Now Comes The Hard Part: A home for GHOST LIGHT

 

 

 It’s hard to say how long it’s taken me to put together GHOST LIGHT, what I feel is a cohesive collection of poems inspired by the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919. Does a lifetime of isolating interest count? Where did it begin, you might ask? I was born in 1962, well after Vaudeville’s heyday and on the cusp of Beatlemania. Many performers had retired to the suburbs of Long Island, a fact that causes me no small amount of regret. I had neither the nerve nor the ability in those pre-Internet days to seek these treasures out while they were still with us to tell their stories. Luckily a few others did, and we have those interviews, and at very least their obituaries, to tease our hunger for more.

In 1956, The Wizard of Oz made its television debut, and by the time I started watching and absorbing it a decade later, it had become an annual event as big as Christmas. Growing up, we may have lacked for material things here and there, but we always had a great, big color console TV. Those ruby slippers practically leapt off the screen! I believe that for me, Oz and Funny Girl were indirectly my two greatest inspirations to learn more about entertainers of the early 20^th century. Up until the mid-1970s, prime time programming was heavily influenced by vaudeville, burlesque, and even the presence of many of those entertainment pioneers. From Ed Sullivan to Sonny & Cher, most shamelessly borrowed from well-loved routines, thus perpetuating the art into this century.

It is an epiphany of sorts when one discovers that Glinda was in 1939, the year Oz debuted, the middle-aged widow of Florenz Ziegfeld himself. Both Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr worked briefly for Ziegfeld. Judy Garland would star not so long after as a Ziegfeld Girl in a thoroughly whitewashed melodrama that nonetheless captures some of the magic that happened on the New Amsterdam stage. And so I went down the glittery rabbit hole.

Once I allowed myself the freedom to let the poems be inspired by history, and not slavishly document the exact color of every spotlight, I was able to make significant progress on the work. I hope that the poems breath life back into the people portrayed for a moment, some as popular in their day as Beyonce or Brad Pitt are today. I would love if one or two readers are inspired to explore these histories on their own. I’ve included short bios at the back of the book, hoping to tease and intrigue.

But now here’s that hard part I mentioned. Although I’ve had individual poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world, had several chapbooks produced by small, fine publishers, and even self-published some chapbooks on my own under the dubious “Flying Monkey Press” imprint, I have never submitted a completed, themed manuscript for consideration. It is a unique work for me in that it did require a great deal of research, and the poems although able to stand on their own individually, are intended to be a narrative of highlights. The earliest poem is set in 1896, and the latest in present day, but the bulk tell a story of the Follies of 1919, a year of radical unrest, irrational temperance, and relative calm before the coming decades terrible storms.

I consider it a version of embellished history, with a sound core and some poetical license entwined with the facts. If I didn’t think the poems were good I’d have written it all in prose, and frankly, that’s been done before and by more skillful writers than me. The days of firsthand sources have gotten away from us. Since I am moved nevertheless to write about the times, poetry became my genre of choice. My first step is to reach out to some of the university presses that deal with material close to the subject: Theater, New York City & New York State History, Early 20^th Century Music. I have a proposal letter in the works, and I do think the unique nature of the manuscript could be in my favor. I don’t seem to be able to locate much other poetry about the Follies, although one or two pieces showed up in Google searches.

I am willing to self-publish again if need be, but I would like these poems to reach as wide an audience as possible. It is the collection I have invested the most time, effort, and research into, and I am proud of it, flawed as it is. I suppose Ziegfeld felt the same way, but it will never be the grand performance of epic scope that I first envisioned. Perhaps that’s why it’s taken me so long to complete. The Pandemic, for the most part, did not afford me any extra time to complete this task. Between working from home, fretting about finding new work, and finally working at several new jobs that were not a great “fit,” my hour or so in the morning before the world began to spin was all I could spare. But circumstances have certainly been driving me to take up long unfinished tasks and bring them to some kind of closure. So it has been with GHOST LIGHT, and so it shall be with other endeavors that have been cluttering up Casa Diva for years.

Everything Old Is New Again- Revision in the Age of Fake News

For many years, I was reluctant to revise my poems much. I don’t think it was that I thought they were perfect. At least I hope that wasn’t why. I just truly believed in the strength of the initial draft, the unconscious power of composition that occurred. I was more afraid of losing what I felt was that inherent power, even if the poem itself was flawed. I was more inclined to quickly move on to the next poem instead of spending time with any one piece. This could explain why my output was so much greater in the past. 

I have been busy lately with longer, themed projects, like the Ziegfeld poems I’ve already talked about. I also spent a good portion of the year on a book concept concerning the women of Marx Brothers movies, a project that’s taken a back seat to the Ziegfeld material. I decided to follow my passions more directly, considering my very limited time to write. 

I’ve also spent some time sending poems out, some new (despite everything, there are always new poems), but a good number of old ones. I’ve had some success there, but there’s a certain dishonesty I always feel in sending out work that isn’t representative of my current voice. Nevertheless, I aim for some consistency. 

I pulled a few poems out from the last fifteen years and am trying to assemble them into some sort of manuscript, with the horrifically generic theme of “love.” Certainly, the romantic relationships in my life provided me with a good deal of material, and in turn, writing about them afforded me some cheap therapy that I benefit from to this day. 

In order to make a uniform package, I’ve been revising each one. This is best done first thing in the morning, while I sip my stevia-sweetened coffee, and before the Dagwood-like rush to get out the door for work. Even poems I’d almost committed to memory (although that’s never a goal of mine) come up a decade later as desperately in need of order and streamlining. My biggest fault as a poet is becoming somewhat entranced by the sound of my own words, often to the detriment of logic. Sometimes the sun rises in the west, and sometimes a door becomes a jar. 

