Kevin Davies reading at KSW in 1991

"the unconscious is structured like a shriner's convention"

Simon Gouverneur

Good to see a recent show at Curator's Office of works from the estate of Simon Gouverneur whose paintings adorned the covers of Aerial 4: Douglas Messerli and the first Edge Book, Asbestos, by Wayne Kline.

Although the reviews mention his 1990 suicide they do not mention that he had suffered severe injury-- a fall from a ladder-- and of course, as an artist, was without health or disability insurance. I was introduced to him by Dan Barbiero and we had many terrific, intense conversations. His loss remains a traumatic one for many of us.

Art Forum. More of Simon's paintings at McLean Art.

No one is safe from Davis’s savage iconoclasm.

ANSELM BERRIGAN INTERVIEW

from chicagopostmodernpoetry.com:

I like to curse. Fuck and all of its variations are deeply ingrained in my language-mind. I think fuckface is one of the funniest terms of all time.

I had this one job working in a windowless office, and I used to write in it, but the poems often had nothing in them because there was nothing in the room to see. It was a ridiculous job. I was supposed to answer the phone, but the number was unlisted. I was supposed to let people in, but the door was locked and no one knew we were there.



It’s very interesting to me, finally, to note that more and more poets seem to come out of the woodwork every week, while large publishers have essentially given up on poetry. And they should. They do it poorly, they don’t know how to distribute it, and, mainly, poetry is unmarketable. It doesn’t want to be sold. When Jewel sells a gazillion books of poetry it’s her name that is being sold. We are at a point where poetry is almost totally underground, while being more popular than ever in this country.