Correspondence - George Bowering to Al Purdy
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George Bowering Ste 2127 Thirteenth Ave, Calgary, AlbertaEACH MORNINGThese dark mornings of Hermione colored windowsI sit alone in the kitchenwith morning paper & instant coffee(you in bed smoking)Each morning adjusting:I am husbandpouring over the battle of sports page, planningwar on the day's world, you in the bathroom now, maybemy wife, only daughter of Helenrunning water flushing toilet.I take that moment to find a necktie, routine of swinging doors.(We are somehow doomed)Each morning the sun weaker, wemust survive the winterwe must gird ourselves for the day.
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George DoweringSte 2127 Thirteenth Ave, N.E. Calgary, AlbertaOLD SNOW IN THE NEW YEARSooty piles of snowhard clumps beside the cement walksnow melts& old discarded cigarettes show thruWinter belly is like that:sliding fatdrooping down all that eatingin warm apartmentwatching the murkof televisionblue bulge reflected off black window dark blowy snow outside wants inSo now: holidays overit's gone for a whilethe cold hard groundflattened out & showing thruTime:I shore up my belly pull it infinger the fat between my knuckles grasping belly like a wounded spyThe televisionbroken all winterI'd been watchinga dead windowLast night I diddled a switch in back:it came on in a bright blue boom& the wind died outside.
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Bowerings Ste 2127 Thirteenth Ave, NE Calgary, AltaDec 16, 1963Dear Al.1. Dont buy my book when it comes out, whcich is sposed to be arnd Mar first. Because I’ll be sending you an INscribed no.2. Thanks for sending me yr BLUR. . . book. Is it-possible that the odd Miss MacPherson might look at a manuscript from me?3. Is it possible to get hold of yr other books, other than Annie + this one? That is, wd you mind at all if I writ a article on you for CanLit?I wd then also be able to make use of yr mss for Cariboo Horseys. I'd thot of doing a article on you&Acorn, and my still do it that way, but the only Acorn bks I have are his Jawbreakers and the Fiddlehead no.end of itemized numbers. . . .Did you see the new Tamarack? That Skelton pisses me off every time I run Into something he's puked out. He says Birney is meretricious. Thats too much. I hear Skelton plays the beardy lion of letters arnd Victoria College (Vic) that school really likes that sort of thing. Souster had some bad moments in that mag. Phyllis came off quite well, with poems of the sort I'm glad she has turnd to. Skelton's poem was a very poor with imitation and cliche hidden with line-jazz. Message was 'I'm at home wherever I happen to be. 'What the hell ever happened to The Bleeding Horse? Pisses me off. Have you haerd any gen abt this new Montreal Review? Who's running it?I think I forgot to mention to you that I read yr story in Canforum, and liked it: up till the ending (like they always say). I guess I cant ask you not to do things like that, it wd be like telling you what sort of thing you cant do. But I really was put off. I think you cd have made the hoorror or comic grisly just as palpable without the crazed supernatural thing. In fact it wd have been more (what's the word?) powerfulI'm trying to write stories too, and havent done hardly ay poetry in the past month, and it doesnt scare me as it wd have once. I figure it doesnt matter what way yr writing as long as yr writing, and trying to do it new or serious or good, and not just riding a thing you can aready handle.I even write a political piece no Canadian magazine will take, and I h vebt tried to send it to Canada Month because they are right wing group
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2I like writing letters to you. . . .I just heard wd today that a guy In nY (Kirby Congden) I sent some poems to read, is putting one in an anthology he's bringing out around Christmas,Saw MacEwen's novel downtown, but cant afford to buy it, because I'm trying to save up the money to byt LeRoi Jones' new book. It costs 4 times as much money, (no, 5 times) to support me and Angela as it did to support myself. Women can spend money like it was water. If I ever separate from her it will be because of the way she drives us into debt and buys all kinds of gadgets and THINGS i dont want tying me down: I want to take all out THINGS and throw them in the Bow river and go and sit beside a candle. Now she waits a fucking record player. Well, she can buy the goddam thing herself.Incidentally it was our first anniversayr on Saturday. We didnt have an y money to go out, so we had an anniversary fuck.I hope Newlove makes it with Contact, I think he has what it takes, a strong ableness to use his own material, letting his life and craft make the motion of the poem, rather than tacking something on, the way, say, Cohen does, Cd you give me an address for him, if you have it?Jamie is very high on him too. I'm glad yr outting a dick in for him.I cant believe that Laurie Hill wd want my worksheets. He's not going to pay money for a guys mss that hasnt publisht several volumes, is he?I hate to say this: but yr poem, "Power” has echoes of my voice in it.I hope that doesnt sound like assholeness on my part to say; i dontwant to sound catty or snotworthy, and it can sound bad cming froma young feller like me. But there it is. Its just a little, heaven knows you say things there that i wdnt say, in ways i wdnt do it. Anyway, its a good poem. Why do so many critics dig Grier, that asshole.Love,
