Correspondence - George Bowering to Al Purdy
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THE CALGARY EYE-OPENERGEORGE BOWERINGste 2 127-13th AVE. N.E. CALGARY, = ALBERTARobert Chambers EdwardsScotdrinkerpublisht 40,000 copies of the Eye-Opener every week here in Calgary,wrote most of it himself1910 he covered the whole Canadian West at night, thru red rim read Tacitus, Catullus by day, wore brandnew suit tobacco-stained derby hat to crusade for beer & the women's vote.Campaigned for Prohibition, 1915 dead drunk at the press, his friends put him to bed & the paper too.Friend of the people, enemy of the goldplated bible.Went to hospital to dry out sneaking cigars in the middle of the night, composing articles on the horror of the alcoholic slave.& they sued him for libel, those who could understand him or peek in at him, his paper hiddenunder their clothes, at the Royal Hotel the longest bar in Canada.But he went after the big ones,CPR killing kids at level crossings,the Prime Minister R.B. Bennetnot yet P.M., still solicitor for the CPR,who wouldnt carry the Eye-Opener on their trains.& the Church, for fun,those who saw down forests, farm out dry dirt, hold back hospitals."If he was around today” he would be ahead of his time?the CPR still cuts the city in half.
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ste 2calgary,GEORGEste 127 - 13th Av. N.E. Calgary - AlbertaApr 4, 1964Dear Al;I'm unhappy you dont dig the magazine too much. But I think you draw false geopolitical issue; I mean the only thing Calgary has to do with the mag is that's its current mailing address. It wd look much the same if I was in Tallahasee, Rio, or the 5th moonof Jupiter. Tho I dont mind yr showing it arad Toronto. I have already got too much shit from you for liking Duncan, and too much from them for liking you. So you see its me that is crucified for being eclectic. How you like that? Wait'll you see Imago 2.One Mexico poet, one England poet who is a Finn, and one New York poet who works on the Jersey docks. Incidentally there was a Scot in the last issue, so how can it be a United States mag? Imago 2 will appear first of Oct.Actual, the Edwards poem is part of a longer work, tho a semi agglutinate portion, so the bit abt the tracks cutting the city in half bounces off something else. Also this is probly reason for no punch ending you notice. (Tho I'll say this; there havent been many times in my life i ever saw a punch ending, and i already done more than that in my poems.)Jesus, you know what theyre doring to me here now. Starting this next month a yearly raise of 1250 dollars, and next year another 1100, so I'll be making 7700 if i stay the third yr, which i hope I dont. Also they want me to teach a nightime creative writing! course next year, to funny old lavenders from the Canadian Authors Ass. Oops, forgot you write for them, heh heh.But i want to get away. I hear you grumbling. Wanta bet?New York. Europe. Toronto, Hmm, watched Leafs on tv tonight lost 4-2, they were the shits.I'm sorry, I saw yr story in Montrealer. It was tricky, but was sending up a shadow balloon. It sounded as if it was saying something but it wasnt, I think you agree, Why the hell dont you get off the trick business, and write about what you wrote abt in Canadamonth, only do it in stories. Also later period in Montreal etc. You did enough things. You dont have to write abt taffeta Kafkas.Have i got any objections if you write a Bob Edwa ds poem.? Shit.Get off it. You wd anyway. Write away. Do better than i did. I started that poem in Dec, finisht in March. It int good, but sunk in the longer poem it may be justified.Letters letters, I'm lad i get yr letters,Best, nose-grabs
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George Bowering CalgaryA BESTIARY OF ANIMALS AND PEOPLEThe PandaThe Panda comes in 2 colors: black and white;and if you cantbear (he he haw hew---get it?)black and whitethere is a special model that canes in white and black.April 15, 1964587
