On Monday 27 May 1991 My internationalization continued when I threw a copy of my book into an envelope for Christian LaPorte of France, who is interested in visual poetry, among other things. The next day I heard from Pete Spence. He offered to send me a visual poetry show. Urp. I’ll see if I can find a place to put it on at.
Two weeks later, my brother Bill telephoned to say he’d gone to see Visualog IV, a show Karl Kempton had curated in California then passed on to Bill Keith for a showing in a town in New York a bit to the north of the Big Apple. Bill reported enjoying it. My Shakespeare piece was part of it as well as my pluraesthetic poetry essay (the one the Atlantic form-rejected, I believe). Bill said the building was nice, the pieces attractively displayed, in good lighting. There were benches, one of them near my essay, so that people could sit in the bench and read what I’d written. There were only works by ten or fifteen artists, according to Bill–unless he missed a room or something. So I guess I was particularly honored by my inclusion.
8:20 P.M. Thursday 20 June 1991 The mail was vaguely interesting and included a copy of a James Kilpatrick column that had appeared 3 February but which I hadn’t seen. It had a paragraph about “vizlation.” Kilpatrick described my rationale for wanting it added to the language pretty well (describing me as “a word-hunter from Port Charlotte, Florida,” but not mentioning my name). He said he thought it ought to be deported but asked for other nominations, which suggests that he agrees a word for “visual art” would be useful.
9 P.M. Friday 26 July 1991 The mail was pretty interesting. I got a letter from Pete Spence denouncing my taxonomizing, and my admiration for Cummings. He said he would no longer be sending me his visual poetry show. What an asshole. (We were mad at each other for a year or two, but I still said good things about his work, which I admired and still do. I’m not sure when we made up, but we did. I believe he is the only one in my field I ever had a Major Break-Up with. Except for Karl Kempton: I have Major Break-Ups with him every other month. I think he just got into a bad mood when he severed ties with me. We’re pretty good Internet friends now.
10 P.M. Thursday 1 August 1991 I got a letter from John Martone in which he (1) thanked me for a very good job on his second RASPbook; (2) said he’d read and very much liked my Manywhere-at-Once book; and (3) invited me to submit something for the little press it turns out he’s running. That works out to THREE micro-triumphs! I like (2) best, of course, but hope I can respond to (3).
10 P.M. Wednesday 7 August 1991 I got a form to fill out from the Who’s Who people, the real ones. I filled it out. It will be screened, then if I satisfy their criteria, I will become a Who’s Who of “the South and Southwest.” I wonder how they selected me to begin with? I’m sure I won’t pass their second screening but it’s interesting that I got even this preliminary attention.
I also got a nice little catalog of stuff in that Irish mail art exhibit I sent my colored work to some months back. My contribution was reproduced and looked okay. Nice to see it in the catalog.
10:30 P.M. Thursday 8 August 1991 I’ve been feeling pretty good today–not, I hope, because of that Who’s Who letter. I would hate to think that all my weariness has been due to lack of public recognition, or–if so–that so trivial an occurence as being nominated for inclusion in a book 20,000 others are already in, and which I almost certainly won’t get into this time around could instantly cure it. But who knows what goes on in the side-zones of my cloddish brain.
3 September 1991 Aa letter from Len Fulton turning down my offer to do columns for his magazine, but saying he’d like to run an slightly extended version of the sample column I’d sent him as a guest editorial. Sounds okay to me. I also got a short form letter from some editor wanting a response to Mike Gunderloy’s getting rid of Factsheet Five.
11:54 P.M. Monday 9 September 1991 I just got off the phone after two and a half hours with David Thomas Roberts, who called me from Mississippi. We had a good chat about all sorts of things. He was very complimentary about my writing, and interesting about his own.
23 September 1991 C L Champion accepted the visual poem I’d sent him, so that was a plus, and he sounds bright and suitably enthusiastic about the right things
8:30 P.M. Friday 27 September 1991 I did have one long phone call, though, Surllama called me. Turns out he’s a 21-year-old by the name of Kevin. Seemed a nice kid, and very interested in micro-press publishing. Wants to do his own magazine. We talked for a little over two hours and he’s going to drop in for a visit next Thursday. He’s not very literary but interesting.
9 P.M Thursday 3 October 1991 Kevin-slash-Surllama, as he now calls himself, was over from 2:30 till 4 or so. He’s rather striking-looking, with hair that’s almost white, and blue eyes. Five eight, I guess. He seems rather narrow in his focus but amiable enough. He now wants to go ahead with a mail art show and I helped him with a collage for the flyer he’s going to send around. I said I’d make a hundred copies for him. I got little hint that he has too much in common with me esthetically. Scatology and sex and violence, he likes, but also unusual juxtapositions of word and/or images. Probably doesn’t have much literary background but is fairly literate. By the time he left (I told him I had things to do with my mother at four and so would have to “close shop” then), I had another one of my headaches–due to social pressure?
Tags: Bob Grumman