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Friday, November 5, 2010

RAW crossed paths with the Fug

Over at alt.fan.wilson, RMJon23 (e.g. Michael Johnson) mentions writing to poet and Fug Ed Sanders . "I wrote Ed a fan letter about how much I love his books on American history written in his 'investigative poetry' style. I also asked him about his relationship with RAW and a few other RAW-related Qs."

Sanders' response, quoted by Johnson:

I met RA Wilson a few times; went to his house in NJ in 1964.
But didn't know him well. He sent me his newsletters over the years.

As for America, a History in Verse, I've completed Vols 4 and 5, which
take the tracing
through the year 2000 and its stolen election.

JFK and the Unspeakable is right here in my writing nook, it's an
excellent book and one I dip into now and then.

More on RAW and the Fugs here.



1 comment:

michael said...

"The distinguished poet Ed Sanders, author of _Fuck God Up The Ass_ and other immortal works, once sent me an urgent message, warning, 'There's nothing funny about the Illuminati. They're _real!_.'" -p.63, _Cosmic Trigger vol 1

In another place RAW credited Sanders with teaching him to read tabloids and other cultural "trash" as a psycho-archeologist: pop kulch detritus can teach us something about the deep structure of the Mass Mind. Something like that.

In my letter to Sanders I mentioned RAW's idea of information acceleration/Jumping Jesus Phenomenon and noted that Sanders's American History books cover ever-shorter periods but are just as thick, as the century goes along. (Which to me seemed a quasi-demonstration of Jumping Jesus.) He didn't respond to that.

His advocation for the book JFK and the Unspeakable seems to be - maybe - his way of saying that Obama should watch out.

His Investigative Poetry thesis is most influenced by Charles Olson. Olson was heavily influenced by Ezra Pound, as was RAW. Olson spent some time visiting Pound at St Elizabeth's and chronicled it in his book _Charles Olson and Ezra Pound: An Encounter At St Elizabeth's_, which might be worthsomewhilings for sombunall who read this. Ta!