Jesse Paris Smith and Patti Smith at The Noguchi Museum (Photo: Patrick McMullan Company, 2012)

The subject of intergenerational performers has been dear to my heart since I learned that my maternal grandmother’s family had broadcast a live AM radio show on Saturday nights from New York City in the Thirties and Forties. I was inspired to explore the topic further while attending Patti Smith concerts in NYC and Baltimore, where her son Jackson and her daughter Jesse joined her onstage. Since I am a musician and the theme of the upcoming LPR issue is music, I wanted to share what I learned. To get it right, I enlisted the help of Jesse Paris Smith, Patti Smith’s daughter.

Jesse describes her mother as “a true Renaissance woman,” which is evident from any bio. Known as “the Godmother of Punk,” Patti is a singer-songwriter, a poet and a visual artist. In 2005, she was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2010, she received the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids and an ASCAP Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011, she won a Polar Music Prize. And it won’t end there.

Jesse, whose guitarist father is the late Fred “Sonic” Smith, notes reverberations of Patti’s polymath persona in herself. Growing up in Michigan, Jesse recalls picking out melodies on the family piano. She never took it seriously until she heard her music teacher play Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” Soon she was taking lessons, and music was becoming increasingly important. But she never intended to become a musician, considering environmental science as a career. In a college essay, she acknowledged the difficulty of deciding. Then she received an acceptance letter that asked, “Why choose between music and science? Maybe you can find a way to combine them and do both?”

Jesse says that her mother never planned a music career, either. “I think she believed that as she was following a path to be an artist, poet and writer, it happened that way by chance and fate. Music became the common voice that allowed her to carry her thoughts in a broader way and to reach people in a more accessible manner.” Jesse acknowledges envying those who have one dominant capability that they master but concludes,

There are all different kinds of people, and finding your clear path and purpose sometimes includes following a lot of different paths, a lifelong pursuit of learning and ever expanding and growing. My mom has never stopped learning, expanding her mind and knowledge and following through with her creative endeavors and projects. She loves to be busy and loves to work and create. And that is very admirable.

When she was 16, Jesse collaborated with her mother on the album Trampin’:

…she wanted to do a version of the old gospel song where the title comes from. She had a vinyl of Marian Anderson singing it, accompanied by piano, but we didn’t have any sheet music. My piano teacher worked with me, transposing the vinyl to sheet music, working out a lovely arrangement for me to play. So our piano lessons for a while were focused on learning “Trampin’” in time to record it for my mom’s album. When I was ready to play it, we went to Looking Glass, Philip Glass’s recording studio in NYC, and played it for the first time together, and that first take is what is on the Trampin’ album. I’m not sure it was a take that my teacher would have been very proud of and maybe if we would have tried it a few more times it would have sounded better, but there is something very human and humble about going with that first take, especially since I was so young and it was a mother-daughter recording, our first meeting at the song after having our own journey with it.

Listen here and judge for yourself:

Jesse subsequently collaborated with other musicians in the Detroit and NYC areas and has been involved in many multimedia events, especially those in art galleries and museums. In particular, she has been working with Eric Hoegemeyer, a multifaceted musician, composer and engineer whom she met in Detroit and who eventually relocated to NYC, where Jesse now lives. She and Eric share Tree Laboratory, a studio in Brooklyn.

She considers the Patti Smith Band to be family, since she’s known the members all her life and feels she that she has learned so much about musicianship through watching and working with them. During her summers as a teenager, she was involved in behind-the-scenes aspects, learning about production, staging and touring. One summer, there was a change in the lineup. A keyboard player was needed, and she was asked to fill in. She still remembers the first song that she played with the group: “Pissing in a River.”

She describes working with her mother by saying, “She is a true performer, and it’s amazing to watch. The stage presence, confidence and energy she has is remarkable.” She credits her mother with helping her dive into new worlds.

She will do something like bring some poems, part of a book or stories or a letter to me, and we will talk about what is happening in it, what it sounds like, the mood of the different lines and parts of the text. And through looking at that and talking about it, write a piece of music that corresponds to it. Another way we will work is that I will write a piece of music and bring it to her and she will think of a piece of writing or look for something that she thinks fits with the music, and we will try it out. If it doesn’t quite fit, we will find another text that suits it better.

An annual event where Jesse and Patti present is a performance at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. They select an exhibit and create a musical program in response to the subject matter. Jesse also composes pieces, and her mother reads a variety of texts appropriate to the subject matter. In 2012, her tenth performance there, Patti paid tribute to Andy Warhol, her fellow traveler in the Seventies.

Jesse, Jackson and Patti Smith playing at the Detroit Institute of Arts with a Diego Rivera fresco as the backdrop. (Photo: Michelle Pesta Culkowski)

Jesse also performs with her brother Jackson, a Detroit-based guitarist. “When I play music with my brother and my mom, it feels even more like family. My brother is such a technically advanced and gifted musician, and when we all play together we just laugh and have fun.” She says the same about performing with Eric, who will join her and Patti in an upcoming Met performance this fall.

Making multigenerational music has worked well for Jesse:

My family and I, as well as Eric, have developed a rapport working and playing together, developing our language and collaboration skills. This has helped teach me to relax, breathe properly and find the right notes. It’s so wonderful to work with people who believe in you. Music helps you to develop in so many areas of your life. It helps you with your brain functions, with developing your creative mind and exploring different facets of the world, which leads you in all directions. Just like how on an instrument there are so many songs and pieces just waiting to be written and found. It’s the common language of the world. It is a pretty remarkable thing.

And what does Patti Smith herself feel about the future of her musical family? She says,

I feel very optimistic about our future, collectively and individually. We are all healthy, positive and diligent workers and have a loving and communicative relationship. Professionally, I believe we will continue to evolve. I look forward to recording and performing with both of them. The three of us together really magnify the memory of their father. Jesse and I are planning our own album. So, as Elvis Presley sang, “The future looks bright ahead.”

Note: For information about upcoming releases and events, check Patti Smith’s website. And keep an eye out for Jesse’s new site (jesseparissmith.com), which will go live soon.

We love getting your reactions to the material that we post. If your message contains new information or images, we may even publish it as a separate piece. Here’s how I came upon–and combined–what two of our readers, one a member of the LPR staff, the other a contributor working on a post for our blog, sent me in response to my “LPR Loves…Acoustic Art.”

