A.D. Winans…Looking Toward The Future

The Fourth of July Poem posted below is from The System published by Centennial Press. This chap contains 11 hard hitting poems that deal with prison and the life of the common man seen through the eyes of a true poet. These poems will not make you smile or make you feel good, but they will make you stop and think. They should make you question. In the poem, The System he writes:

There are old people who have
Worked twenty years
Only to be laid off
Without so much as two weeks
Written notice
Abandoned to seek a living
At half the pay

I suspect many of these poems were inspired when A.D. and Jack Micheline participated in the Folsom Prison Poet’s Workshop and when A.D. also participated in a similar workshop at San Quentin. On a side note, the book was dedicated to Jack Micheline and Bob Kaufman who are out there in the beyond somewhere still bucking the system and still singing it from the streets.

When I was a kid, I listened to Dylan on an eight track stuck under the dash of my rag top Chevy. Today, I have Dylan on my ipod. I also have a stack of books by Winans next to my recliner. Just like Dylan, Winans show no sign of slowing down either.

Sound Street Recordings will soon begin releasing a series of six individual CD’s. Late in the year a collector set of all six CD’s will be released. The CD’s are from past readings given by A. D. Winans. Each of the six CD’s will include an insert with art work by the talented Norman Olson.

FORTHCOMING AUDIO AND MOVIES

Sound Street Recordings will soon begin releasing a series of six individual CD’s. Late in the year a collector set of all six CD’s will be released. The CD’s are from past readings given by A. D. Winans. Each of the six CD’s will include an insert with art work by the talented Norman Olson.

World Vision Press will be publishing The Continuing Adventures Of Crazy John. The book will feature poems previously published by Second Coming Press under the title of The Further Adventures Of Crazy John, which will include sixteen previously unpublished CJ Poems. The book will include a DVD of a rare 1981 Cable Television interview with A. D. Winans, in which he read for the first and only time, poems from the CJ book.

Mr. Winans will be participating in a film in which several poets are recorded reading poems. Some of the participants include: Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove, Dennis Banks, Sam Hamil, Janine Pommy Vega, Ferlinghetti, Hayden Carruth, Amiri Baraka, Lou Gosset, Jr, Donald Hall and TR Congdon, with Karina survivors and Common Ground volunteers The film will benefit Common Ground Relief in the rebuilding of the lower ninth ward in New Orleans. Common Ground is a grass roots organization started shortly after Hurricane Katrina. With virtually no funds, but with help Veteran’s For Peace, it grew into a large volunteer effort that has gutted thousands of homes, formed clinics for people needing legal and medical help, funded a woman’s shelter, community center, and distribution centers, and established bio-remediation efforts to draw poison from the soil in well peopled places and began replanting native grasses, plants and trees along coastal areas to hinder floodwaters from moving inland. All their services are free to the public and they have helped tens of thousands of families.

The film will feature poets reading short clips of their work with scenes of the destruction and rebuilding of the city, and interviews with survivors and volunteers. A number of public access TV stations volunteered equipment, studio time and personnel, so the plan is to run the film back through those stations for them to network among their affiliates and make a dvd for sale from online sites or from Common Ground directly. All the money will be used directly to benefit the people returning to the lower ninth ward and with rebuilding their homes.

Mr. Winans has also been interviewed for documentary films on the late Bob Kaufman and Jack Micheline. These films are still in the production stage.

FORTHCOMING BOOKS

Late this summer Cross-cultural Communications will be publishing an epic Love Poem chapbook (Love Minus zero)with cover and inside artwork by the Norman Olson.

Polymer Press, Sacramento, California, will be publishing Winan’s book No Room For Buddha tentatively scheduled for release in January 2009.

A.D. Winans Interview

A.D. Winans is one of the few writers I have met (and I’ve met too God Damned many of them) who doesn’t act like a writer or think of himself continually as a writer and maybe that is why he writes better than they do. I always prefer a poet I can tolerate for more than ten minutes. That’s rare and so is A.D.

