Jamie MacInnis: Extravagant Talent [Terence Winch]

In February 1977, the alluring and gifted Jamie MacInnis came to Washington DC from New York to read with Doug Lang in one of the earliest of the legendary readings at Folio Books in Dupont Circle. This reading series was, in fact, organized by Doug.  But when I called him recently to check on Jamie’s historic, though brief, visit to DC, he thought she had read with me, not with him.  Neither of us has any convincing memory of the event.

It would be hard, however, not to remember Jamie herself.  She was about 35 at the time. Her one and only full-length book of poems, Practicing (Tombouctou, 1980), was still a few years in the future, but Hand Shadows, published by Larry Fagin’s Adventures in Poetry press, came out in the mid-1970s, filled with her characteristic witty, unpretentious work:

Jazz to Spare

A voice tells me there’s

jazz to spare. I don’t

know, it must be my own

voice.

“There’s jazz to spare,”

it says, but when I listen

to the music I worry that

there’s not enough to go

around.

  
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In December 1978, Fagin, who had a long-time on-and-off relationship with MacInnis, also published an edition of his magazine Un Poco Loco devoted to Jamie’s poems.  The writing in Hand Shadows and Un Poco Loco make up most of what wound up in Practicing.  Jamie and I connected, shall we say, during her visit to DC and wrote to each other for about a year. I have a dozen or so wonderfully smart, funny, unguarded letters from her.  One of them included a poem (“for Terry, obviously/from Jamie, obviously/ 6/77”) that later appeared in Practicing:

 

Irish Musician

The train starts by accident

leaving Washington D.C.

A flowered kimono lies wrinkled in my canvas bag.

The rays go dim as I travel east

out of your frequency.

You are like me

You admire people who like you.

I read your book

The Beautiful Indifference

looking for clues.

 

The train starts by accident

stopping in Newark.

Here, there’s a neighborhood,

Down Neck,

where people have grape arbors in their yards

next to ivy-walled factories.

Old Newark.

A man with a banjo sits in a chair.

 

The train starts by accident.

Big flowers.

A businessman tells me his story.

The train tells its story of people

having a drink at 80 miles per hour.

The factories go by telling their stories

in billboards and a hundred tiny windows

talking at once.

 

The letters stopped in early 1978, and I don’t believe I ever again heard from her.  So when she came to mind a few weeks ago, I did what we all do now—I went to Google in search of any information about her.  Two findings surprised me: one, that there was so little trace of her, not even a photo; and two, the one source I did find that mentions her at length (a book entitled Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance by Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian) reveals her vivid and dramatic role, previously unknown to me, as a 20-year-old beauty in Jack Spicer’s circle in the early 1960s:

“The daughter of a legendary trial lawyer, MacInnis was a woman of deep poise,  moving with ease between the worlds of the upper class and the bohemian Beat.  Among the habitués of Gino & Carlo’s, she stood out:  her shining young health,  beautiful bone structure, precise speech, and fine skin were a reproach to the pasty male drinkers she mixed with. She was stylish,  outspoken, and lovely.  ...She was extravagantly talented as a poet.”  

My favorite anecdote from this book involves an encounter she had with one of her detractors among Spicer’s set who said to her, “How would you like it if we took you out in the alley and gang-raped you?”  Jamie’s response: “Oh, dear, do you really consider yourselves a gang?”  That come-back would take some poise.

Larry Fagin alerted me to an uncaptioned photo of Jamie from a 1964 book called Our San Francisco, which appears above in this post; in addition, he sent me a scan of this ca.1970 fresco of Jamie by the late George Schneeman:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some sleuthing by Arlo Quint of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project suggests that Jamie, now around 71, may be living in San Francisco.

Jamie MacInnis was also an addict. In the poem "Science," she writes: “Heroin gives you its dreams/and takes yours away...”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Update, Jan. 19, 2014: I made a PDF of Practicing, which Charles Bernstein has added to the Electronic Poetry Center .  See this link. Some of the poems were slightly truncated in the scanning process, which I didn’t realize until too late. Apologies.]

Comments

[gracecavalieri]

This history peppered with memory is truly a treasure shared. Thank you. I love the poems too!