Jen Grow (Photo: Bill Hughes)

I started my short piece on acoustic art by saying that when I sit down to write, I first turn on my computer, then turn on my music. I assumed that most creative types were similar in that respect to me and artist Jennie C. Jones, the subject of the piece. Turns out that I was wrong.

In the comments section of the posted piece, LPR Fiction Editor Jen Grow, a pleasant person who frequently has the good sense to agree with me, wrote the following paragraph (italics mine):

I never listen to music while I’m writing. However, I tend to obsess about music in a way that makes me listen to the same song or cd a million times successively. Something about the mood of the music allows me to access certain memories or emotions. That’s how I came to write a story in response to on a Patti Smith song…

That someone good writes in silence was interesting enough. But I had scheduled a piece by Lorraine Whittlesey about Smith for the middle of May, so I needed to know more.

First, I listened to Smith’s song “Don’t Say Nothing,” which Jen subsequently said had served as the inspiration for her story. It’s pretty good, so you might want to do so, too.

Then I read the story, “Fixed.” It is unpublished as yet but will be part of a collection that Jen hopes to put out next year. You can read it here right now by clicking on the link.

I might have been foolish enough to attempt to explain how the song relates to the story had Karen Garthe not saved me. Karen, you see, was slated to prepare a piece for the blog on how music drives the type of poetry that she pens. Instead, she sent me a work in progress that “demonstrates rather than analyzes” the role of music of her poetry.

Karen Garthe (Photo: Lisa Khan-Kapadia)

“I LOVE being surprised,” I replied. Then, to buy time while I figured out how on Earth to reproduce the poem’s complex formatting with the meager tools that this blog afforded, I sought her response to that acoustic art piece, expecting that she would describe the playlist that she used while working. Instead, she offered the following (italics mine):

…Curiously, I cannot imagine trying to write to any music but silence. The search for silence, peace and quiet…why I am practically a pilgrim of. If there is music on I will listen to it, it will take the foreground even if it is intended as background. It’s impossible for me to do anything but completely listen to music if it’s on, which is how come I’ll turn off the radio in a car if a conversation is being had, and why I become wildly distressed, even unhinged sometimes, by unwanted music/sounds, which includes (especially on the subway) other people whose earbuds are shrieking whatever awfulness. Never anything good, usually.

That said, nothing is more important to me than music and I couldn’t live without it. Music and Silence are my ideals…I’m a terrible autocrat here. It’s one or the other.

So I had another Jen on my hands. “Fine,” I said to myself. “I’ll present Smith’s song and Jen’s story while silencing my own analytic mind. And, as a matter of respect, I’ll do the same for Karen’s set. With no further comment from me.” Or some words to that effect.

So, listen to Karen’s inspiration, a section of pianist Glenn Gould’s radio documentary The Idea of North, part of his Solitude Trilogy. There’s a voice pileup at the beginning, a method that he has called “contrapuntal radio,” then Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5.

And here’s “Hey Now,” Karen’s contrapuntal poem. But you’ll have to click on the link to read it as she sent it. I never managed to come up with a way to transfer the formatting.

I should end without another word. But I must add that more than poetry connects Karen to music. In the Sixties, she moved from Baltimore to New York City to attend the American Ballet Theater school and later studied with Merce Cunningham. And in the Seventies, she worked for The Wartoke Concern, managing Patti Smith, among others.

Rebekah Remington (Photo: Stephen Jonke)

I find it hard to believe Rebekah Remington when she tells me that she’s dealt with failure. Rebekah is the winner of the 2013 Clarinda Harriss Poetry Prize for her chapbook Asphalt. It is a solid collection, marked by eloquence and vision. I believe it to be a success but am sympathetic to her remarks.

Of course she has dealt with failure. We all have. Just the process of writing this blog post, my first for Little Patuxent Review, has me pulling out my hair over possible failure. And when I read through “Little Invocation” and “I Call Her Inez,” the chapbook’s first and sixth poems, I think of the first rejection letter that I received. Like the speaker, I, too, “feel enough failure as it is.” I remember thinking, what do I do now?

When I ask Rebekah about the character Inez and the idea behind the piece, she replies that she once watched a video of the Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame speaking about artistic inspiration. What did Remington take away from the video?

I think Gilbert’s main point was to put in your writing time. Don’t get too stuck on the idea of success or the idea of failure. When things don’t work out, blame it on the muse. I had experienced a lot of failure, so I decided to write about my love-hate relationship with my muse.

But who does she see in a positive light? To whom does she turn for inspiration?

“Mainly other poets,” Rebekah says. Elizabeth Bishop, Louise Glück and CD Wright are named. In particular, she mentions the recent collection Space, In Chains by Laura Kasischke, which earned the 2011 National Book Critics Circle poetry award. I have to look up Kasischke but immediately understand why Rebekah is drawn to her work. Kasischke has been hailed by critics for her honest but respectful portrayals of domestic life and the different stages of adolescence and adulthood.

There is a definite presence of the domestic life in Asphalt. And while Remington admits that she is unsure whether the book as a whole has a narrative arc, I can see recurring themes. Remington calls them “obsessions.” Those obsessions include motherhood, childhood, time and death. I thought that I saw some Asian references, particularly in “School Morning,” “Wanting” and the title poem. That is new to Remington.

It’s interesting that you noticed that. I really don’t know that much about Asian cultures. Before I had children, I saw a lot of foreign films. Probably some of the images stuck. I’m thinking of Raise the Red Lantern, Farewell My Concubine, To Live. I love the way film can transport.

More failure on my part? I would like to think of it more as subjective interpretation.

And, yes, a powerful film can transport the viewer. The same way a that powerful poem can transport the reader. For me, it was the beauty of the last two lines of the simple but earnest poem “Goat.” I mouthed the words over and over, loving how they came out.

The sky had taken on a shapeliness like
a flood plain
in an aftermath, an eerie pinkish
erasure.

Of course, I laugh when I learn that the ending of that poem did not come easily to Rebekah. She says that she rewrote it many times before coming to the above.

There is no mistaking the speaker’s role as a mother. Bits of train track and LEGO pieces, piano lessons and the pivotal moment of learning to ride a bike are strewn across the chapbook. And isn’t there an interesting relevance to those previous feelings of failure when it comes to motherhood?

One of the challenges of parenting is getting your children out in the world and exposing them to things. I’m not sure I’m good at that, but I’m trying.

When we place the mundane aspects of domestic life in the context of such serious contemplations, it is no wonder that poetic expressions about the domestic life can be so emotional and riveting.