–Charles Bukowski

A.D. Winans is a San Francisco-based writer and poet who became involved in the West Coast Beat scene in 1958. By his own account, he has lost count. But, he has been published in over 1500 magazines, journals and anthologies, not including web zines, and has published 48 books. A.D. is a small press legend and a survivor. He counts his friends as the late poets Jack Micheline, Bob Kaufman and Charles Bukowski and misses them.
At 72 years old he has a myspace page , with 188 friends and posts there frequently.

He doesn’t go to North Beach much anymore. He says it’s not the same, but his writing is still just as real as it ever was. Nothing is really new in poetry, but A.D makes it sound fresh and original. His poems are his children. He will tell you that and poetry is his life.

He once played pool with Janis Joplin and corresponded with Pete Seeger who wrote and told him “the real heroes are the men who work to bring home the bread to put on the table, and the mothers who sing their children to sleep at night.”
One of his friends, the late Charles Bukowski, said of him– “A.D. Winans can go ten rounds with the best of them”.

In my poetry journey, I started with Brautigan as a high school kid, then found Bukowski. From Bukowski I found Winans and instantly became a fan.
I contacted him about a year ago wanting advice on how to be a poet and learned that it is not really something you become. He gives advice by not giving it. Just about every silly question I asked him, I read the answer in one of his poems. It was like listening to Dylan to find the truth.
In this case, the answers to my questions were already written. Winans did say find a good woman. I have already done that, but…

Maybe Seeger had it right about the real heroes. When I look back and remember my wife singing the girls to sleep I realize some of us are heroes and some of us are poets and just a few every now and then are both.

The Interview:

Scot: Who were your early influences when you began writing poetry?

ADW.: Early on I wanted to be a novelist and writers like Jack London, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck were my heroes. When I returned home from Panama in 1958, I discovered poets like Brautgan, Corso, Micheline, Kaufman, and other Beats who influenced me. But earlier than this poets like Pound, Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Ann Sexton, Sylvia Plath and Sandburg caught my attention. Especially Sandburg who wrote on subjects that were relevant to me and in an accessible language.

Scot: How do you think the business has changed since you first became published?

ADW The biggest change is that corporations have taken over the literary publishing houses that once were the life blood of poets and writers. So that now it is a business. The biggest change in the small press world is there has been an increasing number of poetry “business” boys who kiss ass and trade favors to get themselves and their friends published. To some extent this has always existed, it’s just become more prevalent and less hidden than in the past.

Scot: How often do you write? Do you have a routine?

ADW I don’t have a routine. I write when the inner voices tell me to write, much like the late William Wantling. I can go months without writing a poem and then within a matters of weeks (or less) write a large number of poems. I used to try setting time aside each day to write, but it didn’t work for me. It’s the same way with my prose. I’m not a formula writer. I have to write the story and then try to find a market for it.

Scot: Many say nobody reads poetry anymore—if true why is that?

ADW It appears for the most part that the majority of people reading poetry are other poets. There are some people in the non-writing community who read poetry, but it’s the responsibility of the poet to reach them by writing on subjects that are relative to their life and writing it in a clear language they can understand. Academic poets almost exclusively write for other academic poets. The language school poets don’t write for the every day working man and woman. What average Joe out there would be interested in what they are writing? It’s like MFA poets writing uninteresting poems for other MFA poets. The late Jack Micheline and Bob Kaufman were exceptions to the rule. The problem is getting accesible poetry to the average American. The small press has no meaningful distribution and no large publisher is going to publish this kind of poetry.

Scot: How has the small press scene changed since you in the business?

ADW: I don’t know what you mean by business? The small press was never a business. There will always be a small press scene. The Mag’s come and go. Only the names change. I guess the biggest change is that the Internet and web now allows anyone with money to buy a software program to set up and create their own zine. There is both good and bad to that. I prefer the print venue although I don’t deny you can reach a wider audience through the Internet.

