Memorial Day in four days.
One. How appropriate
to read in a forth-coming Notre Dame Review a letter from Edward Dahlberg to William O’Rourke, “I shall soon be
forgot although never remembered.
Two. I think it is probably better to know this as young as possible rather than on the eve of one’s death. I think I remember Dahlberg saying he had been posthumous for a generation even in 1971…
Three. Now he is… who else can say they met Edward, were entertained and wined and fed by him and then of course found wanting, probably deservedly so?
Four. I thought of Dahlberg and his BECAUSE I WAS FLESH while in the car on the way to Washington our guest said that her father had been inmate of the Jewish orphanage in Cleveland. She did not know BECAUSE OF MY FLESH though she was educated at Oberlin and was a lawyer speaking Russian. So not that unusual.
FIVE. “In April 1912, when he was eleven the boy became an inmate of the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Cleveland, the Forest City. No Spartan ordinances could have been more austere than the rules for orphans. The regime was martial; Scipio, who compelled his troops to eat uncooked food standing up, would have been satisfied with these waifs who rose every morning at 5:30 as though they were making ready for a forced march.”
SIX. Only BECAUSE I WAS FLESH seems immediately available of his great books. It is a model of how to remember and of his situation: a mother who was lady barber, a prostitute, a… but if you do not understand the demanding power of the opening lines you would be better off never to pick up a book, never to have picked up a book… though I well understand the foolishness of this thought as you who are reading these words are already so fortunately isolated, so separated from the trivial world represented by --- their names are too well known to be repeated---: “Kansas City is a vast inland city, and its marvelous river, the Missouri, heats the senses; the maple, the alder, elm and cherry trees with which the town abounds are songs of desire, and only the almonds of ancient Palestine can awaken the hungry pores more deeply. It is a wild concupiscent city, and few there are troubled about death until they age or are sick. Only those who know the ocean ponder death as they behold it, whereas those bound closely to the ground are more sensual. Kansas City was my Tarsus; the Kaw and the Missouri Rivers were the washpots of joyous Dianas from St. Joseph and Joplin. It was a young, seminal town and the seed of its men was strong…
My
mother and I were luckless souls. She strove fiercely for her angels and was
wretched most of her days in the earth.
Moreover, if failed, who hasn’t?
If she prayed for what she thought was her good and none heeded her that had to
be too. Each one carries his own sack of
woe on his back, and though he supplicate heaven to ease him, who hears him
except his own sepulcher?
My
mother had two miserable afflictions, neither of which was she ever to
overcome: her flesh--- which is my own--- and the world, that curses both of
us. “Let me, O Lord, be most ungrateful
to the world, “ comes from the mouth of Teresa, the Jewess of Avila.”
SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN
I thought to go down to the second to the last residence of
Dahlberg in New York City, 64 Rivington
Street, and what better description than
his own of this city: "There are five trash town in greater
New York, five garbage heaps of Tofeth. A foul, thick wafer of iron and cement
covers primeval America, beneath which cry the ghosts of cranes, the mallard,
the gray and white brants, the elk and the fallow deer. A broken obelisk at Crocodopolis has stood in
one position for thousands of years, but the United
States is a transient Golgotha."
64 Rivington
Street no longer exists. It must have
been torn down and it was replaced with a larger building.
SMILE AMERICA dental clinic would be thought an invention if read in a novel or an exaggeration if read in a book by Dahlberg.
"A TRANSIENT GOLGOTHA"
SMILE AMERICA dental clinic would be thought an invention if read in a novel or an exaggeration if read in a book by Dahlberg.
"A TRANSIENT GOLGOTHA"
Your writing about Edward Dahlberg sent me to my bookshelf to find my copy of Because I Was Flesh. Alas, it isn't where it should be--The Confessions of Edward Dahlberg is there (not an adequate replacement) as are some other books collected in an omnibus collection. But Because I Was Flesh is the searing document, and I wanted to follow through on your blog and re-read it.I have Charles DeFanti's biography, The Wages of Expectation. My memory is that it was a decent biography--that DeFanti got the ark of Dahlberg's life, but that is no substitute for actually reading the book it self. Because I Was Flesh takes pride of place: it is a masterpiece. It ranks for me with Alfred Kazin's A Walker in the City and Michel Leiris' Manhood as models of what a probing autobiography should be. I will search out a copy of BIWF as soon as possible. I hope people will use this blog as a discussion board. It will be a pleasure to read other voices on a writer now so saddly forgotten.
ReplyDeleteEdward Dahlberg is a reoccurring fascination in my life, often recondite and even indigestible but often inspiring in his sheer contrariness. Thanks for posting these thoughts about him. Dahlberg would no doubt say that he is not surprised to have become more obscure, but surely part of him thinks he should have a vital underground influence like a great mythic snake encircling the world. And perhaps he does.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment.... I assume you are the author of a bio of Rod McKuen...I once was criticized for allowing the great Chilean poet to compare himself to Rod McKuen...the interview appeared in a long dead newspaper The Manhattan Review...Parra whose sister was probably more famous than he was a singer known across all of the Aouth America...but a conversation with Nicanor and follow up ones over the year changed me or re-inforced certain things in my life..Edward too was very important and eventually of course we had an argument.
ReplyDelete