John Wieners

John Wieners (born January 6, 1934 , in Milton , Massachusetts , † March 1, 2002 in Boston , Massachusetts) was an American poet . His poetry uses themes of the beats and the drug addict .

Life

Wieners grew up in Massachusetts, attended St. Gregory Elementary School in Dorchester and Boston College High School. He studied from 1950 to 1954 at Boston College, with a bachelor's degree (AB). He met Charles Olson , went to Black Mountain College and studied with Charles Olson and Robert Duncan in 1955/56. He then worked as an actor and director at The Poet's Theater in Cambridge and edited a literary magazine, Measure , which had three issues.

Wieners moved to San Francisco in 1958 and participated in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance . His first volume of poetry, The Hotel Wentley Poems , was published in 1958 and made him famous. Wieners returned to Boston in 1960. He was admitted to a clinic, in 1961 he went to New York City , where he worked at Eighth Street Books (1962/63) and lived with Herbert Huncke on the Lower East Side . In 1963 he moved back to Boston, where he worked for the Jordan Marsh department store . His second book, Ace of Pentacles , was published in 1964. In 1965 he participated with Olson at the Spoleto Festival and the Berkeley Poetry Conference and enrolled for postgraduate studies at New York State University in Buffalo .

Wieners was Olson's assistant and then a lecturer in poetics until 1967. The volume of poetry Pressed Wafer was published. In the spring of 1969, Wieners was admitted again and his Asylum Poems appeared in the same year.

In the early 1970s, Wieners was politically, pacifist and involved in the homosexual movement. He moved to an apartment on Beacon Hill at 44 Joy Street, where he lived until his death.

In 1975 the comprehensive book Behind the State Capitol or Cincinnati Pike was published , consisting of prose collages, poems and aphorisms. He published very little over the next ten years. Wieners withdrew from the public. In 1986 an extensive collection of his poems was published by Black Sparrow Press, in 1988 by the band Cultural Affairs in Boston , eight years later an old diary entitled The Journal of John Wieners is to be called 707 Scott Street for Billie Holliday 1959 , which records his life in San Francisco in the late 1950s.

In 1999 one of Wiener's last readings took place with Michael McClure on the occasion of the exhibition of the famous Italian neo-expressionist painter Francesco Clemente in the Guggenheim Museum .

Wieners died on March 11, 2002 in a Boston hospital, having collapsed a few days earlier after visiting his publisher and friend Charley Shively. The collection of poems and diaries Kidnap Notes Next was published posthumously. A Book of Prophecies , published in 2007, was again an old Wiener's diary that the poet Michel Carr had discovered in the archives of Kent State University . The 1971 manuscript began with the 2007 poem .

The Boston Globe and the British Independent published obituaries.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wieners says he was first fascinated by the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay , and he also cited Emily Dickinson , Elinor Wylie , Sara Teasdale, and HD as role models. Wieners was known and friends of many poets throughout his life, such as Robert Creeley or the Boston Afro-American, homosexual poet Stephen Jones (1921–1970). Wiener's poetry was promoted and influenced by Charles Olson . Another important point of reference was the religious, occult Black Mountain and San Francisco Renaissance poet Robert Duncan . See John Wilkinson, Chamber Attitudes . In the online poetry magazine Jacket , No. 21, February 2003.
2. ↑ Bruce Jackson: Buffalo English: Literary Glory Days at UB. . Buffalo beat. February 26, 1999. Retrieved July 31, 2007.
3. ↑ John Wieners Papers . In: University of Delaware Special Collections Department . September 1999. Retrieved June 11, 2007.

Works (selection)

• The Hotel Wentley Poems , Auerhan Press, San Francisco, 1958.
• Ace of Pentacles , James F. Carr, Robert A. Wilson, New York, 1964. Carr and Wilson were booksellers.
• The Hotel Wentley Poems , Dave Haslewood, San Francisco, 1965. The poems in their original form (?)
• Pressed Wafer , 1967.
• Asylum Poems , Angel Hair, 1969.
• Nerves , 1970. Collects works from 1966 to 1970.
• Selected Poems , Jonathan Cape, London, 1972.
• Behind the State Capitol; or Cincinnati Pike , The Good Gay Poets, 1975.
• Selected Poems: 1958–1984 , edited by Raymond Foye, Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, 1986.
• Cultural Affairs in Boston; Poetry and Prose, 1956–1985 , edited by Raymond Foye, Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, 1988.
• (The Journal of John Wieners to be called) 707 Scott Street for Billie Holliday 1959 , Sun & Moon Press, 1996.
• Broken Woman: 21 Pastels and 12 Poems , with pictures by Francesco Clemente, Black Sparrow, 1999.
• Kidnap Notes Next , edited by Jim Dunn, 2002.
• A Book of Prophecies , Bootstrap Press, Lowell, Mass., 2007. ISBN 978-0-9779975-4-1
• The Hotel Wentley poems , Stadtlichter Presse , Wenzendorf, 2012. Bilingual, from the American by Judith Pouget. ISBN 978-3-936271-59-1
• Dirt under my nails , Stadtlichter Presse , Wenzendorf, 2014. Bilingual, from the American, with foreword and afterword, by Judith Pouget. ISBN 978-3-936271-73-7

literature

• Charters, Ann (Ed.): The Portable Beat Reader . Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (pbk)

Web links

• Two poems by John Wieners
• University of Delaware John Wieners papers; Short biography
• A poem for record players, by John Wieners
• John Wieners resource page by Tom Raworth