Geoffrey Young: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

Geoff Young, Dec 2020. Background-- painting (detail) by Morgan Bulkeley, called 'Facing Heroes.'  Photo by Lillian Anderson.

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His Apprenticeship Never Occurred to Me While I Was out Surfing

 

I want to thank Bob Dylan

Not only for the songs and movies

But for the March 1978 Playboy interview

In which he tells how he got turned on to folk singing

 

He was fifteen years old

He owned an electric guitar, he loved Elvis

And then he heard Odetta’s first record

He learned every song on it

 

Proceeding to Harry Belafonte and The Kingston Trio

Uncovering more & more as he went along

Until finally he was doing nothing

But Carter Family and Jesse Fuller songs

 

At 19, the discovery of Woody Guthrie’s music

Opened up a whole new world

And like a bullet shot from a bow he entered it

Somehow I always figured that Zimmy was born

 

With the complete history of blues and folk

Just taped to his lungs

That when he breathed the songs came naturally to life

With the likes of Leroy Carr, Blind Willie McTell,

 

Leadbelly, Bill Monroe, and Muddy Waters

All harried bluesmen in dark caverns playing for drinks

Living from one clean white shirt in a cardboard suitcase to the next

As if Bob never had to read Kierkegaard or even sheet music

 

Or woodshed for endless teen hours

In order to strum axe and blow harp

At the same time, remembering

All those words, distorting voice for chorus after chorus

 

As if he never had to drive himself nuts

Just to write the songs in the first place

After twenty years, he said, I’m still using

Those same three chords, the ones Odetta played

 

And thanks for admitting it, Bob

I mean about Harry Belafonte

And The Kingston Trio, too

Jesus, we could be brothers!

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Born in 1944, Geoffrey Young grew up in San Diego.  After a Fulbright year in Paris, he worked at La Galerie Sonnabend for a spell.  In 1982 he moved from Berkeley to Great Barrington, Massachusetts.  Over a thirty-year period, his small press, The Figures, published more than 135 books of poetry, art writing, and fiction.  ◙ Recent books of his poetry and drawing include Pivot (2020), and Asides (2020). The trilogy:  Alibi (2019), Sauce (2018), and Sight Unseen (2018) exist in small editions. ◙  For twenty-seven years he directed the Geoffrey Young Gallery, which closed as of Christmas, 2018.   Over the years Young has written catalog essays for more than a dozen artists. [For more on Geoffrey Young, click here.]

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Comments

[Summer Brenner]

Geoff Young is a man in full: spirited poet, aficionado of music, prolific drawer, publisher, gallerist, and sportsman.

[Terence Winch]

And he has a great sense of direction.

[lally]

The amazing reality of the poems of Geoff Young is they always make music and fun and sense, even when they don't. He is one of my favorite poets, and I've never read a poem of his I didn't like. His recent books of sonnets are marvels, for instance. I'm grateful for any recognition his poetry gets, so thanks Terence.

[Gloria Frym]

Geoff Young is a great poet and the hippest person I know.

[Ella Baff]

I love his mind.

[Grace Cavalieri]

What a wonderful poet Geoffrey Young is:
To take such an enormous complexity in this poem and distill it to colloquialism is nothing less than profound. I needed reminding about him and now I'm going out to find more.

[Alan Bernheimer]

"a bullet shot from a bow": like each time Geoff picks up his pen or keyboard

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Michael.  Couldn't agree more.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Grace. Geoff is worth a full investigation.

[Doug Pell]

reading that poem just makes me feel good. I have been told that the purpose of art is to affect the reader/observer/listener, to allow that person to "see" in a fresh way. Here here, Geoffrey and thank you Terence.

[Morgan Bulkeley, Box 740, Mt. Washington, MA, 01258]

A distinct treat to have Geoffrey Young carry us through our pasts filled with music, feeling like Dylan’s sidekick......Morgan Bulkeley

[Bobbie Hallig]

He is all you people above claim and he is also just so damned much fun. I could never trust anyone who did not love Goeffrey Young and his poetry.

[Clovis Young]

Poppa Gee!

[David Grubin]

Here's a guy who has spent decades advocating for other artists, when all along he's been making art himself: writing poems, drawing pictures. It's wonderful to see him recognized for his own work as the artist he is. All Hail Geof Young!

[Terence Winch]

Doug---Glad you liked it.

[Jeff Blake]

Well, I agree with all the above. I can also attest that he cooks up a delightful cinnamon-flavored applesauce.
Like with his poetry and drawings, the man adds flavor and spice to all his endeavors.

[Jill Barrett Johnson]

Geoffrey Young tips us into bliss. He is rock solid, jazz piano and sax, brilliant.

[Beth Joselow]

A fine poem that makes me feel young again, bringin it all back home. Thank you Geoff. Thank you Terence.

[Sharon Lazerson]

So much fun and pleasure! Jesus, could we be siblings, too? Geoff makes delight inevitable.

[Matt Tannenbaum]

Thank you, Terence, for the pick, thank you Geoff for the poem, and for a lot of other poems, too, the ones where your heart comes out smiling, pleading, laughing, and sometimes with a tear or two. Happy New Year to us all.

[Thomas Fink]

Geoffrey Young's ability to turn biographical/historical information into lyricism in this Dylan poem (and various others) is marvelous. It may have something to do with his deft enjambments and the variation of line-lengths in his quatrains, but felicity of phrasing is probably the major factor.

[Terence Winch]

You're welcome. Glad you liked it, Matt.

[russell bidwell]

young geoff he wrights so goode. but dylan, i tink he woodshed a bit to get goode @pickin' guitar, an geoff, he woodshed up on Castle Hill in winter mode, he in various sweaters, an' longjohns...

and boots, all cause he too cheap to pay for heating costs, and so, to generate heat, he have brilliant thoughts...inspired poetics -- Hot Ideas--ice melting insights...endothermic entrails and all without any processed sugar.

so hot that when i open my mail and see poem book from friend geoff, i get a furnace blast of iambic pentameter, and opening to the signed title page, a warm small flame starts, one that grows with each poem, like the Tumo practice of the Tibetan Monks who can, in the snow, dry small sheets draped on their backs with the heat they generate with this yoga.

Corso said "everyone should stay in bed all day and eat big round pies and think..."

i think i'll stay in bed today and read all of the 43 books i have of geoff's poems. i will however eschew the big round pies. but i will be warm, and inspired..

thanks for helping me get through life...

[Don Berger]

I love the Great Hall this poem leads us through, "the complete history...Just taped to his lungs", and Kierkegaard--fantastic! I like how the poem's trail leads to more and more compression and intensity through the closing stanzas to the really pleasing end. We all in our days track influence, trace its branches--it's nice to see it done so powerfully here, in the form of this great song in itself.

[sue knoll]

Beautiful, Geoff -- the poet, artist, gallerist, publisher, supporter of all who create. Our lives would be better with more people like Geoffrey Young!