***Продолжение переписки с редактором Чарльза Буковский >>I guess I should buy the book. I have to confess, Rich, I read a lot, mostly pirated free versions of bad translations. If you have financial struggles, I can order a copy for you. Just let me know. Thanks for the tip. As you can imagine, after reading 60-80 submissions a day I don't have a lot of room left in my brain for something else to read. However, based on your recommendation I will look this book up and get a copy to read. I am unaware of this book, and always use tips like yours to discover things I "should know", but end up not knowing because of all the brilliant new writers I am engaging with every day and all the small press books that arrive here for review. At the same time I listen to Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita". This one I've heard of in glowing terms, but haven't read. Thanks for reminding me. I'm impressed that you can read and/or listen to two books at once! The last trade book I read before starting Finnegans Wake was Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad . I was not super-impressed with the book as a whole (some sections were marvelous), but it did get me to re-read Hamlet, so that's a good thing. I also borrowed several different video versions of Hamlet from the library. The most recent one was by Kenneth Branagh. There were some good parts to the production, but much was overdone - Hollywood flavored. It's saving grace is that they did the entire play! That seldom happens. Excellent tid-bits! Thanks! Love this: "some virulent disease-like urge of mine to write." Keep that in one of your notebooks. I'll enjoy re-reading it in your pulitzer prize novel of 2028. Also glad you are involved in theatre. THat's such an important thing - to "hear" a script some 100 times and always hear it a new way every night depending on the audience! Best school in the world. >>You must be a poet yourself. LOL! Now that you mention it, every poetry editor I know is a poet. It's part of the disease. >>I would be happy to exchange letters with you occasionally. I am very busy. But I could find some time. Don't feel obligated. I do have plenty of folks to correspond with. You said elsewhere that you communicate with a few Russian poets every day, and that warms my heart. You are covered in the relationship with other creatives department =:-) Many folks have no one that understands. I'm glad you have folks around you who do. >>Charles Bukowski?? You knew Charles Bukowski, Richard??? This is amazing! He put his pants on the same way everyone else does. Though of course, he claimed to take them off a lot more than other people too. So, there's that. He wasn't a real likeable person all the time, but he was a lot smarter than he liked to put on. His wisdom comes through in his writing, of course. But he also liked to dumb down his Chinaski character. There was a period when he hated me and screamed at me. A year later he apologized. That's common. I piss people off when they start slacking off as writers. No one likes to be told they're not writing as well as they used to. But they need to be told. Our breakdown had to do with a stream of horseracing poems I kept sending back as rejections. Everyone else was accepting them, and he couldn't figure out why I wouldn't. He finally figured it out. That's enough Bukowski stories. I save the best one for when we sit down and have a beer. When you come to Joshua Tree with your family =:-) >>This is the only name I could recognize I'll drop one name you might really enjoy: Denise Levertov. Much different than Bukowski, of course. Her "selected" is a good place to start ( https://amzn.to/3ZV7rw0 ) and I saw there's a used copy for less than $5 on Amazon. >>I am sorry for not responding yesterday like I promised. LOL. Trust me, I didn't see that as a "promise". >> A war erupted in the Middle East, and some of my family lives there. I am worried. I don't like wars. ARRGGHHHH. We can only "wonder" at people who like war. Unfortunately the news of this has even leaked into the desert. I feel my only saving grace is we don't have television out here. It's horrible enough hearing the talk on the radio. They speak as if there are videos being displayed worldwide, and that sounds extremely horrible. I can't even imagine what's happening in people's dreams who happen across these videos. >>I orbit almost entirely within a circle of myself. I have a few Russian poets with whom I communicate on a daily basis. I wish I could meet others! I wish I would be closer physically to people who breathe poetry. I know nobody here... In Boston. My wife's family came from Fitchburg, Mass. They moved to California as a unit in the 1970's. Been here ever since. I do not know if phone books even exist anymore. If they do, lookup B. Z. Niditch. He wrote a whole series of Boston poems for Seven Stars. We published a chapbook of his called A Boston Winter. I heard he's still writing, though I don't have current contact for him. I just know you'd learn from him. AND - you could tell him I'm alive and would love to get some new poems from him. I heard he's living near Boston in an area known as Brookline. (PO Box 1664, Brookline, MA 02446 is the last known address I have). I have no idea if that's close to you or not. Here's a sample: Jerusalem Four sides of dreams may the words of your mouth B. Z. Niditch 2001 >>I need to go now, Rich Amen! Good times. Love, Rich -- Your technic of verbal roaming resembles lion’s roar. Very masculine. I like it. I rarely write in English, Rich. You are my ray of light on the path to become Nabokov’s double. I do speak three languages, but usually write in one, in the less fortunate and in need to be translated. My flamboyant bragging about many poet friends is an artifice. I have only one Russian poet friend, but a very dear one. We have been speaking and biting each other gently for over five years. He is my good friend. This does not prevent him from saying that I am a misery of poet, no poet at all, and a disgrace to any alphabet user. I disregard his remarks. All artifacts of patriarchy… He is a good poet though. Actually, he wrote most of the poems for a famous Russian guy named Valery Isayants https://prabook.com/web/valery_ivanovich.isayants/3749615. Isayants himself was a bum, after he went crazy, lost his mind, started wandering… Before he lost his mind, he used to be a friend of Anastasya Tsvetaeva, the sister of Marina. You might not know about them, but they are the representatives of the so-called Silver Age in Russian poetry. In any case, my friend – whom I started the passage with – wrote the poems for Isayants. How is this possible? Well, in Russia everything is possible and there are “slave poets” there. People who remain in the shades, while others bloom and sparkle. My friend speaks in a voice similar to yours – very masculine. You might get bored with me soon, although he does not. All this long introduction, a discourse really, is to say that I don’t mind critic. I have heard nothing but critic and know how to navigate in the ocean of critical waves. I just pretend to be a storm myself. I don’t take myself seriously, Rich… I mean, I don’t take my writing seriously. You say it is a disease, I view it as an addiction. You need your heart to pump, you need your veins to dilate and carry a load of voluptuous red blood filled with beautiful words, you need some of those aphrodisiacs or psychoactive substances produced by literature to be inhaled, injected, infused. That’s it. So, no Pulitzer for me, I could not care less. I will get to my evening tea… You are amazing, Richard. What a collection of stories… I will get your book, I am not that poor :-) Cheers... © Copyright: Анна Иделевич, 2023.
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