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

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Doug. It's all your fault.

[eileen reich]

Poetry speaks to all of us in a special way. Jamie MacInnis poems are true and wonderful.

[Susie Timmons]

Thanks for this. For some reason I seem to recall her being close friends with Jane Bliss Nodlund, but I could be mixed up..

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Susie. But who is Jane Bliss Nodlund?

[Dana Ward]

Thank u so much for this. I've always been so curious about her & what her poems were like. What a sweet surprise. L, Dana

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Dana. It's actually a nice surprise to me that you were even aware of her.

[William McPherson]

I'm joining the chorus. (Or should I be joining the choir?) This is a truly graceful piece, a lovely think. Was it Ezra Pound who said, "Art must make the difficult seem easy." That's what you do, Terence.

[Terence Winch]

Bill: Same to you, only double, as my friend Will would say.

[Lewis Ellingham]

For those of us who knew Jamie Macinnis in San Francisco in the 1980s, she remains a star. Her style seemed effortless, and probably was. The telling remark, in a poem quoted here, about the damage drugs do to dreams, is an example of how simply such devastation can be described, and was understood by her. That she may still be alive is a wonder.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Lewis, and thanks too for your book. I just got off the phone with the librarian at the Jamie A. MacInnis Memorial Library at the Art Institute of California-San Francisco, having called there wondering if somehow Jamie had wound up as a librarian. But it seems that "Jamie A. MacInnis" (also a poet) died in 2007 at ca. age 50, so they are not connected. How many SF poets named Jamie MacInnis could there be?

[Fitz Fitzgerald]

Thanks Terence for this excellent post and dialogue--there is jazz to spare and then some.

[Charles Fanning]

Lovely weave of words and pictures, Terry. Thanks as always.

[Dotty]

Are you still there? Curious in San Rafaael

[Terence Winch]

If you mean me---yes, I'm still around. I suspect Jamie is no longer with us.

[Dotty]

Hi. I wonder if you know where to get a copy of Jamie's books? I never knew her, but know many people who knew her intimately, including her former sister in law. I love what I've read of hers and want to read more. Thanks.

[Terence Winch]

I imagine that copies of "Practicing" must sometimes come available in the rare book marketplace. You'd just have to search Amazon, ABC books et al. Checking just now, I see that the Electronic Poetry Center does not seem to have the PDF of the book on the site. Too bad. Larry Fagin, who probably would have known where to look, has passed away since I put up this post. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[Dotty]

She actually is! With us. Not with me. But alive, and in touch with folks.

[Terence Winch]

I'm very happy to hear this. If you are in contact with her,
please tell her that I said hello.

[Jane W]

I knew Jamie & her family well. she lived with me for a time & wrote my name in glitter & glue on an old family piece of furniture of ours which I still have & see every day.

[Terence Winch]

Jane--- Thanks for your comment. When did you know Jamie, and do you know what eventually became of her?

[James McLennon]

Jamie & Her Daughter lived with me in my parents house in San Francisco at different times in the 1980's-90's. I loved her, a brilliant tragic figure. her daughter too. I believe Jamie has passed. I spent a lot of time with her & know much more than anyone should be privy to. so sad. I hate knowing what I will never be able to forget. seeing the pictures above brought me to tears. what a life she endured here on this spinning granite planet. I hope her spirit is at peace.

[Terence Winch]

James---Thanks for this information. I've always regretted that Jamie seemed to have disappeared from the literary landscape. She was a really good poet. My friend David Beaudouin also emailed me today to say that he thinks he found a current location for her in Oakland. If she is still alive, it would be great if someone could contact her, do an interview, etc.

[bertrand laurence]

I 'll never forget Jamie's warm, communicate presence Jamie dedicated "Practicing" to me when I was living at the Piano Factory in Boston, a treasured book.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for your comment. 

[Carol Szamatowicz]

Coming upon this ten years late and wondering what difference time has made. I knew Jamie and loved being in her presence, so focused on listening, so clear in responding. I once visited her brief apartment on 4th street and Ave A in NYC, in the late 70s. I remember standing in the bathroom, admiring, with her, the grand walk-in shower with glass door, with the one inch octagonal tiles so common to NY and in DiRoberti's cafe many of us frequented. Jamie was so preciously centered on the core of people and spoke to many of us in her poems one-on-one. Thank you for this.