The concept of time changes as well. Mothers such as the one in “In Praise of the Last Hour of the Afternoon” would “trade pearls for quiet” and cherish just a few more minutes in bed with the bedroom door locked in “January Morning.”

I find it understandable, if not comical, that in more than one poem we find Rebekah’s speaker thinking about how much she wants a drink.

Rebekah is far from being the only mother or writer who has doubts about herself. But, a perk to being creative types is that we have the benefit of blaming the self-doubts and feelings of failure on our muses. Blame it on Inez, Rebekah.

Rebekah Remington received her bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, taking classes taught by David St. John and Peter Sacks. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan. She is currently an adjunct professor at Towson University, where she teaches Introduction to Poetry. (I am sorry that we never crossed paths.) Her work has been published in Rattle, Ninth Letter and The Missouri Review. Once in 4th grade, she won a prize for a patriotic poem that she wrote in honor of the nation’s bicentennial celebration. She lives in Catonsville, MD with her husband and children.

The Clarinda Harriss Poetry Prize, sponsored by City Lit Project, was established in 2009 by poet and neurosurgeon Michael Salcman. He wanted to honor the poet, publisher and teacher Clarinda Harriss and her lifetime of service dedicated to the literary arts. Clarinda is the founder, director and editor BrickHouse Books, established in 1970 and, as such, Maryland’s oldest continuously operating literary press.

Michael is also the Little Patuxent Review Art Consultant and Clarinda a regular contributor to both LPR print issues and our blog, so there are connections. What’s more, the judge for the 2013 prize was poet Marie Howe, who happens to be featured in the upcoming LPR Summer 2013 Music issue. And previous prize winners include LPR print and blog contributor Bruce Sager (2011) and LPR Editor Laura Shovan (2010).

Carolyn Case’s 2012 Blue Versus Blue, oil on panel.

I know Clarinda as a poetry professor and BhB editor. After taking her poetry class at Towson, I interned for a year at BhB as an assistant editor. She has worked with Ogden Nash, partied with Michael Stipe and taught one of the best poetry classes that I have ever taken. My time spent with her is invaluable to me as a young writer, and I completely get why such a dynamic and delightful individual has a prize in her name.

Rebekah’s book will be published by CityLit Press. A painting by Carolyn Case, an artist teaching at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), will be used for the cover design.

Truth Thomas on the red carpet at this year’s NAACP Image Awards event, where his book Speak Water won in the poetry category.

I liked Truth Thomas the moment that I met him and soon came to appreciate his poetry. But I never knew how much until I heard him read “What The Snake Whispered in Eve’s Ear,” which eventually made its way into his book Speak Water, which eventually won him the 2013 NAACP Image Award for poetry. When he told me that he was a musician as well as a poet, it suddenly all made sense. (Click here to see for yourself.)

I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say, as Ezra Pound once did, “Poets who will not study music are defective.” And, after posting musician-poet Dylan Bargteil’s comment regarding my piece “There’s Reading, Then There’s the Reading,” I can’t even say with certainty that being a musician gives anyone an advantage when it comes to compellingly conveying the written word to a roomful of people. But I do know that when it comes to Truth, in particular, being both a musician and a poet creates a special synergy.

So I asked Truth how just how that works for him. Here’s his reply:

It is an honor and a privilege to be counted as a musician and to be called a poet. I am the confluence of both arts and identities, which has proved to be a lifelong joy. Many thanks to my sister Ilse Munro for her kind invitation to share a few words on the subject of my life as a musician and a poet.

I think it is important that I point out from the start that I only speak for one musician-poet, namely me. My respect and love of music and musicians, poets and versifiers is wholehearted, so my reflection must be a humble one. I would never presume to paint one life experience over the complexities of all my creative kin. Every artist is singular, and every artist’s journey is unique.

However, I do think that most musicians, poets and musician-poets would agree that to be good in any expression of art represents the acquisition of calluses. Some of those calluses must be born in the physical realm of the practice room, but the most important calluses to develop as an artist must be suffered by the soul. Any serious musician who attempts to make a lasting mark on the score of the world will endure rejection. The same world of rejection is enduring fact of the writer’s life. You have to be strong to deal with all of that. I am strong. I’ve had to be.

I came to music as a singer-songwriter and pianist in the early Eighties, signed to Capitol Records by Don Cornelius and known as Glenn Edward Thomas. I came to poetry in the same period. Of course, I was so consumed by music that any technical awareness of the poetry in my music was incidental. While I recognized that music and poetry were related, that fresh narratives and lyrics without clichés were important to songwriting, the idea that words could exist and captivate without music did not move me at the time. That epiphany would come years later, once I returned from Europe to the States and began my formal study of poetry.

Being a professional musician was then, as it is now, about gigging and making as much money as you can in that endeavor. Mind you, the record industry in the Eighties still existed as an entity that could potentially make an artist a great deal of money. Consequently, in that period of my life my focus—Don Cornelius’ focus—was on making hit records, not on making hit poems.

It is interesting to see the evolution—or dissolution—of the record industry over the years. It used to be broken in favor of the record companies. Now, it’s broken for everybody. That notwithstanding, if you can play you can still make a living in the Twenty-first Century music industry. While you may have to be more creative to redefine the record business in a way that makes that possible, it is possible. Again, you have to be strong. Perhaps the best answer to the question of what it’s like to be any kind of working artist must be penciled in on a page of strength.

The worlds of music and poetry are two different planets. That has to be stated plainly. Musicians often rely on ensemble interactions to hone their skills and to perform. The group is the thing for musicians, although there are exceptions. Composers write for orchestras and are exhilarated when their works are brought to life by fine families of instrumentalists. While poets may spend time with master writers in workshop settings, poets lean inward. They engage in a great deal of reading and solitary composition. Certainly poets—even iconic writers—get feedback from their peers, but the poet’s creative process is often a passionate solo expression.

My artistic life is both an ensemble collaboration and a hermit’s walk. I thank God for that. It is refreshing to spend time practicing and expressing art through music with other musicians after I have spent a great deal of time alone with the pen in poetry. I need the release that comes with company.

The experiences that I have had as a professional musician also inform my approach to poetry and the business of books. I don’t regard any competition other than the competition that focuses inward; that competition is only with me being the best writer that I can be. Similarly, I don’t regard any one group, canon, literary tradition or literary business approach as god, as something immutable to be worshiped, as something that cannot be challenged and creatively transcended.