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Calgary---Jan 8/64Dear Al---I have found out from the president here that UAC pays a flat fee of $50 to a oneOshot speaker if he is LBJohnson or Joe Spratt. So you'll get 50 bucks for yr reading. But I am now working on getting you some travel money, and it looks as if I will be able to get some —and I'll let you know on that soon as I can.I have laid yr reading on for Jan 26th (a tuesday) at 12 noon. Okay? Write and tell me you got this letter and you approve, okay? I will go ahead laying the news on, getting a story abt you in the school paper etc, as of this week. I already have the room bookt.Just read Phyllis Gotlieb's book for the review I'm sposed to do for Canadian Forum. I dont know how to say it, but the book wasnt worth all the work they put into it to be a physical work of art.I dont like to pan a book in any case, and I search for reasons why I review a book I dont like. We shd be watchdogs to try to develop taste? We shd hope young poets learn from the reviews what not to do? I know I have to a certain extent, but I dont know if anyone can learn from me, me being self-deprecating all the time.So I lean back and say I will be objective, gove my honest opinion on any book, if they want to publish them. But do you pan a book really because it aint the way you write pottery?I found it really no bullshit refreshing to see you in Toronto, and I wish we cd have got together longer, tho there is a kind of drama in poets meeting in strange cities for swift moments; it almost makes you think poets are important, that that can happen; that there is a community spread around the world, where you can go and talk like to a neighbor.I'm boring you,best-
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BoweringCalgary Jan 13/64Dear Al-Sorry I8ve been unusually tardy in answering—you may know I was in B.C. for a couple weeks, in Vancouver for 4 days, and found yr letters waiting for me when we came back to this miserable hole (the repository for the world's enema tube), along with a mountain of other letters etc.While I was in Vancouver I ran into on purpose, Acorn, at Red Lane's house first, then other places, and was surprised at how well we got along, I think. From stories I'd heard I expected him to punch me in the gut or walk away, or something, but it was congenial, of which I was glad. He sd he's still vilifying me in the next Evidence if it ever emerges, and in fact we sorta made a farcical deal to promote each other by attacing each other in print. He even showed me a poem, which was the best I've seen of his, tho I say he talks abt love and fucking like a man a good deal younger than he is, like 25 years younger. Says he's writ 100 poems since he went to Van, wch seems good. Can you imageine? Kearns and I and Acorn in the UBC faculty club having a beer, dressed in grubby main street clothes, Acorn waving arms and recounting scabrous stories.Funnything being in Vancouver: I was warmed to hear people talking abt art & poetry and all, and actually producing some, but after a couple night of of it I got a whiff of why I'd left. I went to the wrong extreme, tho. Instead of going where no one spoke of art or has heard of it, I shd have gone somewhere, Toronto, Montreal, NY, where there is some of a different ilk, or like, locus(t).It's late at night, and I'm sure there are things galore I wated to tell you, but I will go as my mind and sore eyes let me. I am in the throes of deciding whether a story I'm writing shd convert into a novel; I am terribly discouraged abt my collitch work and want to quit, I am translat ing a Lorca play for tv, I just got my Contact proofs today, glad to see theyre being printed in Monteeal, but man the proofs are bad. Lots of things.How the hell can I tell you how the story in Canforum shd have ended?I never been in a undertaking place, I never had yr hero's problems, at least not that particularly. The fuck thing was good, but the flight no. For me that is. I have a good story being publisht I'm sorry to say by Fiddlehead next winter for god. sake.Talk abt Cuba. Old cigar socialist Acorn talks abt flipping over therein the Spring, but you can never tell. At moment he is living atop a Fabian society in the east end.Have been reading Freud on Shakespeare; he's the best Shakespeare critic I've read or heard abt. Also the first. Actually I'm late, but am quite taken with him.
