The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Trust: Difference between revisions

Line 61:

First, I sent him a few issues, then by the next summer and in subsequent visits, I noticed more and more issues of ''Poetry'' about the place, well fin-{{pg|472|473}}

gered and kept close by. When he started to scribble verse again, it came as no surprise.

But back to the story . . . .

The recommendation had flowered into a discussion of “voice” in verse as distinct from that in the novel, what Ginsberg referred to as “the vibrating plane.” This floundered. It was one thing to compare and discuss, as often Norman had, say, Hemingway’s simplicity with the prolixity of Updike, but few novelists go far in exploring the weightless possibilities of the lyrical line. No matter how I struggled, though, I couldn’t make myself clear. Frustrated, I suggested that if my host had a tad more music in his life, perhaps he’d understand.

Norman gave a little mock-guilt pout, paused a moment, shoulders bunched, then suddenly brightened, as if at something remembered. Whether or not it was the word “voice” echoing late in the great man’s mind, out of deep left field he says: “So, what about this Dylan fellow—is he any

''good''?”

While it would require instruments yet unknown to science to record my dumb-founding at this, I nonetheless managed the deft riposte: “You mean ''Bob'' Dylan?!” He nodded, retreating to a poker face at my wonder.

“You’re kidding . . . ” I stammered. “You, president of PEN, champion of the word, and you don’t appreciate ''Dylan''?”

Years later, I found out that Dylan had shown up at a party of Norman’s, barely noticed him, and left Norman, ergo, feeling slighted, ala his oft-told Reagan-didn’t-love-me-at-that-dinner-party story. Here’s Norman, quintessential Duke of his Domain, and Dylan hasn’t gotten the memo—a situation comedy for the gods! ''Now'', of course, it’s amusing, but then . . . .

Ever a beacon to the perplexed, I fortified myself with a swallow and undertook the unlikely mission of using Bob Dylan to drive home a poetic explanation I’d booted the first time around. {{pg|473|474}}

Norman and I had at least one poet acquaintance—his bond surely longer and deeper than mine—in common: Ginsberg, so I tried to use Norman’s familiarity with the cadences of ''Howl’s'' creator as a bridge between the distant shores of Whitman’s measured flow and the tracer-bullet delivery of Dylan and the later puerile derivative of rap.

Careful not to turn this short-cut to a dead end, the high school teacher

on his second drink bloviated thusly:

When Allen in ''Howl'' famously declares his intention “to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose,” he is essentially carrying on the business of Whitman, who as a young man had come away affected from a lecture in which Emerson had called for an American voice unique and distinctive to the breadth and audacity of the New World experience. He is credited endlessly, even mawkishly, with adjusting poetic sensibility to a longer narrative line, as well as democratizing its voice and subject matter; but though both sang truth to their instincts, it is nonetheless left to Ginsberg to realize the incantational gusto of song.

“Once you cross ''that'' bridge,” I proferred, lacing my fingers accordingly, “you’ve got your boy Dylan.” With that as the premise, Norman got the bit. The rest of the evening, what I can recall of it, went well. You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.

A week later, following up with crusader zeal, I provided Norman with a Dylan mix CD, but as Norris often reminded me, much of what Norman requested on impulse wound up fortifying the Provincetown landfill.

The fun, don’t you know, is in the trying: Grow or pay more for remaining the same.

@@ Line 61: / Line 61: @@
 First, I sent him a few issues, then by the next summer and in subsequent visits, I noticed more and more issues of ''Poetry'' about the place, well fin-{{pg|472|473}}
+gered and kept close by. When he started to scribble verse again, it came as no surprise.
+But back to the story . . . .
+The recommendation had flowered into a discussion of “voice” in verse as distinct from that in the novel, what Ginsberg referred to as “the vibrating plane.” This floundered. It was one thing to compare and discuss, as often Norman had, say, Hemingway’s simplicity with the prolixity of Updike, but few novelists go far in exploring the weightless possibilities of the lyrical line. No matter how I struggled, though, I couldn’t make myself clear. Frustrated, I suggested that if my host had a tad more music in his life, perhaps he’d understand.
+Norman gave a little mock-guilt pout, paused a moment, shoulders bunched, then suddenly brightened, as if at something remembered. Whether or not it was the word “voice” echoing late in the great man’s mind, out of deep left field he says: “So, what about this Dylan fellow—is he any
+''good''?”
+While it would require instruments yet unknown to science to record my dumb-founding at this, I nonetheless managed the deft riposte: “You mean ''Bob'' Dylan?!” He nodded, retreating to a poker face at my wonder.
+“You’re kidding . . . ”  I stammered. “You, president of PEN, champion of the word, and you don’t appreciate ''Dylan''?”
+Years later, I found out that Dylan had shown up at a party of Norman’s, barely noticed him, and left Norman, ergo, feeling slighted, ala his oft-told Reagan-didn’t-love-me-at-that-dinner-party story. Here’s Norman, quintessential Duke of his Domain, and Dylan hasn’t gotten the memo—a situation comedy for the gods! ''Now'', of course, it’s amusing, but then . . . .
+Ever a beacon to the perplexed, I fortified myself with a swallow and undertook the unlikely mission of using Bob Dylan to drive home a poetic explanation I’d booted the first time around. {{pg|473|474}}
+Norman and I had at least one poet acquaintance—his bond surely longer and deeper than mine—in common: Ginsberg, so I tried to use Norman’s familiarity with the cadences of ''Howl’s'' creator as a bridge between the distant shores of Whitman’s measured flow and the tracer-bullet delivery of Dylan and the later puerile derivative of rap.
+Careful not to turn this short-cut to a dead end, the high school teacher
+on his second drink bloviated thusly:
+When Allen in ''Howl'' famously declares his intention “to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose,” he is essentially carrying on the business of Whitman, who as a young man had come away affected from a lecture in which Emerson had called for an American voice unique and distinctive to the breadth and audacity of the New World experience. He is credited endlessly, even mawkishly, with adjusting poetic sensibility to a longer narrative line, as well as democratizing its voice and subject matter; but though both sang truth to their instincts, it is nonetheless left to Ginsberg to realize the incantational gusto of song.
+“Once you cross ''that'' bridge,” I proferred, lacing my fingers accordingly, “you’ve got your boy Dylan.” With that as the premise, Norman got the bit. The rest of the evening, what I can recall of it, went well. You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.
+A week later, following up with crusader zeal, I provided Norman with a Dylan mix CD, but as Norris often reminded me, much of what Norman requested on impulse wound up fortifying the Provincetown landfill.
+The fun, don’t you know, is in the trying: Grow or pay more for remaining the same.