In fairness, while the territories of music and poetry are different, there is significant overlap. Most musicians want to be heard, as do most poets. Big egos, big hustles and big cliques abound in both artistic settings. There is no sugar-coating that. However, the creative weight of both genres is significant and of equal value, at least for me.

Without question, many poets write while immersed in music. Langston Hughes often wrote in blues clubs. He also traveled with a typewriter and a record player for his 78s. Conversely, many musicians are inspired to create compositions as a result of their encounters with poetry. The iconic song “Strange Fruit,” popularized by Billie Holiday, was inspired by a poem written by Abel Meeropol.

And serving on literary journal editorial boards such as those of Little Patuxent Review and Tidal Basin Review feels a lot like musical collaboration. No doubt, any thoughtfully published journal is something akin to a symphony of words. Still, a legitimate orchestra-like composition comprised entirely of poetry would be a wonderfully satisfying piece to witness. I’m still waiting to hear it.

There are times when I feel that I exist between two worlds, and balancing those two artistic residences is difficult. As previously mentioned, to be an artist of note in any genre requires hard work. Music is all-consuming. Poetry is equally so. There are only so many hours in a day. As both music and poetry are so much a part of me, the quest to master both art forms—and to succeed on a high level—never dissipates. For me, the challenge is finding the time to invest to be great in both genres. Yes, it’s a strength walk, a faith walk and a journey that requires a great deal of discipline.

Fortunately, God has blessed me with a supportive family. He has also guided me at every stage of my artistic journey. When the time was right, I was blessed to have a recording contract with a major record label. When the time was right, I was blessed to have publishing success and, most recently, to win the NAACP Image Award for poetry. Despite high artistic ambitions, I do not know what lies ahead. But I trust God. Perhaps the best insight that I can offer is that creativity cannot be controlled—or balanced evenly like scales—when it comes to growth and achievement. Being an artist is less a matter of managing talents and more a practice of yielding to them.

I am grateful for all the great musicians and musician-poets who continue to inspire me: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Roy Nathanson, Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott-Heron, Nina Simone and Patti Smith, to name a few. It is always good to know that you are not alone, even as a poet who writes alone. To be able to put a song on by a great artist is almost like an ensemble experience.

I suspect that when the Little Patuxent Review Music issue launches this summer, the act of reading will feel like a similar ensemble experience for all who have the good fortune to absorb it. My hope is that our audience will give themselves over completely to it, just as our editors and contributors have given themselves over to creation of a one-of-a-kind piece of musical literary art.

Now, I know that I shouldn’t spoil what Truth shared by being that annoying aunt who can’t resist pulling out those long-lost photographs you wished would stay that way and showing them to strangers. But here is how our award-winning poet looked and sounded back in the days when the creator of Soul Train signed him. I’d say it was pretty good.

Truth Thomas is a singer-songwriter and poet born in Knoxville, Tennessee and raised in Washington, DC. He studied creative writing at Howard University and earned his MFA in poetry at New England College. His collections include Party of Black, A Day of Presence, Bottle of Life and Speak Water, winner of the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. His poems have appeared in over 70 publications, including The 100 Best African American Poems, and been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He serves on the editorial boards of Tidal Basin Review and Little Patuxent Review, guest-editing the Social Justice issue for the latter, and is the founder of Cherry Castle Publishing. A former writer-in-residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo), he currently serves on the HoCoPoLitSo board. 

We keep coming across amazing material that doesn’t fit neatly into any of the pieces that we’re preparing. So we started the “LPR Loves…” series, where we simply share it with you without too much additional comment.

Jennie C. Jones’s Soft Gray Tone with Reverberation, 2013.
Acoustic sound absorbing panel and acrylic on canvas.

When I sit down to write, I turn on my computer. Then turn on my music. And don’t give the latter much more thought than the former. Jennie C. Jones, a Brooklyn-based visual artist, also had a soundtrack for her work. Only one day she started to give it some serious thought.

The result was worthy of a $50,000 Wein Prize, awarded annually by the Studio Museum in Harlem to an African-American artist and started by George Wein, a promoter who founded the Newport Jazz Festival, in honor of his late wife, a longtime trustee of the museum.

Jones creates visual and acoustic abstractions that explore the histories of music and sound. Calling her approach “listening as a conceptual practice,” she is influenced by the Fifties and Sixties, drawing upon experimental jazz and minimalist art and embracing improvisation, found objects and the material culture of music.

Here’s Jones in her own words and images:

Jennie C. Jones from Smack Mellon on Vimeo.

How does your playlist influence your creative work? Leave a reply to let us know.

Kathleen Hellen’s award-winning poetry book

Kathleen Hellen’s Umberto’s Night won the 2012 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize. Its black cover, with an apocalyptic image of a city under an atomic fireball, hints at much of the content, made explicit by an epigraph from Umberto Eco’s Travels in Hyperreality: “as if along a river, you go by an invaded city…the city burns like a match…everything collapses in flames…”

The flames—sometimes literal, sometimes figurative—describe the pain carried by the speakers and characters observed in these finely crafted poems. There are drug addicts, ex-cons, murder victims, Vietnam veterans, blue-collar workers, slapped children, all vividly detailed in compact phrases. Their stories are stories of violence, whether on city streets, in battlegrounds or echoed ironically on a football field.

Hellen delivers her vivid and sometimes horrific images with exquisite beauty in poems that are meant to be read aloud. Listen to the half-rhyme and guttural consonants in these lines from “Reruns of Lassie”:

No chance of Timmy asking: “What is it, Lassie?
Who needs help?” No dog at all. Or gone.
Devoured by wolves. The dogs with bigger teeth.

The book is divided into five sections. The poems in Part 1 are told in a variety of voices—a teacher, a lover, a woman under arrest. They portray Baltimore as “a town too old for beginnings,” a city that swallows up A-students into unrelenting violence. In “Nine Circles,” a little boy experiences gunfire as a

ringing in his ears

that left a hole
in her thigh
the size
of a button.

In “Eight,” the speaker asks “who got shot in Druid Park? / whose throat was cut?”

Part 2 seems to follow the arc of a relationship that ends, as too many relationships do, in domestic violence. Here are scenes in a courtroom with a blasé judge who “has heard it all,” a victim who can feel her attacker “here in the bones of my throat” and poems filled with images of menacing hands, scars and cuts.

