off to him in time to his temporary address in Washington. The letter I leave at Serendipity Bookshop gets rightly forwarded to Gary Snyder’s place above Nevada City while I’m off to New York at Easter, but apparently doesn’t get back to him. Back in the Bay Area, I work on a few leads. Jack Shoemaker, at the Bookshop, says to try the No Name bar in Sausalito. A week ago I start. One day one bartender says he saw him on Saturday. But that he’s gone to Nevada City. A couple of days later another bartender says he saw him last night. I leave a message for him to call. No luck. On Friday night I hear Allen Ginsberg has come to town. Lew mentioned that in his letter. Perhaps they’re together. Ginsberg must be going to the Peace March. On Saturday at the Polo Grounds, I look all over for Allen, half expecting him to be leading chants in the middle of somewhere. No luck. Just people, people, people. I call City Lights and get a clue that he might be staying up at the publishing office, up on Grant.

	On Sunday afternoon, I go to the door, but no one is there. I go to the store. Ask the clerk who knows nothing. I write a note. While I’m at it, a short olive complexioned guy with a girl who has a woolen cap pulled tough style over her head, come in. The guy, happy smile on his face ups to the counter and says, “Have you seen Allen,” as if he were getting ready to put his hands on a gift. The young ~~oriental~~ clerk with shoulder length black hair, says, “No.” The guy, almost taking a dance step back, says, “Is he staying over the publishing office?”		On Sunday afternoon, I go to the door, but no one is there. I go to the store. Ask the clerk who knows nothing. I write a note. While I’m at it, a short olive complexioned guy with a girl who has a woolen cap pulled tough style over her head, come in. The guy, happy smile on his face ups to the counter and says, “Have you seen Allen,” as if he were getting ready to put his hands on a gift. The young clerk with shoulder length black hair, says, “No.” The guy, almost taking a dance step back, says, “Is he staying over the publishing office?”

	The clerk, honest, says “I don’t know. I just heard he got into town.”		The clerk, honest, says “I don’t know. I just heard he got into town.”
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	III		III

	The Monday after the visit to Wobly Rock, I get a telephone call in the middle of the class. It’s Lew. His voice sounds flat and distant. It’s difficult for me to talk because we are in the middle of an hour with Jack Gilbert who is talking about his sense of the fifties. Lew wants to know if he can still come to the class. I have to tell him it’s too late. David Meltzer is scheduled to come the next week, and there are no classes after that one. Actually it’s more complicated. In truth I’m telling him he can’t come because we already spent two weeks on his work, and we have three or four more poets to cover. A history of local literature in miniature that, at one time, he could have parodied (as in, “A Round of English” for Philip Whalen in ON OUT). At the same time I feel guilty because I’m telling a human voice that I value that he can’t, even if he wants to, come up with his goods anymore. I tell him we went to Muir Beach last week and I wrote something on it and would he like it, if I sent it to him? He says sure and to send it in care of Don Allen, his editor. I complete the call by saying we’ll get him a reading this fall at the Art Institute to which he seems interested. Then I get back to the class and Jack Gilbert.		The Monday after the visit to Wobly Rock, I get a telephone call in the middle of the class. It’s Lew. His voice sounds flat and distant. It’s difficult for me to talk because we are in the middle of an hour with Jack Gilbert who is talking about his sense of the fifties. Lew wants to know if he can still come to the class. I have to tell him it’s too late. [[David Meltzer on THE BEAT GENERATION\|David Meltzer]] is scheduled to come the next week, and there are no classes after that one. Actually it’s more complicated. In truth I’m telling him he can’t come because we already spent two weeks on his work, and we have three or four more poets to cover. A history of local literature in miniature that, at one time, he could have parodied (as in, “A Round of English” for Philip Whalen in ON OUT). At the same time I feel guilty because I’m telling a human voice that I value that he can’t, even if he wants to, come up with his goods anymore. I tell him we went to Muir Beach last week and I wrote something on it and would he like it, if I sent it to him? He says sure and to send it in care of Don Allen, his editor. I complete the call by saying we’ll get him a reading this fall at the Art Institute to which he seems interested. Then I get back to the class and Jack Gilbert.

