Steve Richmond (1 Viewer)

Hi,
He was interviewed recently by Ben Pleasants. According to Ben, Steve is not in very good health. He has no internet, and all correspondence goes through a friend of his.

That's all that I know. I have never had any contact with him. I know that Cirerita has, though.


BIll
 
I had some contact with him until a few years ago, then silence. A great poet in my opinion, regardless of whatever flaws there may or may not be in his work. I don't see any flaws but I understand that some do. His poems all work for me, each and every one, and are unique and unmatched. Genius. His SPINNING OFF BUKOWSKI is the best thing I've ever read on Buk, the clearest perceptions of the real man. You may disagree -- it's just my take on him. The Ezra Pound of his generation, sadly ignored. I wish him well.
 
just finished reading Ben Pleasant's recent interview with him online. Pretty sad. I do feel a lot for Steve. It strikes me he's had a lot of bad luck. Is there any way he can be contacted? Has he got a telephone number?
Or maybe he doesn't want any outside contact. who knows
 
bernard stachman said:
I do feel a lot for Steve. It strikes me he's had a lot of bad luck.
Click to expand...
Really? Seems to me that he had it pretty good there, for quite some time. A more leisurely and creative life than most of us have led. The end is never pretty, but there was a lot that came before.

I don't know him, so that's just a view from a million miles up, I realize.
 
Thanks for the link, Hank Solo. Just read half of the interview and so far it's good (will finish later, I'm always in a big ass hurry). So true what Buk said about the bottle of worms. And if you're out, you're out. That's why they're called Outsider Artists (Writers) -- they are out in the cold, below consideration, excluded from the party. Laurels fall on the shoulders of the mediocre, the dull, the pampered. Not that Steve didn't have it easy, materially. He had money, rich family, that. But ignored by the poetry establishment. His body of work is rock solid, I think. Try finding another like it. No chance you will. He is a fearless explorer of the psyche, his own mind. Style that won't quit, and so clear and simple. Right there, on the page. Great poet.
 
I love Steve Richmond's work. A few months ago I found someone on Craigslist that claimed they were collecting anything of Steve's to send directly to him. Maybe this is the friend you speak of. He's trying to write again and lost all of his work in some water damage or something strange. I never trusted the guy and I'm also kind of selfish, so I never gave up anything. I really hope he writes something before he kicks the bucket.

-jeremy
 
xxedgexx said:
He's trying to write again and lost all of his work in some water damage or something strange. -jeremy
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Does anyone know more about this? Maybe it's in the second half of the interview, which I haven't finished yet, so I mean, if it's not there, any details? This is the first I've heard about Steve losing all his work. That's a bitch. Same thing happened to A. D. Winans, another great poet and Buk friend from way back. Winans lost it all in an apartment fire. He's writing again, carrying on.
 
The images in the poem which begins "the demons teeth" are quite striking. I like that one alot, makes we want to go out an buy something, preferably new from Amazon so the guy gets some money thrown his way. Looking at the pictures of him as a young guy and the picture of him now...wow. His story is an advertisement to stay away from drugs (not that I will, mind you). Only a very few can abuse themselves to the nth degree over decades and walk away unscathed. Shit. Never mind that pompous shit. This story hit me hard, struck some chords. I feel incredibly sad for this guy, even if he did bring most of his bad luck upon himself.

morning.

those idle eyes
sit by the seaside
all the lepers of insight
extinguished.
Click to expand...

There but for the grace of God go all of us. But then again, the two quotes in my signature might be more appropriate here....
 
What's up with all this "Lifetime of Work: Lost in Calamity" stuff?

Rekrab said:
This is the first I've heard about Steve losing all his work. That's a bitch. Same thing happened to A. D. Winans, another great poet and Buk friend from way back. Winans lost it all in an apartment fire. He's writing again, carrying on.
Click to expand...


Scorecard So Far:

The Webbs: Flooding

Richmond: "Water Damage"

A.D. Winans: Apartment fire

Mullinax: crossing his fingers
 
It's the reason I've given away so many of my small press books over the years; fear of losing everything in a fire. The more of it out there, the more may survive any personal disaster. But then I'm paranoid...

Just finished the Steve Richmond interview and loved it. Details I've never heard before of his life and work, relationships. I found Steve's first book, Poems (1964 I think) at a museum bookstore and bought it new, have been a fan ever since. I agree with Pleasants' assessment; Steve is America's most important lyric poet since WWII. Insane that City Lights, Black Sparrow Press shunned him. His own worst enemy in many ways, but still, a great poet. Sad to hear of his sorry state. Thanks for the link.
 
"It's because of you. You told Martin not to publish me".

Is this story, illustrated by Crumb's drawing of a moron sitting in a chair and dressed like a typical hippy fossil, about Richmond?

Rekrab said:
It's the reason I've given away so many of my small press books over the years; fear of losing everything in a fire. The more of it out there, the more may survive any personal disaster. But then I'm paranoid...
Click to expand...

Are you serious? You expect a fire so you make contingency plans well in advance by doling out that which would perish?

Is your larder stocked with a year's supply of food?

(Mine is.)