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2Just saw a shit awful play on CBC: they gave me glad words on a play last slimmer & I havent heard any more on it.Incidentally I thot yr limerick was what the English mufti call bloody dreadful. Wch means write more.Thanks fr tip on Gallery editions. I'll probly send them a feeler. Maybe they wdnt mind getting felt. As you can see I'm getting inconsequential and nonsequential.Recently heard that Dudek blasted McEwen's novel onCBC.best,
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VARIATION ON A ROCK ‘N' ROLL SONGTake out the paperstake out your name on the paperspress between fingers & flick away like a ball of snotThe trash contains your namerattling in the bottom of the can contents all spent container enrpty, label coming unstuckFingernails, follicles, kneecaps, beIly ripped away to name naked namein the papersreplaced by tomorrow's newstomorrow's museAnd youreturn to the telephone and the radio searching; the airways for your identityintroduced by a nan in a bookAxe bladecuts chips into the sun fountain of wood chips makes a name for itself a cleft of exposed tree flash high on a mountainignoring silent airwaysYou Could cut your initials in birch-bark anonymousin buckskin, with blade high on a mountain out of range of the papers.
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Calgary-—Jan 14/64Got yr new letter, and yr plan to be here Jan 25 is fine, and you can of course stay on our sixfoot couch, only trouble is I think it dont fold down, but I guess you aint too wide for it yet. Our address here is Ste 3, 2744 Brentwood Blvd. But you let us know what plane or train or dogsled you going to be on, and we can probly pick you up. Let vs know. Weather is here war, now, up to 45 degrees today. We understand it has become a little cool in the east, chuckle.Arguments going on here abt money, seems the president of the university speak with forkt tongue, two days ago he tells the head of the English dept there aint hardly any money left, and we try to scrounge some more, then he assures me again we can pay you 50 dollars plus travel. I aint too optimistic, as my last three requests for grants have been refused, while anyone else gets moneys like mad. I think it is a conspiracy.Havent seen the Fall Fiddlehead yet, and here it is narly spring. Gets anxious to see yr review. I assume you werent too harsh on me.Did I tell you that BC has taken over the Contact Press. Newlove this spring of course, then a buk of Davey in the fall, then Souster is trying to get a ms from Kearns to look at. Then it'll be my turn again, then Newlove....etc.gotta go out and eat now, write later,best
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GEORGE BOWERINGste 2 127 - 13th AVE. N.E. CALGARY, - ALBERTAMarch 17 (Up the Irish) 1964High, there, in your riding-Yeah, I'm dissapated-pointed that the book isnt coming out till end of april, partly because I'm worried I wont have it when I go south. Have a reading near end of May at Deep Springs College, wch is small duderanch school on border of Calif and Nevada, swung by friend who is current head of school for the summer, and it shd, be a gas, like they say. We plan to drive all the way to southernmexico---crazy? we might never make it in that old car?---right, so we may endof dead white bones on the trail in Death Valley. I hope you got the loot I sent you, I'd hate to think of a postoffice cock drinking it up. I havent been able to send the other ms to Isaacs yet because Clark Irwin still has it, Co-lombo sd. they might publish a book of poems if it was good, and that one isnt too bad, rather stringent in form, but says something in a style I worked out for two years, you know short lines with stanzas and all that, now I sprawl over the page likely as not, still fretting away at this long poem on Alberta about 50 pages now, cant think of anyone