Fundraiser for Donald Lev- Go!

Donald Lev has been a mainstay of Hudson Valley poetry for the last several decades. He was born in New York City in 1936, and since then has been, in my opinion, one of its most heartfelt and honest bards. As a youth, he worked in the mailroom of both the Daily News and the New York Times. He also drove a taxi for twenty years, on and off.  

His first venture into publishing was HYN, a literary magazine born in 1969. Perhaps in an effort to surreptitiously advertise, “HYN” was also the name of the poem he recited that same year as a bit player in the legendary underground film, Putney Swope. Along with his late wife, Enid Dame, he founded the now-online, and for many years actual paper tabloid, Home Planet News in 1979. The pair split their time between Brooklyn and High Falls, NY and for the last few years of her life, Enid taught at Rutgers and NJIT. She died in 2003.

After her death, Donald continued to put out Home Planet News until passing the torch to Frank Murphy a couple of years ago. You can find HPN in its latest incarnation at http://homeplanetnews.org/AOnLine.html.

Donald and Enid scared the hell out of me. Obviously both far more accomplished than I, here were two real life CITY poets, slumming at the readings I attended. I was dumbstruck, which is ridiculous to me now. They were and are two extremely approachable people. Their poetry and activism, closely intertwined in the most logical way, comes from a tradition deeply rooted in faith and friends and New York. The literary world of the ‘60s and ‘70s that they occupied was a dream I was too late to jump into. 

I will regret always the years I shied away from Enid. I finally had the chance to participate in a small workshop with her just a year or so before she died, and keep my notes close at hand. Donald’s wry humor has been the spice of HPN editorials and readings alike. He continues to publish, and his latest chapbook, Focus, came out in the spring of 2017.

Now a full-time resident of High Falls, Donald recently had some renovations done to his home to allow him to live on one floor. A bathroom has been installed, and hand railings have increased his safety. The cost of such work is significant, and a fundraiser is being held to offset the costs of making life more comfortable for Donald. 

The benefit is scheduled for Sunday, January 21, 2018, and will be held at the newly renovated Colony in Woodstock. Performers will include Mikhail Horowitz and Giles Malkine, The Marc Black Trio, and the Cosmic Legends backing Andy Clausen and Pamela Twining. Food and drinks are always available. The show starts at 8:00pm, and doors open at 7:00pm. There is a suggested donation of $20 per person. 

For more information, see the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/177931426136712/, or Philip Levine’s info on the Woodstock Poetry Society page: http://www.woodstockpoetry.com/DLev-Fundraiser.html. Philip is responsible for most of the work, and will be doing the finishing work once funds are available. 

Especially now, artists need to pull together, and help ourselves in the best way we can, by helping each other as best we can.

**Video: Albany Wordfest '12**

(courtesy of Albany Poets: www.albanypoets.com)

Submit! Submit! OK!

              In the last few months, I have been filled with a new sense of urgency. It’s a double-edged energy, however. The more I see the futility in activities like cleaning and decorating, the more I am inclined to involve myself in these temporary details. They are so important that they don’t matter at all, which makes them joyfully important. It’s a sort of weird circle that doesn’t do much for my organizational skills, but frees me to follow the flow of my mood.

            

          I am sifting through the material possessions I’ve accumulated, and discarding what no longer works for me. The Al-Anon literature goes. The pointy red shoes. The poetry books I have yet to crack. The jewelry that I got as gifts, and have never worn, but am afraid to get rid of in case the giver one day asks me about it. My eventual goal is to only have on hand items that will serve my life and my writing in the future. I’ve cleared out old files, gotten rid of tax returns older than seven years (mine went back twenty, as if anyone would care). And, I am putting together chapbook manuscripts consisting of the thirty-plus years of poetry languishing in my careful files, organized by year, first draft (be it on a napkin or a coaster), and “final,” typed copy. 

            In this new push, no version of a poem is final. I am grabbing poems by theme and style, although the ones written even five years ago are very different from the way I’m writing now. I am revising quickly, trying to bring the group into some harmony. I don’t yet know how successful I’ve been. I’ve submitted one chapbook manuscript to two potential publishers, and am working on a second with a deadline of the end of July. A small collection of horse poems will be combined at some point with childhood poems for a more rounded perspective, but according to my records, they are still floating around at some publisher or another in a previous configuration. 

            New work is still being written, but it’s nice to take time to revisit the old, with the fresh eye of time elapsed to give you the objectivity required to tighten and slash what I’ve already produced. New projects, incidentally, include a new poem every month beginning with the weather, and concluding with the current events of that month. These I am typing and tucking away, and will deal with early next year. I am hoping by the very fact of their similar origins that there will be a natural cohesiveness, another chapbook. 

            I have been inconsistent about submitting work over the years. With the Internet Times upon us, I no longer have an excuse. First drafts are always in longhand, preferably on yellow legal pads, but now second drafts are in the computer, stored on a flashdrive, and printed for the old paper files. I have mastered Submittables, and I understand how useful it must be for the little mags. I no longer discount online zines as not rrreeeaaallly being “published.” 

            I continue to research the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919, and am aiming for something to be completed by its one-hundredth anniversary. I’m not certain of the voice yet there. I hope to pull together a presentation of Kingston, NY poets to help fill the new performance space at the Art Society of Kingston. And then there’s that darned memoir…. 

**Three Poems from Katrinka Moore's Workshop**

Synecdoche

Picasso’s a lie that helps us see truth.

His audience permits desired impact,

sensibilities convey pauperization of Mexico.

Bare feet rustle the water jar,

surprising image moves by quality intended.

Carefully chosen parts imply by analogy

transmit subject directly.

Synecdoche less than science, essence of art.

Single stem with twin flowers, Mexico,

dos flores gemelas, vida y muerta,

truth more secure, las aguas del bautismo.

Visions of unity easily proved wrong,

practical advice a resolution not offered.

Petrified field a fountain!

Dust of tall trees’ rustling bark!

Taste of such splendor, sound of panting!

A cold volcano, bare hills of stone!

How Little the Power, Emily

How little the power, Emily, over ourselves,

the size of our lives, the tangled stars

that incline our futures towards this or that

end point?

How far the page’s edge, how soon

the corner’s narrow end?

Stars, Trekking

Stars, trekking across the table,

urging on in every direction,

fixed in a single starting place,

suggest the many possibilities before us,

laughing, while they stay safely

at home.