"... Ask the boys and girls who make the noise what really happened to Richmond/ Bukowski correspondence. Say the rare book & manuscript market in L.A. Maybe David Zeidberg of the Huntington knows. Or Victoria Steele at UCLA. They once worked together, decades ago. Ask why they never speak to each other. Why they dance around the rare book market leaving Richmond's erotic demons on the shelf. It's possible they don't even know. The king and queen of the rare book market in L.A...."

Anyone know anything about these people? I thought MJP was the King of the L.A. rare book market...
 
MULLINAX said:
...Are you serious? You expect a fire so you make contingency plans well in advance by doling out that which would perish?

Is your larder stocked with a year's supply of food?

(Mine is.)

...
Click to expand...


Absolutely serious. That's how my brain works. Plan for the worst. No, my larder is not stocked. After Y2K fizzled, my wife ignores my pleas that civilization is about to collapse, and refuses to have more than two or three days worth of food on hand. I do have bottled water stashed in the basement.
 
I saw an interview with Jerzy Kosinski once.
He said that when he enters a room, his first thought is:
Where might I hide in an emergency?
 
Mormon Trail

Rekrab said:
Absolutely serious. That's how my brain works. Plan for the worst. No, my larder is not stocked. After Y2K fizzled, my wife ignores my pleas that civilization is about to collapse, and refuses to have more than two or three days worth of food on hand. I do have bottled water stashed in the basement.
Click to expand...

My own larder really does have a year's worth of rice, beans, olive oil, vinegar, canned goods, flour, sugar, tea, coffee, cigars and, uh, booze. 4-liter plastic containers of rot gut whisky, along with beers, wines and meads. I brew the last three myself.

My emergency evacuation kit has food for 2 people for about a week, a portable toilet, water, a sewing kit, aspirin, tinned goods, a tent, wet tissues, a crank radio!, whisky (as a sterilizing agent, ha-ha) and THE FANTASTIC FIVE. Buk's first five novels. I am nuts. I also have a cat kit that can feed three cats for about 5 days. The cat kit (purchased on Amazon) has better quality stuff than my own kit. Hmm, are those locusts I see outside...?
 
I agree with some of you guys, thinking the worse genuinely makes life more satisfying as more often then not you are continually surprised about how good life is
 
If anything ever happens on a scale large enough to force you to break out your own water or supply of dry beans, I think we'll be having problems a few days worth of food won't solve.

Disaster also has a different definition depending on your financial status. If the sea permanently rises 5 or 10 feet the residents of Malibu will simply move to a hotel for a few weeks, while they find a new house further inland. We saw what happened when the sea rose temporarily in New Orleans. Same disaster, two very different realities.

How many of you watched Malibu burn a couple months ago and thought, "So what? They call the insurance company and everything's fixed." Honestly, I did kind of think that myself. It's terrible to lose everything you own, and I don't wish it on anyone, but I'd wish it on Malibu before I'd wish it on a neighborhood of renters who are barely scraping by. Same disaster, different realities.
 
mjp said:
If anything ever happens on a scale large enough to force you to break out your own water or supply of dry beans, I think we'll be having problems a few days worth of food won't solve....
Click to expand...

True. War, famine, plague, drought, economic collapse. It's like a tidal wave, washing away everything before it. You'll be sitting in your out-of-gas car with beans and books and some thugs will come along, shoot you in the head, rape your wife, throw your books in the mud. And people say all I'm about is gloom and doom.
 
last night, my this guy i know was bragging about how his dad made a shitload of money in the past couple months down in new orleans... he works for an insurance company, and he successfully proved in court that hurricane insurance doesn't cover floods caused by hurricanes- you need flood insurance for that. he didn't seem to mind that about 1000 people lost everything they had as a result of this situation so his dad could pay for him to sit on his ass and smoke pot and work 15 hours a week.
 
jordan said:
last night, my this guy i know was bragging about how his dad made a shitload of money in the past couple months down in new orleans... he works for an insurance company, and he successfully proved in court that hurricane insurance doesn't cover floods caused by hurricanes- you need flood insurance for that. he didn't seem to mind that about 1000 people lost everything they had as a result of this situation so his dad could pay for him to sit on his ass and smoke pot and work 15 hours a week.
Click to expand...

This is what the "American Dream" has mutated into. More for me and everyone else can go fuck themselves.

While it's not specifically about the insurance industry, I'd recommend a film titled "The Corporation" to understand the reasons behind it. Corporations today have all of the rights and none of the responsibilities of a person.

Oops... starting to get political again.

I'll shut up now.
 
MULLINAX said:
My own larder really does have a year's worth of rice, beans, olive oil, vinegar, canned goods, flour, sugar, tea, coffee, cigars and, uh, booze. 4-liter plastic containers of rot gut whisky, along with beers, wines and meads. I brew the last three myself.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Xmas can make a man want to stock up and hide away. Ever feel like you can't take anymore, just like you're the only human left alive?
Xmas can do that to you.
Check out what it did to Vincent Price here:
http://www.freemooviesonline.com/watch-free-movies/scifi-movies/the-last-man-on-earth.html
(In some scenes he looks quite like Buk!)
Merry Garlic!
 

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