Dear Reed & fellow workers in ye flux fields of the Lords and Lordesses--
ten of Eric Basso's books written from roughly 1974-94 have been
published n the last two years by (apropriately-!)--Asylum Arts
these include several books of poetry, several of plays, a book of
short works entitled and including the story --and a GREAT one!--used in
the piece below--THE BEAK DOCTOR--(actually Reed--you have the original of
visual poetry book I made last year--named for and inspired by the
story--)
and a novel--BARTHOLOMEW FAIR
forthcoming will be Eric's collected essays--and also a Book of
Dreams--records of the dreams of the mighty Basso PoefRoundO--
am writing an essay on the works and will be glad to send on to
interested parties when is completed--
would most highly recommend any and all of Basso's works--which
don't fall into any category--are true works of the imagination--drawing
on sources from around the world and a myriad of times and spaces
historical, imagined and hallucinatory--remembered, dreamed and
fabricated--
deeply disturbing and unsettling in all the best senses of those
words--shake one up--yet inspiring in that make such vivid use of minute
particulars--a teeming multitudinous universe of corrosion, decay, sense of
fated entropical vanishings--
Basso has lived pretty much his whole life in Baltimore, that city
connected with Poe--Poe living there while attending his dying brother in
a cheap attic room--the sailor brother between spitting up consumption lung
fulls of blood--telling his writer brother tales of life at sea--fevered
and hallucinatory--brutally lyrical--which led to Poe's writing THE
NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM--and later, Poe himself dying and being
buried in Baltimore--
(hence their NFL team named "The Ravens" from Poe poem--Poe of all
people of american writers having team named for his works!--eat your
heart
out Ernest Hemingway, George Plympton, Norman Mailer--all the rest of the
he-man
wannabes!--)
(Poe actually was very athletic & a superb swimmer--)
hence in this poem, the two Baltimoreans are joined
by that city connection suggesting it, as well as both their
works in editions i have here are in black covers with white lettering-
the two volumes of Poe being from Library of America series--
would very very highly recommend to all the story THE BEAK
DOCTOR--
like all Basso works begins with a shocking blast and gets more
explosive as the piece continues, on into the darkness . . .
you know how say old paperbacks of Alfred Hitchcock mystery and
horror short story collections it will say--stories to keep you awake! you
will not sleep if you read this one! etc--
in BEAK DOCTOR city is seized by plague of narcolepsy type
symptons--
so in this work--is not only the reader who cannot sleep--is the
narrator, the characters who MUST NOT SLEEP--or they die--
no--in Basso's works, you will no be "bored to death" for sure!
--david baptiste
On Mon, 30 Oct 2000, Reed Altemus wrote:
> David
>
> Thanks for posting this I enjoyed it a lot. The only things I've read by
> Eric Basso were things he sent to "Blackbird" magazine. Those I found
> intriguing.
>
> RA
>
> David Baptiste Chirot wrote:
>
> > 25/10/00 pastel afternoon
> >
> > coal-age poem: BASSO POEFrOUNDo
> > a score for two or more
> > voices
> >
> > Undergound behind rockface
> >
> > not far from ravine
> >
> > down with nothing between
> >
> > fallen place, singular wildness
> >
> >
> > stratum after stratum
> >
> > level by level
> >
> > aspect dreary,
> >
> > degraded Babylon
> >
> > Rusted shade of fog
> >
> > sockets of dust
> >
> > ruins chaotic
> >
> > strewn wreck gigantic
> >
> >
> > tracks in dirt
> >
> > Promonontory Wall
> >
> > no art detected
> >
> > shapeless intermingled marl
> >
> > fierce dream of roof-struts
> >
> > mercurial insomnias
> >
> > granulated traces
> >
> > desolate sight immense
> >
> > Eyelids holes pouring
> >
> > long eyes on desert
> >
> > elsewhere found immediate
> >
> > distant view several
> >
> > vigil skull as basin
> >
> > mist into silhouette
> >
> > concealment proceeded
> >
> > threading route rushed time
> >
> >
> > shadow recedes vanishing
> >
> > trees keep going
> >
> > thrown from precipice
> >
> > cast aside order
> >
> > minutes pass roving
> >
> > light without light
> >
> > firing quick purpose
> >
> > ever killing masters
> >
> > one who sits on edge
> >
> > one who listens never
> >
> > rapidly had reality
> >
> > dead in contemplation
> >
> >
> > words arranged from one page each:
> >
> > THE BEAK DOCTOR by Eric BASSO
> >
> > THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM by Edgar Allan POE
> >
>
>