	[[Image:Lew Welch missing SFC article.jpg\|320px\|right]]		[[Image:Lew Welch missing SFC article.jpg\|320px\|right]]
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	Lew was someone who actually had dug and given form to what I was digging, listening to all those stories out of the back of the cab, while I was doing it for a living.		Lew was someone who actually had dug and given form to what I was digging, listening to all those stories out of the back of the cab, while I was doing it for a living.

	So one night when I and Margaret (my girl friend at the time), and Tom Schmidt and Maria and Bill Howard, three other friends, were in the Juke Box, a bar on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, when I saw Lew up at the bar, it was about ten o’clock, I naturally went up and invited him to come back and sit and talk with us. When I got to the bar, I had to wait a minute. The Juke Box was on, something by Dinah Washington, and he was busy describing to Harry, the black bartender, how Dinah’s voice was sounding just like a trumpet at this one point in the song. It was obvious that he not only loved music, but lived in relationship to it like a warm coat that kept his feelings alive and intact. The pleasure he took in depicting the quality of her voice, made the music seem like a nipple that he sucked with precise and ~~everchanging~~ delight.		So one night when I and Margaret (my girl friend at the time), and Tom Schmidt and Maria and Bill Howard, three other friends, were in the Juke Box, a bar on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, when I saw Lew up at the bar, it was about ten o’clock, I naturally went up and invited him to come back and sit and talk with us. When I got to the bar, I had to wait a minute. The Juke Box was on, something by Dinah Washington, and he was busy describing to Harry, the black bartender, how Dinah’s voice was sounding just like a trumpet at this one point in the song. It was obvious that he not only loved music, but lived in relationship to it like a warm coat that kept his feelings alive and intact. The pleasure he took in depicting the quality of her voice, made the music seem like a nipple that he sucked with precise and ever-changing delight.

	But he was happy to come back with me to the table. He was terribly high from teaching. He had just come from the Medical Center where he was giving a course on Gertrude Stein. It was the sound of a voice of a man in love. It was ten o’clock and for the next three hours he rapped on everything imaginable. Starting with Gertrude, moving to music, then relating to poets, he talked of people, things he had done. Much of it I guess was preachment. He was asserting a way to live. Definitely not like his mother, gripping his hand out in front of us, “She wanted us to be clean as a bar of soap. She’d even say that!” How he was in awe of John Handy, the alto-saxophonist, who knew so much about the history of jazz, that he was still afraid to approach him. And how poets could be like jazz musicians around younger artists, cooking as hard as they could to keep the younger ones out of the circle. Six years later now it’s hard to recapture content. I just know and remember how well it felt to listen. Our questions and remarks were like drum beats behind the musical pictures they helped provoke him to draw.		But he was happy to come back with me to the table. He was terribly high from teaching. He had just come from the Medical Center where he was giving a course on Gertrude Stein. It was the sound of a voice of a man in love. It was ten o’clock and for the next three hours he rapped on everything imaginable. Starting with Gertrude, moving to music, then relating to poets, he talked of people, things he had done. Much of it I guess was preachment. He was asserting a way to live. Definitely not like his mother, gripping his hand out in front of us, “She wanted us to be clean as a bar of soap. She’d even say that!” How he was in awe of John Handy, the alto-saxophonist, who knew so much about the history of jazz, that he was still afraid to approach him. And how poets could be like jazz musicians around younger artists, cooking as hard as they could to keep the younger ones out of the circle. Six years later now it’s hard to recapture content. I just know and remember how well it felt to listen. Our questions and remarks were like drum beats behind the musical pictures they helped provoke him to draw.

Lew Welch—A Journal of Remembrance - Revision history

Ccarlsson at 05:26, 21 May 2024

Ccarlsson at 04:55, 20 May 2024

Ccarlsson at 04:55, 20 May 2024

Ccarlsson: Created page with "''' Historical Essay ''' ''by Stephen Vincent, January 15, 1972'' 720px '''Lew Welch and Allen Ginsberg outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, October 30, 1963, (the day of the Madame Nhu protest).''' ''Photo: © John D..."