Blast From My Past

Finished reading New American Review 11, a paperback magazine published in 1971 and edited by Theodore Solotaroff.  Where do I begin?  Just holding the book was comfortable...the pages are thick and the binding has remained perfect.  There is no ISBN number; there is a much shorter "SBN" number.  And I loved this note printed on the copyright page: "The editors invite submissions.  Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by stamped self-addressed envelope."  AH...the good old pre-computer days!  I've come a long way from using the Underhill Manual our family owned and shared with love for many years.

The cover has a "psychedelic" inspired design with the words "Movement writing" repeated three times.  Most of the pieces definitely reflected what I would term a "movement" of the time - mostly anti-war.  There are eight short stories, five essays, a section labeled "The Writer's Situation:  III" in which several writers were asked to respond to specific questions, and many poems.  I read the anthology cover-to-cover but will comment on the pieces that stood out for me.

• Allen Ginsberg had two poems reprinted, and "Sonora Desert Edge" written in 1969 is filled with imagery only Ginsberg could create:

               --green duck neck sheen spectral as
                           moon machines
               Raven hopping curious black beaked
               Coyote's nose sensitive lifted to air
                                blinking eye sharp
               as the rose bellied Cardinal's ivory whistle (11-12)

• More than one piece mentions Cambodia and the riots at Kent State.  The essay, "The Day We Named Our Child We Had Fish For Dinner" by Michael Rossman is one of these and also mentions Reagan's actions towards students while governor of California.  I had forgotten how he reacted as a general in charge of the troops...turning colleges and universities into military held encampments. 

The short story "Don't Talk to Me About War" by Frances Starr juxtaposes the image of war with the sometimes painful, usually impersonal treatment of the terminally ill.  In the middle of this visceral description one paragraph describes a dog hit by a car, "The SPCA took him away and put him to sleep" (51).  There is no end punctuation in this story emphasizing the image of no end in sight for the dying patient: "The patients pulse is failing  Digitalis is given to stimulate the heart" (51) and so the story ends.  The life, such as it is, goes on.  We are able to show mercy to an animal but not a loved one...nothing has changed.

• My favorite piece is a poem, "Earnest Remarks, Not Literature" by Allen Wiggins, which begins:

         
         There is no way to improperly begin
          there is no way to begin... (54)
and ends:
          there is no way to keep words from affirming
          there is no way to begin kissing words
          there is no way to keep the sentence from
               beginning to form a kiss for its last word.  (55)  

Each line begins "there is no way" while the poem offers haunting images of life and a frequent return to the kiss as a symbol of love?  appreciation?  I believe Wiggins is still living and am trying to locate an address as I'd like to send him a letter.  I will use this poem with my college students the next time I teach; it is too beautiful not to share.

• "Nixon" is an essay by Nicholas von Hoffman who was a columnist for the Washington Post.  He writes of how Nixon had no plan for the war or anything else; von Hoffman argues that Nixon spent eight years learning how to be President without realizing he would need plans.  It would be interesting to find some later post-Watergate articles on Nixon by this same journalist...I just may do that.

Finally, three authors are praised by several of the contributors to this issue: Borges, Beckett, and Eliot.  Three authors I enjoy; three authors I will be revisiting.  Some of the Writer's Situation pieces are worth mentioning; however, as this posting has become lengthy, I'll save that commentary for a week when I have not finished reading a book.

It has been a good experience to take a look at my past not through memories but through the eyes of my contemporaries at that time.

Solotaroff, Theodore. ed. New American Review 11. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971.