Selected Work
by Venice Poets
From Kid In
America by Tony Scibella
(From Part I)
isometrics in the
chair
already smoked 500 millimeters of cigarette
this morning
2 irish coffees a couple of reds snorted some
coke shot of tequila 3 dexi hearts smoked
some dope valiums 5 deximill spansules
brandy percodans handful whitecross bennies
shot some morph darvon for the head ache
vitimin e washed w/beer group of yellowstate
the desk blotter liquid methin the coffee
dunked hashbrownies ready to go to work now
(From Part II)
stuart came a long
way from st louie thru
newyork as a teen trying to crack the theatergame
as an actor or director i forget. as stuart told it: it
was a girl in n y that told him he was gd when he
read some verse to her & being the romantic of
course it was a lady that gives u yr first as it was
for me the firstpiece i did a lady wanted & took
& thereafter introduced me as the artist & it was
embarrass i had to liveup to it. i am terrible as to
dates as when something exactly happened kindof
judging by howold my kids are relating
inaccurately to time so if i say i met stuart when
melody was 2 fine but i dont know howold
melody is now it must havebeen maybe 55 or 6
just before the suicide room came out by
jargonpress quite an honor for a youngman
starting & this pushed him toward commitment
&lipton (who was writing his book &
interviewing stuart) gave him a lot of
encouragement &being lipton was an 'old'
published pro-writer: important i know it
meansmuch to youth to hear an olderpro in yr
own profession say yesucan go for it.
(From Part IV)
historical note:
drugs: footnote 17: subsection: paranoiding: the
1950's: pre-beatnik: the laws are severe but there
is no intense policpressure to halt traffic becuz
there wuz none or no profit either dope was
associated w/musicians & people were paid - like
20$ a day to smoke weed in university labs while
they tested yr motorskills & hollywood smoked
the hip were high. u mostly cd be busted from
stupidity, carelessness or a hummer: a quirk
police had extraordinary powers & u cd be
search&seized on any pretense: 'yr honor, he
looked funny to me' - so the stash was all
important (whether yr car or yr person) to pass
the streetsearch but: if u had no outstanding
trafficwarrrants & yr papers were in order u might
slide- any time u were holding & were in the
street was an adventure in fear u cd be rousted.
u cd get for10$ a prince
albert pipetobacco can filled or absolutely
crammed full for15 u gotmaybe 40 or more,
depending on thecount, fat joints most of
theaction was either splitting up among a
fewfriends a 1/4 of a pound or buying one yrself
& selling off enough of it to make yr dough back
& have a taste & if u were cool & kept thetraffic
down u cd survive in most neighborhoods (not
like in lateryears i held the heroinbag & people
came by as often as they cd scrape together enuf
for a10$ paper maybe 5or6 times a day at all
hours we wd hide w/the lites out but they made
enuf commotion 'i know you're in there!' we wd
have to let them in to shut them up like a
schwartezenegger flick i saw where he is a robot
out after somepeople & they maim him & shoot
off his bodyparts til he is only an arm crawling
RELENTLESS like the americanjunky i knew
then)
the only dope in themdays was: pills: the
drines: benza&dexa. friendlydruggists gave up jars
of thousands of littelheart shaped dexies
friendlycroakers wrote thousands of friendly
scrips for this was post-war america in a flurry of
new drugs& psychiatry (depressed?:take these
fat?: take these
pain?: take these
cant sleep?: take these) in every
medicinecabinet in every home was a drugstore of
prescriptions (may I use your bathroom?) or cop a
roll of 10grainbennys in a gaybar & not to mean
there were no drugcops or vicesquad they were
there & vicious u needed a front something
somewhat respectable a job a purpose (deeks told
me he always carried a newspaper sometimes
folded to the want ads & walked like he had
someplace to go when he was on thestreet) at first,
even a beard was no handicap as
scientists&intellectuals had em before nutnicks
run naked hairy&wild down thebeach whooping.
&in the innocence of pre-narcoticdays stuart
believed for every man was a trigger which shot u
off in yr direction & pills&weed kicked us where
we went- pills get thebrain to racing ideas &
holyweed to let us loose to do it: its all good. :in
time: opium hashish & alcohol to spring u from
thejail u lived in there was a certain moody
pleasure to ally oneself to the outlaw
absinthedrinker & hashishdreamer & to accept yr
doom grinning in theteeth of it (later: the trigger
became so much harder to pull being drugged
(Black Ace Books 6,
Passion Press-Temple of Man 2000)
from Polarity
- eMagazine
Polarity Magazine
is an online publication featuring poetry and commentary related
to 'next generation' Beat writers, particularly in New York and
San Francisco. Founded by poet George Wallace in 2001 as part of
the landmark four-city marathon reading of Big Sur by Jack
Kerouac in San Francisco Ca, Lowell Ma, Northport NY and Orlando
Fl; it has continued to bring to light the work of a number of
contemporary writers whose poetry is in the Beat tradition.
Polarity is a companion e-magazine to
Poetrybay, a more
general online literary publication, also founded and edited by
Wallace.
George Wallace
is author of sixteen chapbooks, published in the US , UK and
Italy, and two CDs. A leading practitioner of the "Post-Beat"
genre, his work has been praised for its Whitmanian breadth, its
fresco-like freshness, and its merging of bop prosody with
surreal commentary. A frequent performer not only on the NYC
scene but nationally and internationally, he has performed at
such venues as the Beat Museum, Woody Guthrie Festival, Lowell
Celebrates Kerouac, Rexroth Festival, Insomniacathon, Howlfest,
Shakespeare & Co and the Dylan Thomas Centre. Winner of the CW
Post Poetry Prize and the Poetry Kit Best Book award, Wallace is
listed by Poets & Writers, is a member of PEN and the Academy of
American Poets, and is host of a monthly poetry series at the
Bowery Poetry Club, at the Huntington Poetry Barn and other
locations.
In 2003 Wallace was named first Poet Laureate for Suffolk
County, NY. In 2007 he was named a "Next Generation Beat" by the
Lowell Celebrates Kerouac festival committee. In 2008 he was
named as a poetry panelist with the New York State Council on
the Arts.