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Mexico City June 24/64Dear Al-I'm living like it says in MC, but my address for writing to me is still Box 98, Oliver, B.C., Canada.Which I wish you wd. do and tell me aboutCuba.That is, Lionel Kearns is going to Cuba on a work program in early July, and as I used to be the only Canadian poet who hadntbeen in Mexico, now I'll be the only Can. poet (?) who hasnt been in Cuba.I'll be here till Aug 1, then back to the States & Canada. Living here is really good, I dont know what I can tell you abt it, except that Mexico is a lot nicer to poets than Canada is. I've written about 6 poems here, but mostly clippets, the only half decent one is abt an old mestizo I sawout a window of El Corno Emplumado. I did revise my TV play---or did Itell you abt that? The play I was working on when you were in Van. last summer, I sold to the CBC---for "Festival"---I dont know if theyll produce it, depends on whether i can make the changes they want---but they didgive me a 200 dollar advance, which I've spent, and they did send a woman to see me in Calgary before i left there. They waited me to come to Toronto & i shd havey but i had to come here. I also wanted to come to Buffalo for the summer thing there as you can imagine, but I also had an apartment waiting for me in NYC, so what can you do? I hope you sell poems to thenew mag "The Island" in Toronto---I think it looks like a very live thing,if you can stand all those Americans in it.I saw what Bromige sd abt you inCanlit, and i didnt like it.I still want to write an article at you for Canlit, and I know theyll take one fr me. But i need all yr books, & all Ive got is the last 2. Do you think there is a chance of getting ALL of th em, including the RCAF one? I also want to own them.I wrote a note to Isaacs Gallery & they sd they arent doing any more poetry & I'm still stuck with that manuscript. what now?I found out the address of the publisher in Vermont who has done pamphlets of Souster & Everson. It's American Letters Press, Box 356, Norwich, Vt.We were in El Paso, watching TV the night Goldwater took Calif. It was grim & so was the city, a bad place, part of Texas of course, I was afraid of being shot or mugged, really, and i had all the dope from Rechy's writings which are exactly right.But Mexico city, if you can dodge the taxis, is a great free place. One of the best places I've ever been. I love MC, San Francisco, Tucson, Vancouver, and Montreal, tho the latter I havent seen for ten years. Jamie Reid & Dave Cull have just headed there.Letter fromNewlove, who says his new book is out from the Tanabe press, and I hope he sends it to you.Best,
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Calgary,April 19/1964Dear Al,I'm really glad to hear youre getting a plush vacation as VIP to lush Carribean. Out of my resevoir of non-Canadian poetry connections I forward this address:CASA DE LAS AMERICAS,Tercera y G,Vedado,Havanait is the cultural (not officially) center of the country. From there you could be led to the poets etc of the place,I see that both Alan Pearson and Jamie Reid think yr important Canad. poet, so what you got to complain about letters? Ha ha, got you! Actually as usual I sit like pained inbetweener in exchange of letters betwwicst you and Reid. That is, that I am with you both, appreciate what you both say, and think yr both narrow in points where you clash. Hows that for on the fence diddling? Also this: I know Jamie is not comprehensilbe, I give him hell for that in my last letter, wch he says thru someone he never got it. But I dont think he bawls you out for putting too much energy in yr poems. He bawls you out because you are source of so much energy you are wrong to let it out indiscriminate, you have a responsibility (and i hope that is not detested idea) to put it in the right place, your design all right, but true to yours, not just pat it on the ass and say go boy, theres the world. I mean I suppose thats why he refers to your being better than Layton ets, that there are so many minor talents that befog the scene, the major ones must set a clear work that provides a way out of the mess. In a way the major talents must take on that even bigger task, of cleaning up the shit left there by voyeurs and hangers on.Note about the Pindar poem of Duncan's. Read it again, and notice it is a genuine ode (pindarically) and that that doesnt often happen today, and that an ode is more than a grab-bag, it is a major statement by a poet, something that takes in and forms from all the minor things that make up the material for a poet's central belief, philosophy, etc. See models by Wordsworth and Coleridge and Shelley, also. Keats thot he wrote odes, but they were not that ambitious. They were more like grecian urns. An ode is more like a large Michelangelo.Well, I had read yr story in Montrealer before you told me abt it. I keep up. Sorry. My oldie in way back Evidence was baddie too. I have a good story coming in Fiddlehead ! next winter. With swearing and sex in it.(over)
