POETICKS

Thought of 12 September: that to become a Great Writer one needs to do five things: master one’s craft; achieve a reasonably full under- standing of existence as a whole; become an expert in at least one significant field of knowledge; fashion a reasonably large body of work (whether published or not) and, last, get a position in the world where one can be heard by a reasonable number of people.  If one was born with sufficient gifts, recognition must eventually follow.

This thought occurred to me because, after Hudson Luce’s call I’ve been feeling like I’ve finally gotten to where I must become successful as a writer if I have the goods, which I of course believe I do.  If I haven’t yet mastered my craft, I never will.  I certainly have as full an under-standing of existence as anyone in the world, unless there’s a hugely greater gap between such an understanding and the deeds resulting from it than than I believe.  I am also, I believe, an expert in the field of literature (which is different from being able to write)–and one in esthetics and psychology as well.  There are many other fields I would count myself a near- expert in, too, including even economics, though my expertise there only amounts to common sense and the ability to think about goods and services without being muddled by some political bias.

My body of work is objectively large, consisting as it does of the equivalent of ten unpublished, full-length plays, a published book, published essays and poems, and scattered other pieces that haven’t been published.  Lots of letters, too.  And, with my position at Factsheet Five secure, and other avenues to visibility opening up such as the space won at Modern Haiku and Small Press Review, I feel I have a position in the world from which I can be heard by a reasonable number of people, too.  So it’s just a matter of time before I’ll be recognized.  Urp.

Saturday  12 October 1991  The big excitement of the day was getting a letter from my new Factsheet Five editor, Ben Gordon.  It arrived with an edited version of my column.  At first I didn’t like what he’d done to the column at all, but I gradually changed my mind.  He made some good deletions, and few so-so changes, and one or two slight blunders, but did a good job.  Of course, he missed some nuances I intended, but the hell with ‘em.  He also seems more concerned with punch than full responsibility–for instance, he changed a line I had about Kaldron and Lost & Found Times‘s being the only magazines doing otherstream material that were older than Mallife–”that I know about.”  He, in Time/Life fashion, chucked “that I know about.”  He doesn’t like my interjections of self-descriptions for comic effect, either.  Oh, well, I can live with that.  As for the irresponsibility of some of the things the column will now be saying, I can blame it on my editor.  I called said editor (Ben Gordon) about my changes to his changes and ended talking to him for about a half an hour.  He seems bright and enthusiastic.  Also young.  I enjoyed the talk, though, and think we should get along fine.

(2) The only magazine I’ve been doing a regular column for changed hands, and the new editor kept only two of the old columnists, out of ten or so: me and another guy.  A minor triumph, for sure, but reassuring.  The magazine is Factsheet Five and is actually sold in record shops and bookstores.  It’s not too certain how much longer it will last.  The first issue to be published by the new owner has not yet appeared and it was due out last month.

Tuesday  17 December 1991  One other item in the mail was a form letter to “all columnists” from a guy named Jim Knipfel who is abruptly my new editor at Factsheet Five.  Ben Gordon “flew the coop,” according to Knipfel.  No word as to whether the latest Factsheet Five has hit the streets yet or not, but I found out that my next deadline is 20 January, which is a relief.  All in all, I wasn’t happy to hear Gordon had severed ties with F5, for I felt I would have gotten on well with him.  I have no idea how I’ll get along with the new guy.  He sounds like he wants to leave the columnists alone to do their thing–but he also said something about not trying to find new columnists to write about things nobody understands as, Knipfel says, Gordon was doing.  This suggests he might not be as keen on my far-out intellectualism as Gordon was, or appeared to be.  What a world.  I just hope the magazine keeps going, and that my last column will be in the forthcoming issue as scheduled.

Not only wasn’t Of Manywhere-at-Once helping me up to whatever the next level of literary visibility in the BigWorld was, my literary career started downhill in 1991.  As readers of volume one of Manywhere-at-once will know, I began, in may 1987, to write a regular column about otherstream literature, mainly visual poetry, for Factsheet Five, a nationally distributed periodical whose goal was to review the micro-press in its entirety.  I actually got paid.   In my diary entry of Thursday,  14 February 1991, I reported, “I got a check, my biggest yet ($54.64!!), from Mike Gunderloy.  A note accompanying it said it was definitely not the right time just now for my column to become an every-issue feature.  It turns out that Mike is so strapped for space that he is considering having all his columnists appear only every other issue.  Phooey.  But I understand.  F5′s reviews of the micro-press encourage the foundation of new micro-presses which F5 then reviews, which encourages the foundation of new micro-presses which F5 then reviews, which . . . “  That probably was the last payment I got from Mike.  Abruptly, in August of 1991, his magazine began to fold.  Other excerpts from my diary tell the story:

Saturday  24 August 1991 A rather disconcerting form letter arrived in the mail from Mike Gunderloy: he’s sold Factsheet Five–and dumped his columnists, or so it sounds.  We columnists are to submit “samples” of our columns to the new editors.  Since I got no personal letter from either Gunderloy or the new editors, it doesn’t look good for my column.  I’m sad about it–it looked like Factsheet Five would be y only potential avenue into knownness.  I plan to go ahead and write my next column as planned and send it in.  If it is accepted, fine; if not, I no longer have any deadlines to worry about (and I have a good piece to try elsewhere); and I have interesting material for volume two of Manywhere-at-Once.  I’m disappointed with Gunderloy, though; up to this point, he’d seemed the most considerate of bosses.  I feel he ought to have sold the magazine with the proviso that all his employees are kept on.  Why not?  Surely the columnists aren’t holding the magazine back.

3 September 1991  A letter from Len Fulton turning down my offer to do columns for his magazine, Small Press Review, 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.

Tuesday  10 September 1991 I had a Very Important Phone Call: Hudson Luce, the new proprietor of Factsheet Five called at around five, just as I was finishing a nap of about a half an hour.  He said that he’d been reading my columns, was very interested in mail art, and wanted to continue the column.  I liked that, needless to say.  I made sure he understood that the column wasn’t just about mail art, though, and he said he was also interested in experimental art, and thought it was important that Factsheet Five continue covering it. Somewhere along the line, fairly early in the conversation, I mentioned that I’d been doing the column in every other issue; how often would he like it in–every issue he said without hesitation.  And he wants it the same length it has been.

So, onward and upward.  We talked about several other things,  too, and I voiced a few opinions, even disagreeing with him mildly here and there.  I hope I didn’t go too far.  Looks like I and Joe Lane, who will be writing on the technical aspects of publishing fanzines, are the only columnists he’ll keep on the staff, so it’s a fair-sized compliment.  I was pleased that I’ll stay and Mark Bloch won’t but was a little disappointed that Annie Ackner will be dropped–though, as I told Hudson, I don’t think her column really is appropriate for F5.  (He had asked, “I suppose you’ll be disappointed that I won’t be keeping Annie Ackner’s column,” or something close to that.  I said I liked her writing and felt a kind of solidarity with my fellow columnists but that . . .  Felt a bit of a schmuck about that.)  He plans more interior color but isn’t too eager to cover poetry, and is against comic books entirely.  (Turns out he has a Ph.D. in chemistry, of all things.)  Interesting situation.  The analogy to corporate changes, and anxiety among department heads, and reactions to firings and non-firings struck me.  I felt pretty good about it, though–and hope to get cranking on my upcoming column tomorrow.