Trollius And trellises
of course, I may die in the next ten minutes
and I’m ready for that
but what I’m really worried about is
that my editor-publisher might retire
even though he is ten years younger than
I.
it was just 25 years ago (I was at that ripe
old age of 45)
when we began our unholy alliance to
test the literary waters,
neither of us being much
known.
I think we had some luck and still have some
of same
yet
the odds are pretty fair
that he will opt for warm and pleasant
afternoons
in the garden
long before I.
writing is its own intoxication
while publishing and editing,
attempting to collect bills
carries its own
attrition
which also includes dealing with the
petty bitchings and demands
of many
so-called genius darlings who are
not.
I won’t blame him for getting
out
and hope he sends me photos of his
Rose Lane, his
Gardenia Avenue.
will I have to seek other
promulgators?
that fellow in the Russian
fur hat?
or that beast in the East
with all that hair
in his ears, with those wet and
greasy lips?
or will my editor-publisher
upon exiting for that world of Trollius and
trellis
hand over the
machinery
of his former trade to a
cousin, a
daughter or
some Poundian from Big
Sur?
or will he just pass the legacy on
to the
Shipping Clerk
who will rise like
Lazarus,
fingering new-found
importance?
one can imagine terrible
things:
“Mr. Chinaski, all your work
must now be submitted in
Rondo form
and
typed
triple-spaced on rice
paper.”
power corrupts,
life aborts
and all you
have left
is a
bunch of
warts.
“no, no, Mr. Chinaski:
Rondo form!”
“hey, man,” I’ll ask,
“haven’t you heard of
the thirties?”
“the thirties? what’s
that?”
my present editor-publisher
and I
at times
did discuss the thirties,
the Depression
and
some of the little tricks it
taught us—
like how to endure on almost
nothing
and move forward
anyhow.
well, John, if it happens enjoy your
divertissement to
plant husbandry,
cultivate and aerate
between
bushes, water only in the
early morning, spread
shredding to discourage
weed growth
and
as I do in my writing:
use plenty of
manure.
and thank you
for locating me there at
5124 DeLongpre Avenue
somewhere between
alcoholism and
madness.
together we
laid down the gauntlet
and there are takers
even at this late date
still to be
found
as the fire sings
through the
trees.
poem by Charles Bukowski
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
While writing my first 90 books, I was magazine editor, publisher, book publisher, executive, etc., so I was established in publishing. three of my seven or so books were biographies of sports stars and really opened doors for me in that area.
quote by Jerry B. Jenkins
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Another Plan
Editor Owen, of San Jose,
Commonly known as 'our friend J.J.'
Weary of scribbling for daily bread,
Weary of writing what nobody read,
Slept one day at his desk and dreamed
That an angel before him stood and beamed
With compassionate eyes upon him there.
Editor Owen is not so fair
In feature, expression, form or limb
But glances like that are familiar to him;
And so, to arrive by the shortest route
At his visitor's will he said, simply: 'Toot.'
'Editor Owen,' the angel said,
'Scribble no more for your daily bread.
Your intellect staggers and falls and bleeds,
Weary of writing what nobody reads.
Eschew now the quill-in the coming years
Homilize man through his idle ears.
Go lecture!' 'Just what I intended to do,'
Said Owen. The angel looked pained and flew.
Editor Owen, of San Jose,
Commonly known as 'our friend J.J.'
Scribbling no more to supply his needs,
Weary of writing what nobody reads,
Passes of life each golden year
Speaking what nobody comes to hear.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Am Visited By An Editor And A Poet
I had just won $115 from the headshakers and
was naked upon my bed
listening to an opera by one of the Italians
and had just gotten rid of a very loose lady
when there was a knock upon the wood,
and since the cops had just raided a month or so ago,
I screamed out rather on edge—
who the hell is it? what you want, man?