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- 2 -I dont know what the hell is up with Tamarack R. Me and Kearns and Newlove were sposed to have a bunch of poems in the last one, but who was there? Birney and Layton and Dudek. There is some foul thing afoot, and its name may be Weaver. Colombo sd I got poems in, and hinted that him and Weaver didnt agree on things. Weaver was in Vancouver last summer and gave a party and invited all the lit'ry people. I didnt go, but only because they couldnt get hold of me. I mean he was giving out food and drink.I note Birney is publishing all over in prperatation for his book "Beyond False Creek," next Fall. He sent me poems and I sent them back to him, just after he had dangled teaching job under my nose. How do you like that for something?Rememberw when you want papaya in Cuba you cant call it papaya, because in Cuban slang that means cunt. Unless you mean cunt. Papaya is called fruta de bomba, which sounds pretty cunty in itself.Love,
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George BoweringMexico City July 28/64(but write me in Calgary U. post)Dear Al-As yr gonna find out this type machine is broke, and now i g ot no left hand margin for sure. Poetics poetics.Feel like Hemingway the last little while---on Sunday we went to the bulls& lastnight we went to the Palace of Fine Arts to see I MUSICI, whch i take it is a very famous Italian chamber orchestra. Like that. But ever since I got the earthquake (Kearns was here on his way to Cuba, he was playing baseball against Castro the other day in Santiago) I have had a bad case of vertigo, every time I'm in a tall building I feel it shake bad, get sweaty and my heart beats hard. So last nite while everyone else was 1000 feet up against the roof in the 4th balconey, I was sittin on the floor in the ground floor, beside a snooty looking old babe who had pd 10$ for her seat. In any case the music was good & I liked it, wch is more than I can say for the corrida, the season is off, and these were kid novilleros in the wind, very inexpert, the wind blowing, lots of blood, mainly from the matadores.Now I hear fr CBC who arent yet satisfied with my play, & they want to bring me to Toronto to work on it,wch is wierd, because with the fucking university chain I dont know if I can get there till Xmas, wch may not be early enuf for them,but if it by chance is, I’ll see you there then, maybe do a reading for Coleman,I was sposed to go to NY in Xmas season, but in any case Angelas best friend lives in TO and maybe that will work out.....But I am glad you got the Western Prez award, tho it has gone to Reaney etc, dont know whether to think: at last we got that away fr the buggers, or: we shdnt try to get those buggers' awards.How are my reviews? All I've heard is that Phyllis was good to me in the Vancouver Sun, and CBC*Van.I am not writing as much as I planned to here, tho I’ve had lots of ideas, tho I am writing Mexico poems, some good, as you say, most bad,but some good, really. I hope you saw the last POETRY with lots of Creeley poems. I spose youve heard he won a Guggenheim. How do you like that?we went for a weekend to Veracruz, and it was hot & muggy, Willy,my friend from Vancouver, got typhus, the maid had her clothes stolen, Meg & Sergio's kids got sunburns & heat rashes, their car had 5 flat tires & engine trouble, but it wasa. goo weekend, I was on the beach, under coconut palms reaching out to sea or Cuba,& I was thinking at last here I am in the the tropics; & to make that more, Willy comes along the beach with a coconut with a stras sticking out of it, six US drinks worthof gin in it for 48c. But it bothers me---have I at last seen the Atlantic Ocean, orcan you call the Bay of Mexico the Atlantic?But end of this week we leave for Canada via Calif, and if we dont die on the road we will answer yr letter that will be forwarded to us from Calgary; love and heat waves----