Yet the final poem in this section, “Palpable,” has two lovers in front of a late-night bakery, writing “love / backward on the glass” as they admire a display of glazed fruit tarts and watch the bakers with pans of freshly baked sweet rolls. Are these the same people who, earlier in this section, met on the Internet and then in person? If so, is this a flashback? Or simply a warning that any relationship might end badly, and that whether it will—or won’t—may be foreshadowed by “a drunkard’s quilt”?

Part 3 contrasts the foreignness of war with the domestic, day-to-day coping on the home front. Both soldiers and those left behind search, mostly unsuccessfully, for love. Nightmare images occur throughout this section: a football game morphs into a real battlefield, a year “shell shocked,” Vietnam slipping into innumerable conflicts in the Middle East. People and memories seem to become “[l]iving holographs”:

The night inside a night until
attention must be tipped
to darkness in its layers.

The final poem in this section leaves us in the “blackest Appalachians,” leading us right into Part 4’s mining and steel mill towns along the polluted Monongahela River. The night is lit by “a Frankenstein” of coke furnaces. The air smells sulfuric. Factories close, workers are laid off, their children go hungry. In the poem “A Pillar of Fire by Night,” Hellen gives us mattresses “in exodus,” offices “tight-lipped in their failures,” a way of life that was “there, then it wasn’t.”

Kathleen Hellen

Part 5 moves between disasters of varying scale, from those affecting millions, such as Hurricane Irene, to a car accident, from which the speaker escapes in the nick of time. Dandelions “implode” as they are mowed down; people, like comets, “burn out long before the accident of touch.” We lose those we love, see their ghosts in puddles or in dust. Through it all, these poems argue, hope persists, sometimes shaped like a daffodil, sometimes the human heart.

In addition to Umberto’s Night, Hellen has published The Girl Who Loved Mothra. Her poems have appeared in a range of journals and been featured on WYPR’s The Signal. In addition to the Feldman prize, she has received awards from H.O.W. Journal, Washington Square Review, Thomas Merton Institute and  Appalachian Writers Association. Her work has been supported by grants from the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts and Maryland State Arts Council.

Note: Pat Valdata will appear this Saturday at our CityLit Festival reading.

A journal such as ours requires a vibrant literary and artistic environment to thrive—and even survive. In appreciation of the various cultural entities around us, we present “Meet the Neighbors,” a series where we provide you with personal introductions to a diverse assortment.

Barrett Warner with bean truck (Photo: Bruce Leopold)

The Free State Review website caught my eye with an elegant layout and excellent photography. And kept my interest with statements that revealed a strong sense of identity. There was a focus on “place and experience.” On “authors who live the poem—story—essay before they write it” and provide “some glimpse of a genuine moment in this high concept world, reflected pieces of the real.” And exhibit “engagement and grace.”

That was what I’d tried to achieve in my own work. I would’ve been happy to submit a story had the 3000 word limit not stopped me short. Undaunted, I decided to do the next best thing. I contacted the editors—there seemed to be four—to ask, “So, what is your story?” One of them, writer and reviewer Barrett Warner, was pleased to oblige. Here’s how he responded:

We never had a sign that said, Right now, start a new literary review. There weren’t any voices in the winds. No beautiful angels flying into our minds, nesting on our sternums, singing in our ears. We just found each other.

Editor Hal Burdett found himself when he retired. It took him 81 years, 60 of those spent writing columns in The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Times and other Metro newspapers. Raphaela Cassandra found Hal. The May-December pair next found poet J. Wesley Clark. It wasn’t hard to spot Jim. His familiar beard has grown through ten US presidents. He has published 11 poems a year for over 50 years in well over 300 literary magazines. His books include Daughter of the South County, Asleep With Whippoorwills: New & Selected Poems 1970-1995 and I Am Paraguay.

Jim found me. I’d been dodging success as a poet for 30 years and begun focusing on book reviews and essays. I’d written 35 in the previous year, enough to see a lot of new writers and styles and exciting presses. I was thrilled and jealous, especially when writing reflected experience that was “street” but had a polished sense of craft.

All of us had a feeling that writers in the region shared a dream about life. We also knew that elastic forms existed all over the planet. Creating Free State Review was a way to combine them—writers who smelled of seawater, writers who had metal parts and others scented by chlorine or mud. The language seduces us. When words are set beside vigorously lived moments, the experiences dazzle and the art moves us deeply.

We knew that we needed a website, whatever that was, but we had no idea how to advertise that we were accepting submissions except by word of mouth. We wagged our chin-choppers for three months before anything appeared in our box. The first parcel we considered included poems by Chris Toll, Edgar Gabriel Silex, Barbara DeCesare and Jessica Lynn Dotson. The first three were veterans, having eight books between them, but Jessica was a new arrival. She wrote about auto mechanics and had only had one poem posted—and that on a site since abandoned.

Others slowly handed over some poems or an essay or a short. Some such as Rachel Adams and Scott King were strangers who came to us the way that editors sometimes have of sensing other editors. Some such as Beth Spires and James Robison were friends who wanted to go on the journey. There was only one rejection for that first issue. Our raft was a big one, and the Argo could make a sailor out of any cowboy.

The first issue, Winter 2013

The press given about our first issue, its growing distribution (Hal, like all good newspaper reporters, is a fanatic about distribution), our crazy launch at Ram’s Head in Annapolis and the rising murmurs about our next issue were impossible to predict, especially given the small number of submissions.

I’d been courting Bethany Shultz Hurst for almost a year, following her work in literary journals across the country, anticipating a book that I wanted to review. After we accepted her poems, she became a finalist in the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, as did the local author Katherine Cottle, who had some great titles with Apprentice House. Similarly, our new poet Jessica subsequently had poems accepted by five other journals and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

We’ve since come to pride ourselves on seeking and finding authors on the rise, at times weeks, at times months shy of a break-out year. In the next issue, there are two authors, Kevin Lavey and Dan Ferrara, who would make me shake.

I found Kevin’s story in a pile of rejections for a fiction contest run by the Maryland Writers’ Association. It was the only one that I liked. Kevin and I met for coffee at Artifact and talked it through three or four revisions before we accepted it. A month later, he received a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Fiction. Dan Ferrara—who knows where this cat’s going to prowl in six months? Mostly the demons chase us, but every so often a certain writer turns and chases those demons right back. Ferrara’s got a purr that would scare any hungry coyote.