I’m your publisher! somebody screamed back,
and I hollered, I don’t have a publisher,
try the place next door, and he screamed back,
you’re Charles Bukowski, aren’t you? and I got up and
peeked through the iron grill to make sure it wasn’t a cop,
and I placed a robe upon my nakedness,
kicked a beercan out of the way and bade them enter,
an editor and a poet.
only one would drink a beer (the editor)
so I drank two for the poet and one for myself
and they sat there sweating and watching me
and I sat there trying to explain
that I wasn’t really a poet in the ordinary sense,
I told them about the stockyards and the slaughterhouse
and the racetracks and the conditions of some of our jails,
and the editor suddenly pulled five magazines out of a portfolio
and tossed them in between the beercans
and we talked about Flowers of Evil, Rimbaud, Villon,
and what some of the modern poets looked like:
J.B. May and Wolf the Hedley are very immaculate, clean fingernails, etc.;
I apologized for the beercans, my beard, and everything on the floor
and pretty soon everybody was yawning
and the editor suddenly stood up and I said,
are you leaving?
and then the editor and the poet were walking out the door,
and then I thought well hell they might not have liked
what they saw
but I’m not selling beercans and Italian opera and
torn stockings under the bed and dirty fingernails,
I’m selling rhyme and life and line,
and I walked over and cracked a new can of beer
and I looked at the five magazines with my name on the cover
and wondered what it meant,
wondered if we are writing poetry or all huddling in
one big tent
clasping assholes.
poem by Charles Bukowski
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Never the less, at the age of fifteen, having never seen a writer, a poet, a publisher or a magazine editor, and having only the vaguest ideas of procedure, I began working on the profession I had chosen.
quote by Robert E. Howard
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Which editor? I can't think of one editor I worked with as an editor. The various companies did have editors but we always acted as our own editor, so the question has no answer.
I Can Never Be Chinaski
i like him, in fact
i have all his poems
printed
and every night
before i sleep i read
chinaski
teaching me
about his poetry
he talks
to me & that is enough
of chinaski
i am
just myself, this man wanting
also to talk to
himself
in a
boring monologue
and i pretend
i too can write
my own poems
and versions
of the
great chinaski
finally, i get tired
pretending and imitating his kind
of manly, hoarse, candid, direct
straightforward voice
guts
firm, strong, determined words
i rise
from my weakness and stand
naked before this mirror
i am not chinaski and i can never be
chinaski
i still have a well kept hair
a smooth chin
i still keep some clean sheets
of paper on my table
a glass of water
to cool my throat
from this chaos
no empty bottles
filling my room or scents
of whores and
radio music of beethoven
or mozart
i only have this silence
pervading
still remembering
and wondering
how can i start
being a chinaski
when i still
keep being
me, oh, i am still me, and
yes, perhaps, i still like this being me
nobody
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Poet's Pride
The publisher
Is the poet's pride
Because the publisher
Reads a lot of manuscripts that are
Submitted
poem by Aldo Kraas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Widows And Warriors
Widows and Warriors
On the plateau a file of women, all in black,
war widows waiting to be given tea, bread
and rice from two men in a pickup truck.
The men spoke hoarsely, scurrying them on,
found their work shameful, would rather have
been up on the mountain fighting, thought
the women superfluous. They had given birth
to sons who now fought in war and to daughters
married to warriors on the mountain.
The women didn’t look the men in the eyes,
spoke softly and briefly amongst themselves
about the health of their grandchildren. They
had miles to walk, back down to meagre soil
and skinny goats.
Soul to Soul is a literary journal
Editor/Publisher: Joneve McCormick
Written by Jan Oskar Hansen
poem by Oskar Hansen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
39
I only woke this morning
To find the world is fair—
I’m going on for forty,
With scarcely one grey hair;
I’m going on for forty,
Where man’s strong life begins,
With scarce a sign of crows’ feet,
In spite of all my sins.
Then here’s the living Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the living Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
The teens were black and bitter,
A smothered boyhood’s grave—
A farm-drudge in the drought-time,
A weary workshop slave.
But twenty years have laid them,
And all the world is fair—
We’ll find time in the Forties,
To have some boyhood there.
Then here’s the wide, free Forties—
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the wide, free Forties!
We’re good for ten years more!
The twenties they were noble,
The bravest years, I think;
’Twas man to man in trouble,
In working and in drink;
’Twas man to man in fighting,
For money or for praise.
And we’ll find in the Forties
Some more Bohemian days.
Then here’s the wiser Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the wiser Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
The thirties were the fate years;
I fought behind the scenes.
The thirties were more cruel
And blacker than the teens;
I held them not but bore them—
They were no years of mine;
But they are going from me,
For I am thirty-nine.