The distance of years and deficit of crazy-making estrogen has given me clearer artistic vision. I am making these poems generally better, and most definitely a more cohesive unit. The truth will set your work free. I look forward to sending them out as a family to a few select publishers, or even doing another Flying Monkey Press publication. It’s all the same to me. The word’s the thing, and how it gets out there is a matter of chance.

Honorable Mentions- Two More ‘Follies’ Poems

After all but completing a second chapter in my ongoing nonfiction project (more on that later, surely), I’ve returned my attention to my Ziegfeld Follies poems. I’ll be doing a presentation of what I have so far at the Omega Institute on the evening of August 20^th. Hopefully, I’ll also have a Power Point presentation, and brief bios for each of the subjects of the poems. I know it’s been a while, so some memories might need a bit of refreshing (ahem).

My focus with this project has been the 1919 edition of the Follies, although for reasons of interest and coherence, the poems have strayed a bit here and there. By 1919, Anna Held, Ziegfeld’s first wife and part of the inspiration for the Follies in the first place, had already passed. Yet, because she is such an integral part of Ziegfeld’s personal and professional life, I’ve included a couple of poems about her and expect to add more. Olive Thomas, by 1919, had long before left Ziegfeld’s show, and side, to become a silent film star, but her enduring presence at the New Amsterdam Theater in the form of a ghost (even to this day) means that a poem or two is required about her as well.

Two Ziegfeld stars were missing from the 1919 edition, otherwise considered the pinnacle of the series. Humorist Will Rogers had also been lured out West to try his luck in films. Silent though they were, Rogers made his presence felt on the big screen, supplementing his appearances eventually with a widely read newspaper column and an easy transition into talkies. If not for his sudden death in 1935, who knows what other razor-sharp insights Rogers might have gifted us with, especially in the War years.

In August of 1919, Fanny Brice gave birth to her first child, a daughter. Obviously this put her out of work for that season, but knowing Brice’s position as a major star in the Ziegfeld universe, this must have been a frustration for both the comedienne and the producer. I knew she and her then-husband Nick Arnstein owned a home on Long Island during those years. I made the leap of assuming that it had been located on the North Shore, where many of the wealthy lived in those days. Thank goodness for Google and my ability to follow a thread! I was even able to obtain a street address, as well as some modern-day photos of the interior and exterior. It is still a private home, well kept and renovated with an eye towards maintains its Victorian charm.

I imagined two scenarios, one of Ziegfeld showing off his new theater to Rogers on a trip back East, and Brice rehearsing on her patio overlooking the Long Island Sound. Both seemed plausible to me, and yet I took a few liberties. I looked up the, and concluded that Rogers certainly could have seen the Ziegfeld Theater close to its opening date. As well, Brice’s home seems to be near enough to the water for her to smell it on a September breeze.

I’ve been a Ziegfeld and vaudeville buff for many years now, but for a while I’d stalled on doing anything creative with the knowledge I’d accumulated. So deep is my awe and respect for these theatrical pioneers that I hesitated, afraid to get the facts wrong, wary of the presumptive tone that dominates so many biographies. Finally, without cracking another book, I leaped in, starting with the stories most repeated. I probably began with Thomas at the New Amsterdam, a hard one to get wrong, but steering clear of the condescending word stuffing that I found in a recent fictionalized account of her life. I’ve got twenty-five pages or so of poems now, and my next step is to comb through the work, making better poetry out of it, and tweaking what facts I can.

I’m not sure how finished any of the poems will be by the time my evening rolls around, but I’ll do my best. My goal is to honor the legend, perpetuate the memories of these remarkable characters, all the while trying to explore their humanity. For many years there was a gap for me. They were old photos, almost always black and white, seemingly from another planet and not just another era. Lately I’ve broken through. This might be where art, the art I can live with, begins.

The Follies of 2018- Stay Tuned!

 

In the frenzy to get a sample chapter of a non-fiction book idea to a publisher, and in the heat of my brain wrapping itself in a new way around the memoir that might take longer to write than it did to live, the Ziegfeld poems I started a few years ago had all but fallen off the radar for me.

Not that the project hasn’t gone anywhere. At last count, I have about twenty-five pages of work, and have mapped out maybe a dozen more topics to explore as fill-ins. I’m trying ultimately to create a cohesive story in verse, and I’ve vacillated on how much emphasis I should place on Prohibition and the Actors Strike, both major events of the 1919 theater season. Also, although my focus is on the 1919 edition of the Follies, that one, although praised as the pinnacle of Ziegfeld’s elaborate revue series, is lacking two major performers.

Fanny Brice was still on maternity leave in the fall of 1919. Her daughter, Frances, would grow up to marry producer Ray Stark. Stark would produce the film version of Fanny’s life story, Funny Girl. And so goes the circles upon circles that connect the entertainment worlds of past and present.

Will Rogers, a clever character who toured the world as a trick roper, found his everlasting fame as a wisecracking political commentator (while still twirling that rope) in Ziegfeld’s shows. By 1919, however, Rogers had gone out West to try his luck in Hollywood.

So, I’ve broadened the scope to include events outside of the holy ’19, perhaps a mishmash of legends and rumors. And, just to make things interesting, I’ve been invited to be a part of the Monday night lecture series at the Ram Dass Library at the Omega Institute, in Rhinebeck, NY. On a whim, I suggested the topic of the Ziegfeld Follies, and a presentation including my poems. They bought it. So now I’m committed.

I’ve been fooling around with Power Point, too. Maybe I’ll play a CD of period music while the crowds pile in. It’s always good to find another angle to approach the old material from. I’ve dabbled in vaudeville and early musical theater for years now. I’m glad to be able to see the various shapes my research can be translated into. Hopefully a few others will, too.