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George Bowering Mexico CityTHE MYSTERY OF MOSESThey heard a clinking noise every night in the tent of Moses."What you doing in there, Moses?" they would say, & the noise would stop.This went on for six months,& then one night no clinking.For a couple weeks they askt each other what you think the Old Man was doing in thereevery night clinking away,& so secret about it all?But they all pretended they didnt know, when he came down off the hill& flung the tablets of God at them.July 21/64
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Bowering Box 98, Oliver, B.C. Aug 27/64MOTEL LOS 3 RIOSCuliacan, Sin.Dear Al-I am at last back in the country & find two letters from you, wondering where I am etc., and here I am, after spending a few days in Vancouver,nn a leaking air mattress and over at Deep Cove, wch is a groovy place. . .And at this time Angela is in the kitchen listening to the Beatles and the small dog is as usual sleeping on my shirt,I am cold; but I will tell you this that the movie abt the Beatles is nothing else but very good, one of the best flics Ive ever seen, & it made Tom Jones, wch I saw the next nite, look sick.Also you will be pleased to know that Bromige is going to review your MacPh book in Canlit. But dont despair: Fiamengo is going to do mine, and has let it be known surprisingly widely in Vancouver, that she doesnt get it,so shes going to pan it. Wch is all right with me,as long as lots of readers know what kind of poet she is.Well we made it, & Mexico is full of things to talk about, but I let Angela do that because I dont dig it. I am going to write new poems, but I'm not going to send any new poems to the magazines less they ask for them, because I have a book to be publisht next year & its sposed to be unpub. works,&I dont care if i get bad reviews on this one because I dont need Mc&St now I got a better publisher for me, to be done like the Kelly book, by El Com Emp umado, 5000 copies, going to the people I want to read my book, for sure. But I am working on other things; and I do have the poems from 1962 to 1964 not publisht as a book yet. Pooh. Career is a thing Birney is so god damn interested in.Actually I was talking to Bromige (his book comes out from Sum in a while) and he doesnt hate you at all. I think you get too upset abt things likethat. Just give them nice things back, that makes everything okay,for both parties.I didnt get to Cuba, but of course Kearns did; in fact I hear lately that Kearns arrived back in Mex the day after we left. The day Castro was at 26th celebrations in Santiago liberating baseball & pitching, Kearns was his catcher; how you like that? Kearns is writing great reams of long poems the most he has ever writ,he says it might be because he thinks hes dying, but the stuff is pouring out; and I am sposed to publish it as a book.If I do get to Toronto, it will probably be over the Christmas break, for something like 2-3 weeks, so if yr there then I'll drink some of yr horrid wine with you,tho I hate getting drunk and fucking up 2 days. I had a good berrparlor day with Newlove, who I drug away fr his job on some pretence. Bromge, who used to be famed for his drinking, now has diabetes &ACAPULCO CALETA. EL MIRADOR En MORELIA, VIRREY De MEDOZE
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2and it is very sad to see him pouring himself a half glass of beer,but he says it gives him 40 extra days a year for work instead of staring up at the ceiling thru dark glasses.I still havent seen any of ny reviews except the nothing glowiob Phyllis gave me in the Vancouver Sun. Maybe I'll never see them. Does Contact send them to the author***?Car falling to pieces as we have put 11,000 miles on this trip,the front wheels wobble and the tires are bald and oilburn smells waft up from the engine area; and i know even less abt the internal combustion engine than I know abt women or poetry.Your wine maker poem blasts off in all directions,full of action and I like it, me trying to get away from my crabbed mode myself; publishing in Stun a crabbed metaphor thing, but because it had words like fuck in it I get twenty letters from people saying how lively and passioned it is. The trouble with this poetry game: you can fool so many people with easy surface things, nobody reads a poem very hard because they get 1000 in the mail every week. This is what was good about the Tish people; they atually read the poems carefully, way more than I ever have.Write me in Calgary now,okay?
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