Scot: What was your greatest writing accomplishment—what made it so?

ADW I don’t know if I can name any one accomplishment that stands out. I had a poem of mine set to music and performed at Tully Hall (NYC), which I guess might be my l5 minutes of fame. Publishing a literary magazine for l7 years certainly ranks near the top. Winning a 2006 PEN Josephine Miles Literary Excellence Award was an honor. A press is currently working on releasing a boxed set of six Cd’s of mine (from past readings), which I am quite excited about. All my accomplishments (if you can call them that) are like the children I never had. Those children are and will be part of my archives at Brown University.

Scot: What advice would you give a young poet?

ADW Just to be yourself. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Never sell out. You can’t put a price on integrity.

Scot: If you were left with one book of poems—what would it be?

ADW: I don’t think I can name just one. It would do injustice to all the others that would deserve mentioning.

Scot: If you could change something in your professional life, what would it be?

ADW: I don’t consider my writing a profession. I consider it a necessity. So there is nothing I would change since my life and my poetry are one and the same.

Scot: Are there any new poets out there that will change the way we look at poetry?

ADW: That’s not for me to say. I could give you a list of several poets I see as having this potential but whether they will change how we look at poetry is another matter. I don’t see any Micheline or Kaufman’s out there. You have to live poetry and not just write it. You need to become involved in the community you live in. You need to give something of yourself that goes beyond putting a pen to a piece of paper.

Scot: What is one thing about A.D. that we don’t know but need to know?

ADW: That I am not the tough, hard-nosed poet that some people see me as. I have a soft side that only my true friends know.

Scot: What does it mean to be a poet?

ADW: I think if you asked this question to a hundred poets you’d get a hundred different responses. I have said over and over again that my life and poetry are one and the same, so the question has no relevance to me. I do know what poetry is not. Poetry is not “Holy.” Poetry is only holy when it loses its holiness. I wish those poets who walk around with an invisible Capital “P” on their foreheads would understand this.

Scot: What is the name your latest book? Where can it be purchased?

ADW: MARKING TIME. Available at Erbacce Press (UK). $8.00, plus small shipping price.
Details at http://www.erbacce-press.com

Scot: If you had the opportunity to talk to Jack Micheline or Bob Kaufman one more time, what would you tell them?

ADW: I’d tell them that I love them. I’d ask them how it is out there in the void? I’d tell them I’m still trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’d tell them they haven’t been forgotten. And I’d tell Kaufman, can you believe that this country has come so far as to nominate a Black man for President of the U.S. I’m sure Micheline would be singing to the stars over this news.

(Scot Young works in education, writes a few poems, once sang with Kenny Loggins and Dirty Dick Murdoch, but mainly puts bread on the table)