[lally]

Another brilliant post on poets who should be more well known. I remember Jamie in New York in the 1970s as a bit of an enigma, but a beautiful one who was one of the great "poet's poets" of that time. And remains so. Thanks for bringing attention to her life and work.

[beth joselow]

It seems she was (is) not to be missed. You have brought her words to life for those of us who never knew her. Thank you for thinking of Jamie MacInnis after so many years.

[Aram Saroyan]

Lovely piece and lovely poems.

[Toby Thompson]

Good poetry, intersting person. Wish Id known her.

[Holly Stewart]

Perfect description of how it feels when trains start! Thank you—I don't know how else I'd ever have stumbled upon this poem, or this woman's life.

[Michael O'Keefe]

This line: "You are like me

You admire people who like you.

I read your book

The Beautiful Indifference

looking for clues," strikes some kind of authentic "boing" on my inner radar. It's one of those things, once said, or written, that seems like a penetrating glimpse into the obvious. But in actuality it makes a deeper cut because it's lures you in as it critiques your interest.

Yet another interesting post by Terence Winch. Like to Roman philosopher he uses one "R" in the spelling of his name knowing that taking up less space on the page gives you more to say.

[Michael O'Keefe]

Like "the" Roman philosopher. "The" dammit. God, how I hate typos.

[Terence Winch]

You can't beat authenticity.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Michael. You receive several honorable mentions in her letters.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Grace.

[Simon Schuchat]

Jamie was a presence in New York when I lived there, her poems delicate and elegant. I always remember her wistful poem about the cartoons in the New Yorker -- full of the weight of her various pasts. Thanks Terry for bringing her back into the light.

[Tina]

That's a lady I'd love to meet ... some day ... in SF ... hope she sees this

[Barbara Talbot]

Nice piece. Makes me think of Maeve Brennan.

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Finding missing pieces in the collective puzzle, giving them a polish and putting them back, thank you Terry Winch. Indran

[Elinor Nauen]

Wonderful piece—& kind of wonderful to know people can still be elusive in this day & age. Thanks, TPW.

[Earle Hitchner]

Terence Winch's BAP post deserves the encomium expressed above. His vivid recollections, unforced insights, and seemingly effortless wit combine to render familiar subjects new and unfamiliar subjects somehow familiar. His is a rare talent, capable of bringing a bright spotlight to writers and writings that illuminates what we did not know and what we thought we knew but didn't about them. Bravo, Terence!

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Earle. Your comment reminds me of why I miss your Irish Echo column.

[Dan Gutstein]

great poems & great event. if only to have been there, for either you and doug, or doug and jamie, or jamie and you.

[ted greenwald]

jamie,I see her then, good poems, great smoker, leaning in eye-to-eye, slightly turned, listening. Like the poems.

[Galleryoflightandletters.blogspot.com]

Love these lines:

"a hundred tiny windows

talking at once."

That's exactly what it's like when you're a compulsive people-watcher and you're traveling at high speeds through a city...too much to look at, too much to take in, too many stories all at the same time...

[Eamonn Wall]

This is a lovely appreciation. I am delighted to know that there are writers like Terence Winch who write so well about the lives and work of their peers. The community of poets.

[DL]

Let me join the appreciative chorus, Terence Patrick. Thanks! -- DL

[lawrence welsh]

A fantastic send up. I read POET BE LIKE GOD when it first hit the streets. I got it from the UTEP library. The digging must continue here. There's a good chance, I bet, that she's dead. Most junkies I knew are. Some cleaned up. Perhaps, perhaps...I need to get her book...thanks...

[Doug Lang]

There are certain poets who seem to have been ordained with a kind of purity, who are totally present in their work, but not in a way that suggests their "ownership" of the poem. I think of John Godfrey in New York, and Chris Mason in Baltimore. And Jamie MacInnis, wherever she may be. I remember being in awe of the poems in Hand Shadows and Un Poco Loco. I do hope that she is alive and well.

I am so grateful to you for posting this wonderful portrait of Jamie, Terence. It is a great service to those who are familiar with her, and to those who are meeting her for the first time through your words (and her own).

I agree with Earle Hitchner's comment (above).