So here’s the stronger Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
And here’s the good old Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
When you're in your early 20s your love life seems to explode every 20 minutes or so. By the time you've reached your thirties, it is every five or ten years.
quote by Patrick Marber
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
But for me, being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most.
quote by Peter Davison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with.
quote by Orhan Pamuk
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn't get reviewed in any major outlets.
quote by Anita Diament
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
5th Avenue
Written by gerry beckley, 1984
Found on perspective.
Walking down 5th avenue
I saw him walking there with you
People see and people talk
Word travels fast round my block
Might just save you the price of writing
I could save you an hour or two
Walking down 5th avenue
Walking down 5th avenue
Dont know what to ask of you
My mind is gettin so confused
Even when I really try
Keeps sounding like Im saying goodbye
Somewhere deep in my heart Im hurtin
cause I keep on remembering you
Walking down 5th avenue
Walking down 5th avenue
Such a long way to go
How many times must I look up and say
What kind of fool am i
But I cant turn my back on the times that we shared
No matter how I try
Walking down 5th avenue
Cant seem to shake the thought of you
Even in the dark of night
Your memories of shining light
Though Im tryin to change direction
I pray what I saw aint true
Walking down 5th avenue
Walking down 5th avenue
Such a long way to go
Do, do, do, do ...
song performed by by America
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
I believe my publisher has shown a great deal of faith in me over a lot of years but I'm not prepared to be so arrogant to say that the long-term literary value of my work would compensate them for a financial failure.
quote by Andrew Vachss
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
If you want to publish two books a year under your own name and your publisher doesn't, maybe you need a different publisher.
quote by Dean Koontz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Mortgaged
These spotted trousers, now too short,
Were once some verses smoothly wrought,
The worn-out bluchers on my feet
Twin sonnets to My Lady Sweet,
This 'decker' hanging round my nose
The product of an ODE TO ROSE;
The collar, tie and underpants
Are still an editor's advance
For some wild Bacchanalian song
The gods, I hope, will send along...
To work a dead horse off one's hand
(More so, of Pegasus's brand)
Is what a poet hates to do,
Yet still is what Fate drives us to.
Ah me, I feel my soul is ripe
For forty couplets' worth of tripe,
Three lines of beer, a verse of bread,
But O ... I'll have to pay instead
That d___d old Editor!!
poem by Hugh McCrae
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn.
quote by Tim Cahill
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Printer's Error
Fellow compositors
and pressworkers!
I, Chief Printer
Frank Steinman,
having worked fifty-
seven years at my trade,
and served five years
as president
of the Holliston
Printer's Council,
being of sound mind
though near death,
leave this testimonial
concerning the nature
of printers' errors.
First: I hold that all books
and all printed
matter have
errors, obvious or no,
and that these are their
most significant moments,
not to be tampered with
by the vanity and folly
of ignorant, academic
textual editors.
Second: I hold that there are
three types of errors, in ascending
order of importance:
One: chance errors
of the printer's trembling hand
not to be corrected incautiously
by foolish professors
and other such rabble
because trembling is part
of divine creation itself.
Two: silent, cool sabotage
by the printer,
the manual laborer
whose protests
have at times taken this
historical form,
covert interferences
not to be corrected
censoriously by the hand
of the second and far
more ignorant saboteur,
the textual editor.
Three: errors
from the touch of God,
divine and often
obscure corrections
of whole books by
nearly unnoticed changes
of single letters
sometimes meaningful but
about which the less said
by preemptive commentary
the better.
Third: I hold that all three
sorts of error,
errors by chance,
errors by workers' protest,
and errors by
God's touch,
are in practice the
same and indistinguishable.
Therefore I,
Frank Steinman,
typographer
for thirty-seven years,
and cooperative Master
of the Holliston Guild
eight years,
being of sound mind and body
though near death
urge the abolition
of all editorial work
whatsoever
and manumission
from all textual editing
to leave what was
as it was, and
as it became,
except insofar as editing
is itself an error, and
therefore also divine.
poem by Aaron Fogel
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Editor
tonight
he will read many poems
and he cannot sleep because as always there will be many poems from me. he asked for them anyway. and everything i have in my mind
will always be poems.
the editor is an insomniac.
and from the hundred that i emailed for his perusal.
i guess. i need only to see one
that he thinks deserves
his choice.
i laugh. how can he ever find that piece of little garbage
as art form?
funny. dear editor, everything is a fake.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!