that would print it, but it is a poem the like of which I've never heard of in Canada, unless you can count Reaney's asshole things, or that blimp that was called THE HITLERIAD during the war, done by Klein or one of those fogey Montrealers. Jack McClleland? Wd he pass by his two-books-a year- one of-them-Layton rule? I dont know. If I dont get an offer from one of the Canadian publishers, fuck them, I'll pull a Margaret Avison and refuse to publish in Canada again, and screw the Canada Council too.You think a couple of my students wd dig Blake or Coleridge, eh? Not a bloodychance. You shd see them. Clods all of them. How can you blame them when theirgovernment tells them art is dangerous and leave it alone? No sense of rebellion at all in Alberta, I'm not kidding. Like yesterday one kid finally sd something, but it was: sure those Romantic poets fool around while rational people make the progress in the world, making comforts of life for the poets that dont work.No shit.Another Bukowski fan is (ech) John William Corrington, who places Buk among the greatest poets, in review in Fall 1963 Northwest Review, so yr not the only one. There 's you, corrington, and bukowski himself. If you want to know someone who writes a Bukowski type poem but with poetry in it, read Newlove again, his poem in Poetry 61; called The Flowers. That might be the best poem in Can. in the last twelvemonth.Can you tell me anything about this pamphlet publishing place in Vermont that recently did. things for Everson and Souster? Think its called something like American Poets Series or the like.I will sound out Gallery Editions when i get ms back, and wd be thankful again fo r aiy influential help. Really owe you something for the last one.Best-
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GEORGE BOWERINGste 2 127 - 13th AVE. N.E CALGARY, — ALBERTADear Al;I think yr quite long poems are good, a good thing, the way your mind moves along the moments that come to mind, and make a lot of tied up connections that make an ending to the thing. Like yr Oswald poem, a thing i cd never attempt, it is a full, complete thing, as you are moving to lately. You sd youve collected a bunch for book, any ideas where you’ll try to sell it?I as usual discouraged, trying to say things now about Blake Coleridge & Wordsworth to a bunch of Alberta kids who dont care, and wd rather pick reflectingly at the green cowshit oozing up between their toes.I more and more determine to get out of the proffing job soon as I can, wch will be year after next.My book, sz Miller will be out in "Spring" to be safe, tho I've been expecting March 1, now expect sometime in March, but these things alwayshappen later than you expect---I'm still waiting for poems that weresposed to be publisht in mags months ago. These poems, the b ok, are so bloody old. I've sent my other ms to Clarke Irwin before you suggested Gallery Editions. I didnt know GE were still going to publish anything. I'll send it to them when Clarke I sends it back.Jeezuz when is that Evidence coming out, for example. Last I heard it wd be before xmas, and here it is two months after. The last one was pretty near a year ago. What's happened there? Is it going to be another Bloody Horseshit? Did I ever tell you Exchange folded after scheduling my story for No 4?About Bukowski: I'm afraid I dont think he's much good, from what I've seen in the many mags, I mean a guy who can get so Byronesque aboutbeing ejected from his digs---And I have a sense that he just recordsevery word he says and cuts them into six-inch strips. Show me.I sent some stuff to Laurie Hill. But dont expct anything from there at least for a long time.Now I go, now I go. You shd see sometime I anthology of prose called THE MODERNS, ed by LeRoi Jones, with all neat guys like Wm Eastlake,Ed Dorn, etc.Love and nose-grabs,
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