American Sentence #29

The car bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

FOURTH OF JULY POEM________ by A.D. Winans

stepped on, pissed on
cheated and abused
taken advantage of
blue collar man caught up
in the American scam
don’t tell me anyone
can be anything they want to be
if they put their minds to it
bullshit crap laid on like butter
on the working class stiff
save your message for the
deaf dumb and blind
it’ll never sell in the ghetto
or to the immigrants you have
turned your back on
high-fiving, jiving court jester
with an act as old as death
out of step
reeking from bad breath
take your message to the church
tell it to the men on death row
tell it to the starving poor
tell it to the sick and lame
tell it to the rich folks
tell it to the politicians
tell it to the serial killers
tell it to wall street
tell it to the man on the gallows
tell it to the cowardly terrorists
tell it to the last man at the Alamo
tell it to the chiseled faces
on Mount Rushmore
tell it to Madonna
tell it to the street whore
tell it to the last wino on the Bowery
tell it to the banker
tell it to the butcher
tell it to the unemployed
tell it to the circus clown
tell it to the insane
tell it to the outlaw
tell it to the in-laws
tell it to the panhandler
tell it to the conman
tell it to the baby found
stuffed in a garbage can
tell it to the displaced factory worker
tell it to the elderly
tell it to the re-po man
tell it to the academics
tell it to the last space alien
hiding out in Roswell
tell it to the militia
tell it to the FBI sharpshooters
at Ruby Ridge
tell it to the arsonists at Waco, Texas
tell it to the junkie with dry heaves
tell it to the farm worker
tell it to the dishwasher
tell it to the orderlies
tell it to the flag waver
tell it to the Chinese peasant
working the rice fields
for a dollar a day
tell it to the garment worker
slaving away in sweat shops
in Chinatown and the Latin Quarter
tell it to the garbage man
tell it to corporate America selling
torture devises to enslaved nations
tell it to big business
tell it to the illegitimate President
tell it to the oil barons
tell it to the tobacco merchants
tell it to the children addicted
to television
tell it to the fur industry
who club baby seals to death
for the clothing merchants
with blood on their hands
tell it to the molested children
tell it to the battered wives of America
tell it to the pharmacy industry
dispensing billions of dollars
of drugs each year
tell it to the millions of people dying
from air pollution in Mexico and abroad
tell it to the man on his death bed
not sure why he lived
or what he is dying for
tell it to Jesus Christ
shout it to the stars
line the traitors up against the wall
rewrite the ten commandments
and start all over again

–A.D. Winans
(from his book The System published by Centennial Press)

[ This poem was sent to me by the author for posting. I will post on Saturday an interview with Mr. Winans. Take a minute and stop in and see what this small press legend has to say about being a poet.]

bluebird story

even bluebirds
that are set free fly
into windows

George Carlin & Mark Twain–About Time

George Carlin to receive Mark Twain humor prize
6/17/2008, 8:05 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — George Carlin will be awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Tuesday that Carlin will be honored for his 50-year career as a Grammy-winning standup comedian, writer and actor. The center will salute Carlin at a tribute performance by former colleagues November 10th, which will be broadcast later on PBS.

Rat-shit, bat-shit, dirty old twat,
Sixty-nine assholes tied in a knot.

Hooray…

Lizard-shit…

Fuck!

(always made me laugh

Stones

I spend my time
collecting stones
large ones for strong corners
flats for the cap
cobbles for plugging
the holes mixed
each day
to hold it strong

I spend my time
collecting stones
working in layers
laying each one to fit
like a puzzle
in this perfect wall
that protects the things
I own
and sometimes own me

I spend my time
collecting stones
set them around this
ancient oak
spreading arching
protects from sun
and storms
built high enough
to dream well under
a marauding moon

I spend my time
collecting stones
my father’s trade
this art passed down
with bleeding hands
fit to chisels
chipping stones
making them fit
sealing it up

I spend my time
collecting stones
but sometimes I
leave one out
of the perfect wall
……..one rock removed just
long enough for you
to slip in
before new mortar
is mixed
I cannot tell you
where it is

run your hand slowly
over the surface
……..there

do you see it?

(my attempt at bukowski’s bluebird challenge)

Bluebird by Rodger Jacobs

Ray took his coffee and joined Lorraine on the back patio. It was a glorious spring day in Denver, with just a hint of the ghost of winter’s passing in the air. He sat down at the glass coffee table and admired the Blue Spruce tree, with its silvery-blue needles, prickly to the touch and aromatic. A robin was perched on one of the slender branches.

Ray sipped his coffee, then lit a cigarette. “I shot a bluebird once,” he said, leaning back in the wicker patio chair and closing his eyes. “With a BB gun. I was about ten years old.”

“Isn’t shooting a bluebird bad luck?” She jabbed a spoon into her grapefruit.

Ray nodded. “And mockingbirds, according to Atticus Finch. Anyway, my mother had just given birth to A.J. and she was bed-ridden, a hard labor. There was a blackbird in the tree outside her window and it frightened the hell out of her. She thought it was a harbinger of death. My mother was convinced that A.J.’s birth would be the death of her.”

“How did your father feel about that?”

