Update Lucy In the Sky With Darrell: Actualism Part 3
| Lucy In the Sky With Darrell |
Part 3 A History of Actualism In Iowa City Anthology of Collaborations [Drawing #16] When Iowa City Actualism was blooming in the 1970s, we wrote a lot of collaboration poems, and I made it a practice to save the ones I was involved in. I put the collab folders in a storage box, and then I forgot about them for three decades. Just two days ago, I found the folders, which contained over 220 pages of work. Some of them were unsigned, but at least 194 pages had the names or initials of two or more people--48 people in all. Here is a Child’s Garden of Actualism. Notes on reading: Each poem is preceded by a tilde. This enables the reader to jump from poem to poem by doing a search for tildes. It also helps to know for certain that a specific line is the title. Each writer’s identifying letters (usually initials) are preceded by an accent mark. This enables the reader to skip to the collaborations in which a specific writer participates by searching for the accent mark followed by the two identification letters--thus, searching for 'DG would take you to poems in which Darrell Gray participated. In some of the collaborations each section is attributed to the person who wrote it. In most of the collaborations, however, authorship is attributed at the end to all the authors together. The first poem, “Party Poem,” has the most known collaborators--11. It is dedicated to the Writers Workshop. The last poem, “Marathon Collaboration Poem,” is the longest--31 pages. It was written by many people during the Second Poetry Marathon, but signed by none. [cartoon part 4 page 01] Each person has a two-letter abbreviation representing their full name. AB Al Buck [cartoon part 4 page 02] ~ PARTY POEM (for The Writers’ Workshop) [Eleven people wrote this poem: 'DM 'MS 'CM 'SW 'DG 'JM 'JS 'AK 'ST 'LG 'DG. Each section has the individual author’s abbreviation listed at the end.] 1 music inspires the floor shakes 'DM 2 four or five words 'MS 3 familiar plants, animals 'CM 4 potted plastic 'SW 5 plantit 'DM 6 hiya, Cinth! wisteria? 'JM 7 one more time the kids in the neighborhood hey hey that’s a great choice one of my favorites ships on the oceane 'MS 8 color it orange & leave all that snow 'JS 9 there is a chain hook between the cushions of this large couch. i call it The Great Chain of Being. we unhook the chain before opening frozen orange juice. good morning little schoolgirl. i’m a couch 'AK 10 boo! 'ST 11 THE TRAVELS OF OZONE Oh! Zone! 'SW 12 melting fish bones TOGETHER 'CM 13 i’m an easy bruiser 'LG 14 I wanna hold your foot, I wanna be your leg, I wanna look at the table. 'JM 15 a sunlit day it’s almost may and yet there’s snow outside uh-oh 'DM 16 i woke up this morning and it was this afternoon oh i woke up this morning mama, and it was this awful moon so the next time ya see me coming blah dah dah dah dah dah dah 'MS 17 scot located them a copy of the original, in other words a shadow of a former delusion multilithed easier than the original not really huge, but sewn up. Come out and visit. 'MS 18 rain check book 'DG 19 I used to think the 21st Century would be great--vast unemployment, beautiful women, fantastic highways and buildings, amazing drugs and record albums. Billions of geniuses masterfully solving the subtlest impossibilities. That’s what it felt like, being 27 and stoned with my friends. 'JM 20 the city words a are for looking are for pages a the home 'DM 21 Al Buck did Al Buck didn’t but Al Buck 'MS 23 monkeys express a paw here you are superior 'AK 24 Twenty four. Baked bird. Unleashed lettaces race through time’s hard hat. The vee’s crease. 'SW 26 anti-versary 'DG 27 under the Philadelphia Cream Cheese the hard brown table looked like the Phillies How’s the ballgame How’s the potato chip dip? 'DM 28 one two three four five six seven eight nine ten! shouted the man in mission control as he tried to make the rocket return to the launchpad. 'DM 29 “as bats fly caves grow” --Spelunker’s Guidebook 'DM 30 what time is it? gold. 'AK 31 What is “it?” Things, generally. 'SW 32 “OUT TO SPACE” out to lunch out of breath out of line out there out with you! ow t burnt out out house make out outlanders outlandish out of your head out of gas in side out 'MS 33 The Well-Fed Bi-ped bi-ped bi-pass biluminous bitaxatious binary blahbi 'MS 34 after the cat walked in the human collage walked out 'DM 35 comma, period. 'SW [signed:] Scott Wright Sirs. bros. sisters. Glandfather Kornblum Stepson Gray Mormon Sklar Dave Morose [cartoon part 4 page 03] ~ WORKSHOP COURSE LIST FOR NEXT YEAR 8:282 Rhyme Workshop 'DG 'JS 'DM near Xmas ‘71 [cartoon part 4 page 04] ~THE PRESIDENT HIMSELF “& I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well...” The president is not a cook. The president is not a candle-maker. The president is not a registered nurse. The president is not a rock & roll star. The president is not a Neanderthal man. The president is not a Clerk Typist II. The president is not a housewife. The president is not a management trainee. The president is not a ballet dancer. The president is not a pseudo-intellectual. The president is not a short-order cook. The president is not a heavy-equipment operator. The president is not a fork-lift operator. The president is not a telephone operator. The president is not a small-time operator. The president is not a cellist. The president is not a registered Communist. The president is not a conscious philanderer. The president is not a dermatologist. The president is not a ketchup manufacturer. The president is not a new-car salesman. The president is not a tinhorn gambler. The president is not a factor. The president is not a mother. The president is not a witch. The president is not a podiatriast. The president is not a quarterback. The president is not a hearing-aid specialist. The president is not a typewriter. The president is not a chirpractor. The president is not a special prosecutor. The president is not a Riverboat Captain. The president is not a tattle-tale. The president is not a peanut vendor. The president is not a jukebox repairman. The president is not a flying carpet sweeper or a Guided Bissell. The president is not a swinger of birches. The president is not a glass of milk like a cigarette. The president is not a grapevine. The president is not a Hoover vacuum cleaner salesman. The president is not a music box. The president is not a monstrous vice-president. The president is not a Republican pope. The president is not a better mousetrap. The president is not a stitch in time. The president is not a trucker. The president is not a trick-or-treater. The president is not a rag-time Cowboy Joe. The president is not a yoyo champion. The president is not a Jewish mother. The president is not a nagging housewife. The president is not a cross-section of an orange. The president is not a colostomy bag. The president is not a poet. The president is not a second thought. The president is not a Chinese restaurant. The president is not a Polish sausage. The president is not a warm puppy. The president is not a mighty fortress. The president is not a piece of ass. The president is not a hormone imbalance. The president is not a creative plaything. The president is not a sugar-daddy. The president is not a Milky Way bar. The president is not a well-worn homily. The president is not a dirty diaper. The president is not a good gopher. The president is not a living bra. The president is not a great lake. The president is not a grape stomper. The president is not a hamburger with everything. The president is not a test pattern. The president is not a seventeen-year locust. The president is not a bird in paradise. The president is not a tea for two. The president is not a stepping stone. The president is not a fish stick. The president is not a Pullman porter. The president is not a president. The president is not The president 'AB 'DG 'PI 'AK 'CK 'PL 'DM 'GS 'ST [cartoon part 4 page 05] ~ THE TOTALLY NON-RIP-OFFABLE POEM I am the totally un-rip-offable poem Try me, smart mother fucker Stick your dick up my ass Nothing Cold stone Try and fuck me Try and get me to suck your dick To eat your pussy Never in a thousand years If anything I’ll rip you off Don’t look for emotions here There are none you can claim false Step on my ass You’ll |