A reporter asked last month if there was a particular writer that I hoped to get into our journal. Yes, I answered, but the perfect writer has no name, no zip code. We’re searching, turning over stones, hoping that he or she will find us. Perfection isn’t a state, it’s just a single moment in a changing, stirred-up world. Here’s the dope: we’re trying to meet those moments and connect and put them into print.

It’s partly beginner’s luck that we found so many talented authors, but the fact is that we’re not beginners. Hal had came up at The Sun under HL Mencken, and that wizard’s two literary journals had sparked an early interest for the enlightened conversation that the arts bring to our day-to-day. Jim was a foreign correspondent in Mexico and Cuba. We’re an older Sunshine Club of hard-knocking dreamers.

So we’re different from other new magazines started by much younger types with lots of energy and visions of changing the world or maybe doing something with their MFAs. We’ve seen so many movements and presses and writers come and go, even actual revolution. You develop an instinct for sensing when you’re glimpsing a real modern-day Icarus and when it’s only a wad of feathers passing overhead. Jim says, “The first step in writing from the gut is to have plenty of guts.”

Ours isn’t the coolest, hippest journal out there. We’re no Fence, Coconut, Dzanc or Mud Luscious. We’re no Adam Robinson. And we don’t know all those stars making life-changing one-shot films or posting about zeroism or “the new severity.” We’re too old school for that. We still enjoy reading without having to plug in something, all the more so if we’re snuggled under a quilt. And we believe in public readings, in the live poetry scene, in bringing words to people’s ears and not just their eyes.

Raphaela is helping us with this, setting up readings at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, East End Book Exchange in Pittsburgh, Minás Gallery in Baltimore and Mystery Loves Company in Easton. Her take is that life is too messy without literature. Raphaela designs robots at the Naval Academy and helped attract St. John’s College astrophysicist and poet Jim Beall to the Review. His “Odysseus” includes images such as “axe murderer” and a boat run aground in the mountains “wrestling with legacies” as he speculates about the poet and dreamer in each of us.

Hal could talk the leg off a dead mule, but it’s not all a sales pitch and I believe him when he talks about empathy. He says,

In the modernist world, the heroes are all lonely creatures. They deal with their mortality all alone. There’s not much tension in that, but these Free State Review authors focus on moments of separation and slipping away, the husband taking a job somewhere else, the father endlessly repairing his car in a late night garage but driving nowhere or a brother’s suicide. Empathy is the perfect countermeasure for 21^st Century isolation.

This is why Free State Review is not just a journal. It’s a love affair. Maybe we saw something for a moment and suddenly knew that our lives would be different. Knew this in spite of our eyes being bloody from staring at nothing so long. We saw it and knew that we wanted this love, this flash of hope, this electric profile that was there for an instant, then was gone. So, this time we decided to follow it, to see where it led and—chanting some and jigging some—disappear into its miracle of words.

As someone who is new to the world of literary publishing but not the world at large, I wish Barrett and his band of seasoned beginners all the best. And remind them that small literary journals like ours have a cultural influence that is disproportionate to their size.

Note: See the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses piece “Independent Presses and ‘Little’ Magazines in American Culture: A Forty-Year Retrospective.”

At LPR online, emerging and lesser-known writers and artists have always received precedence. But—first and foremost—we love showcasing those whose debut literary and artistic works have appeared on our pages. Which is why we started work on such a list, posted on this site, and the “First and Foremost” series, where our “firsts” can speak for themselves.

To get things going, here’s Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, whose first published short fiction piece appeared in our Winter 2013 Doubt issue.

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

One day, I started hearing voices. I had been warned that this might happen, but it still came as a shock when they arrived.

The first to speak was Isabelle. I was driving home late one evening from a friend’s house when I passed a furniture store that I had passed many times before. The business is in a renovated warehouse fronted by a plate glass window that offers a full view of the interior. It’s the kind of design-not-within-reach store that sells contemporary wares displayed in perfectly conceived groupings as though the sophisticated homeowners are about to walk in, sit at that Le Corbusier dining table and enjoy a good Bordeaux.

It was late. The store was closed, but the security lights warmed the window display and the glow hit my peripheral vision. I turned to look for that split second that it took to drive by, and that’s when Isabelle appeared. I can’t remember exactly what she told me that night, but I do remember this: she was on the outside of that store looking in and was desperate to climb inside and pretend that the clean, orderly space belonged to her. She also wanted to take a nap.

Then came this sentence: “Isabelle wondered how long it would take for the police to arrive.” That became the first sentence of my short story “Danish Modern,” which appears in the Winter 2013 Doubt issue of Little Patuxent Review. “Danish Modern”  is the first piece of fiction that I have completed and the first that has been published.

So how, at age 39, did I start hearing voices and writing fiction? Annie Dillard stated in The Writing Life, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I walked out of a good museum job at the age of 25 because I realized that I wanted to be a writer. Specifically, a nonfiction writer. I wanted to tell true stories.

Writing has always been the lens through which I have seen the world. It is how I have harnessed my curiosity and made sense of things. Journalism became the conduit that allowed me to invite myself to places that I knew nothing about and learn. I liked talking to people, understanding different points of view and distilling complex ideas to their essence so that readers could enjoy the result.

I was happy in that work for many years. Telling true stories was enough. And then one day it wasn’t. There were many reasons for this shift—rounding 40, my father’s untimely death, the birth of my daughter—but the gist is that I no longer felt content with the limits of nonfiction and journalism. I wanted to explore questions without easy answers and work those questions out on the page.

At first, timid to stray too far from nonfiction, I delved into the personal essay form. I re-read Didion, Dillard and White. I remembered the power of personal essays such as White’s “Once More to the Lake,” with its chilling ending and insights on aging, to transform everyday experience. But it was re-reading White’s short fiction work “The Second Tree From the Corner” that stirred something in me. There was his lean and powerful prose, of course, but also the recognition that he had allowed himself to venture where his mind took him—essay, personal essay, poetry, fiction, children’s literature.

I still have the desire to unpack the human experience, examine it and report back. I simply want more outlets for that process. The power of fiction is its ability to synthesize and convey the inner terrain of the human experience. Fiction offers its own truth.

I’ve since turned my journalism training inward to make my thinking the subject. The result is an epistemological tool that chips away at everything. I am more curious, more alert than ever. I no longer edit questions beyond the pale because they deviate from fact or the interests of a magazine editor. I allow my mind to wander and to see the stories that exist within the connective tissue of my thinking. I allow myself to hear the voices.