“He was back out on the road two days after she delivered. He was never around when she needed him and as time went by she learned to need him less and less. Anyway, one morning I took it upon myself to rid that damn tree of that damn blackbird. So I took my BB gun and quietly walked onto the front porch, raised the little rifle to my shoulder, took steady aim like my old man taught me, and squeezed the trigger; only, the blackbird flew away at the precise moment I fired and a slender bluebird literally flew into the trajectory of the shot.” He drew long and hard on the cigarette. “I buried him in a shoebox in the backyard and never told anyone about it.”

“You’ve never written about it?”

“Why should I? It was a typical experience for a little boy. Everyone learns the power of death over life at some point. And then you move on. You have to move on.”

Bio
(Rodger Jacobs was born in California. He has been a journalist for Eye Magazine and Hustler, among others, a documentary writer and producer, screenwriter, playwright, magazine editor, true crime writer, book critic, columnist, and literary event producer. He currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.)

Rodger can be found writing at Carver’s Dog

The Dying Bluebird by Ed Ridgell

The nest grown silent
absent the sound of beats
recently grown irregular,
I sensed the pact broken and
flew into freedom
leaving the old drunk dead
the decay already beginning.

Where does a bluebird go
when on the wing?
What song does she sing
when the silence is over;
the pity prison of a beaten boy,
ugly, gloomy and rudely reserved,
his gated heart at last flown open.

I flew high into the sky
in search of that first sweet song
I’d wished to sing all along, but no.
There was no soft song within me.
I and the old poet were both victims
of a lifelong delirium.

The sounds that flew forth
were not soft and sweet on the ear
but hard notes written to even a score,
screeches in search of some meaning.
To that purpose they served the
music of both our souls all the better
and gave the world songs in poems
that sought to be more true than sweet.

===========================

‘See my little wing quiver so
as I lie here atop the snow!
Water is surely free I think.
I only wanted a tiny drink.

Something is broke within I know.
I can not lift and rise to go.
So happy was I on the brink
eager at a dawn’s sky of pink;

very frightened left alone,
lamenting others who have flown-
fled they so high into a sky
never more into will I fly’.
© 2008 by E.D. Ridgell

Bio

E.D. Ridgell is a versitile artist. He has BFA and MFA degrees from MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) with a minor in Art History.
Ed is published and is currently one of the moderators at The Peaceful Pub http://thepeacefulpub.yuku.com/directory. His site is
http://thispoetscorner.com/site.

Bluebird Song by David Rheins

Before it was beaten out of me
Before they taught me to color inside the lines
Raise my hand, and wait to be called upon
Before I was schooled to stand up straight
Avoid chewing gum; speak when spoken to
Before being trained to respond to bells
I learned to cipher my words
With poetry and slang and gibberish
Masking the fullness of my feelings
With oblique language
and casual nonchalance
Before my windows were walled in,
With self-medication
Sullen silence and cloudy self-pity
I used to speak directly to God
Connecting to the cosmic voice
Each night, sweaty underneath
The quilted bedspread
I called out to the creator in my head
And God he spoke back to me
In echoed tones and repeated phrases
Like the reverberating sounds
From Drive-In speakers:
Or the call of the bluebird:
Never forget, never forgive

David Rheins bio:

David Rheins is a Jersey City, NJ-based songwriter/poet/visual artist. He blogs at: www.DavidRheins.wordpress.com.
He has released two CDs: 1995’s Be Apart and 2005’s Everything That Ever Was both with Indianapolis based songwriting partner Tim Brickley (www.timbrickley.com) and his band the Bleeding Hearts www.myspace.com/timbrickleyandthebleedinghearts .
Rheins founded the independent artist’s collective Free Pamphlet Publishing, www.freepamphlet.wordpress.com, with the notion that: “There is no wrong in art.”

In addition to being an acclaimed artist, Mr. Rheins leads the social media marketing practice at Soho agency AttentionUSA (www.attentionusa.com ).