I’m still figuring out my creative metabolism for fiction. I know journalism well. I’ve written hundreds of articles, and the process is ingrained. Fiction is awkward, mysterious and clumsy. But it’s also reinvigorating. In making this leap, I had to get over the anxiety of being a beginner and ask for help. Here are a few things that I learned along the way:

• Participate in the community that you hope to join. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in “On the American Scholar,” “First we eat, then we beget. First we read, then we write.” You must be an active reader to be a writer. In his column “Ask The Paris Review,” Editor Lorin Stein tells new writers, “Here’s the thing: no matter how many classes you take, no matter how much time you spend at the keyboard, you cannot write seriously unless you read.”

• Don’t be afraid to be an outsider. So many of us pretend that we know more than we do for fear of looking naive. Journalism has taught me the value of being the outsider who gets to ask the questions. I am still learning the ins and outs of pitching literary magazines, applying for grants and writing retreats and reading in front of audiences (as I did for the first time at the launch of the Doubt issue). In each of these situations, I sought out someone who knew the ropes and could offer guidance.

• Seek people who are smarter than you. The adage about picking a tennis partner who is better than you because it improves your game also applies to writing.

• Workshop in a healthy, productive environment. “Danish Modern” benefited from the thoughtful feedback of two writing workshop partners. Both offered different insights, but, most importantly, both treated the work with respect. They had to suffer through some terrible writing, but because of their considerate and fruitful comments, I learned, I improved and I moved on.

• Get into the habit of writing things down. I thought that “Danish Modern” came out of nowhere. In rereading my journal, I realized that the idea had been percolating for some time. You never know what might be grist for the creative mill. (And once you start working those ideas out on the page, you can edit out overused expressions such as “grist for the mill.”)

• Never stop honing your craft. This doesn’t mean going into debt for an MFA. I have no advanced degree, in part because I could never make the finances or the timing work. But I have been a consumer of continuing education classes and workshops. CityLit Project, Creative Alliance, The Writer’s Center and journals such as LPR all offer great instruction on craft. If you attend a writing retreat, pick one that makes you work more than everyone drinks (or at least in equal measure!). And read. Books that I have found helpful include The Elements of Style; The Art of Time in Fiction; On Writing; First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process. And, of course, this blog (see the “Concerning Craft” series).

And never forget that everyone was once a beginner. “Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given,” Emerson wrote in “On the American Scholar,” “forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote those books.”

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson is a journalist, author and editor whose pieces have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Slate, The Baltimore Sun, Urbanite and Little Patuxent Review. She is a contributing editor at Architect and Architectural Lighting and the home and design editor for Style Magazine in Baltimore.

Recently, we were delighted to learn that Elizabeth had received a 2013 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Fiction. Then doubly delighted when we realized that another contributor, Susan Muaddi Darraj, received one as well. Given Elizabeth’s advice, you might want to read “Concerning Craft: Susan Muaddi Darraj.”

Baltimore Review Editor Barbara Westwood Diehl and LPR Editor Laura Shovan

Nothing helps a literary journal clarify its personality like trying to stand out at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. The annual AWP get-together is one of the largest of its kind. This year’s event, held in the midst of a Boston blizzard, attracted more than 12,000 attendees.

This was the first trip to an international literary gathering that Little Patuxent Review had taken. We were but one of 750 exhibitors and shared a table with one of our real-life neighbors, The Baltimore Review. Tucked into a corner of the second exhibit floor, I’m sure that all 12,000 visitors did not make it to our table. Even so, plenty of people stopped to chat about our journal. By day three, I realized that there were consistent themes in their comments.

First, many people were drawn to our table by our striking journal covers, featuring works by acclaimed artists Joan Bevelaqua, Raoul Middleman and Theaster Gates, not to mention a Renaissance masterpiece. The quality of the overall look, resulting from the excellent work of Design Editor Deb Dulin and her predecessor, Stephanie Lemghari, also surprised and impressed writers who had been perusing literary journals all day long.

People also mentioned the general excellence of our product. In addition to design, the paper quality and full-color spreads stood out among the other journals.

Second, many appreciated our strong community focus. LPR operates as a collective of creative artists, suppliers and supporters. This sense of a group effort extends to our contributors, past and present. The ways in which we have accomplished this include:

Printing

Since our inception, we have worked with a small local company instead of opting for a less expensive out-of-state or big-box printer.

Readings

Contributors are invited to read at the launch of each issue, which has brought people from as far away as California to Columbia, Maryland. For the past two years, we have also scheduled at least one additional event per issue, holding readings at the Columbia Festival of the Arts, The Writer’s Center, the CityLit Festival, Busboys and Poets, the Baltimore Book Festival and other venues. Even a converted post office!

Videos

Launch readings are videotaped whenever possible. A separate video of each contributor, posted on our YouTube channel and linked to the online table of contents of our issues, makes them available to the general public.

Website and Blog

Led by Online Editor Ilse Munro, the LPR site is anything but static, offering outstanding original content on a weekly and, increasingly, a bi-weekly basis.

We post reviews of books authored by our contributors and others from around and beyond the greater Baltimore-Washington area. Some contributors participate in the popular “Concerning Craft” series. This gives our writers and artists the opportunity to share insights on how they came to create the pieces appearing in our publication. In addition, we post articles aimed at helping potential contributors improve both their writing skills and submission strategy (and include links on our Submissions page). Finally, we provide personal introductions to other area arts organizations such as The Baltimore Review in our ongoing “Meet the Neighbors” series.

We also have several online series that expand upon the themes that define our various print issues. “On Being Invisible,” for example, serves as the online companion for our Winter 2012 Social Justice issue. This gives a range of blog contributors the opportunity to discuss the role of literature and art in our community and larger society. (We hear you! Based on your feedback, our editorial staff is looking into the possibility of publishing one unthemed issue per year.)

Which takes me to the third and most important theme that emerged regarding what sets us apart: we want your input, and we are more than willing to act on it when possible.

All of these elements—our sustained focus on publishing a high quality product with visual as well as literary content, our continual commitment to community, our ongoing engagement with a our core constituency—serve to characterize the special place that Little Patuxent Review occupies among the other literary journals.

Since it was revived in 2006, Little Patuxent Review has used the arts as a lens through which to view ourselves and our society. Each new issue, each new post on our website is a springboard for discussing the achievements and challenges that humanity faces.

That discussion has included interviews with luminaries such as Michael Chabon, Edith Pearlman and Martín Espada side by side with works from emerging authors such as Dylan Bargteil, Angie Chuang and Liam Casey. We invite you to join the conversation by submitting your work, commenting on our blog posts or volunteering to work with us.

I thank all the contributors and fans—long-time and new—who visited with us at AWP. Like us, you believe that the arts reflect the sum of our fears and hopes for the world.

Online Editor’s Note: As part of our continuing commitment to contributors, we are preparing to launch a new series, “First and Foremost,” featuring authors whose debut literary works have been published by Little Patuxent Review. Our first “first” will be Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, an accomplished writer and editor who recently expanded her scope to encompass short fiction. Watch for other developments as well as our first Assistant Online Editor Leila Warshaw starts to makes her presence felt.

Michael Oberman interviews James Brown in 1968 at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC.

During the time that Michael was a journalism student at the University of Maryland and, subsequently, the writer of the “Music Makers” column for The Washington Star, he interviewed over 300 top recording artists, including Otis Redding, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, David Bowie and James Brown—a veritable Who’s Who of popular music. Currently, Michael is revisiting those interviews for an upcoming book and has graciously agreed to give us a series of sneak peaks at his work in progress.

So, here’s Michael in his own words.

The Interview

The interview that I conducted with Van Morrison appeared in the “Music Makers” column of The Washington Star on October 23, 1971 and read as follows:

Since his childhood in Belfast, Ireland, Van Morrison has been a fan of American rhythm-and-blues and blues.

Although when speaking he has a heavy Irish accent, Van’s singing voice sounds American–probably because he practiced imitating Ray Charles, Bobby Bland, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters.

When he was 16, Van formed his first group, The Monarchs. “In those days you had to be crazy to be a musician,” Van said. “Anybody who thought about being a musician was thought to be a maniac, a nut or something.

“It was hard work. We did seven sets a night, seven days a week, with matinees on weekends—and if you didn’t do twenty encores of ‘What I Say,’ you were lucky to get out of there alive.

“One time,” he said, “we went for a job to this place in London. We had been sleeping in the park ’cause we didn’t get much money in those days, and after two weeks of sleeping in the park, we finally got an audition at this place.

“So, when we showed up, everybody in the band was wearing something different. One had long hair, one had a brown sweater, one had sneakers.

“We played about six numbers and the cat said, ‘You’re really fantastic, one of the best things I’ve ever heard, but you’re a scruffy pack and if you get some suits, you can get the job.’ So we got some suits and played there. There was nothing else we could do.”

In 1964, Van became lead singer for an English group Them. An American producer, Bert Berns, heard some of their tapes and went to England to produce the group.

Them had hit singles with “Here Comes the Night,” “Mystic Eyes” and “Gloria” (penned by Morrison). Them’s records were especially well received in America. In 1966, the group toured this country and shortly after broke up.

Van went back to England to write poetry and get into other kinds of music besides rhythm-and-blues. In 1967, Bert Berns formed his own record company, Bang Records, and asked Van to record for him. Van accepted and moved to America.

His first single for Bang, “Brown Eyed Girl,” was a hit. In 1968, Berns died and Van signed with Warner Brothers. His first LP was Astral Weeks.

The eight songs on the album “are thematically related through the same characters and places,” Van said. With the release of Astral Weeks, he picked up what was almost a cult following. The lyrics from the record have been studied and debated.

“One time a guy came up to me and said that Astral Weeks had kept his family together,” Van said. “Most of the things have seven meanings anyway, so I’m not surprised that people are always finding new things in it.”

In 1969, Van released Moondance, his first LP to be accepted by a mass audience. One of the songs on the album, “Come Running,” was a Top 40 hit. Soon after, Van moved to Woodstock, where he became friends with some of that town’s best musicians, including The Band. Van co-authored one of the songs on The Band’s latest album (Cahoots) and sings on the cut.

Van’s third album, His Band and the Street Choir, released in 1970, contained a Top 40 hit “Domino.” His fourth effort for Warner Brothers, Tupelo Honey, was released this week.

Van no longer thinks he can work with just one group of musicians as he did with Them. “For me the concept of a group doesn’t work because you’re limited to those four or five guys,” he said. “Somebody’s gonna say something you don’t like. With Them, I’d see a lot of stuff they wouldn’t pick up on. They’d want to go and hang out in a club or something.

“I was conscientious. I can’t rely on four or five guys to make decisions for me.”

The Postscript

In 1974,  I was working for WEA (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic) in their branch office in Maryland. I had left The Washington Star in 1973 to take the WEA job. While we were not in New York or LA, we were often invited by the individual labels to attend conferences or events around the country and beyond. Paris for a week for Atlantic Records’ 25th anniversary, a dude ranch in Arizona for an Elektra Records’ conference and a Carnegie Hall concert headlined by Van Morrison.

I had attended hundreds of great concerts as a writer and was really looking forward to the party that would be thrown for Van after this concert. It was to be held at the home of a legendary music executive, Mary Martin. Mary had encouraged Bob Dylan to work with The Band, signed Leonard Cohen to his first management deal, signed Emmylou Harris to her first record deal at Warner Bros., negotiated and secured Vince Gill’s first solo recording contract and managed Morrison and Rodney Crowell.

I had taken an early morning train from DC to New York. By the time the party began, I had been awake for over 20 hours. Mary’s house in Chelsea was packed with music business types, celebrities and others. After a couple of drinks, I wandered upstairs and found a vacant bedroom. Hoping to chill out for a bit, I went into the bedroom, closed the door and sat down on the bed, where I nodded off.

I was awakened by the door opening and two men walking toward the bed. I soon realized that they were Kurt Vonnegut and Roman Polanski. I had read every Vonnegut book and was a big fan of Polanski’s films. I was speechless. They both looked at me, acknowledged my presence with polite nods and proceeded to sit down on the bed beside me. Polanski reached for the television’s remote control and turned on the last minutes of The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson was interviewing a friend of theirs, author Jerzy Kosinski.

When the show was over, the three of us walked back downstairs. Van had been at the party while we were watching television and had already left. That was OK since my magical moment of the day was watching Carson with Vonnegut and Polanski.

There were times when no photographer was available to accompany him on his assignments, so Michael brought along his own Nikon. We’d love to share some of the photographs that he took, but he’s still working out copyright issues. Since we don’t have one of Van Morrison, here’s the next best thing (it is about the music, after all):