DC's

 

‘While you could say that language is Frances Stark’s primary medium, Frances herself is Stark’s primary subject matter. Taken individually, most of her works are self-portraits of some kind; put together, they fan out into full-blown autobio-graphy, featuring not just the central protagonist (in her various roles, professional, intellectual or domestic) but also a supporting cast of favourite authors, friends and collaborators, gallerists and curators, musicians, cats and kids. Invariably riddled with self-doubt and well-articulated anxiety, their cumulative effect is an oscillating image of what it means to be a practising artist (or, for that matter, a woman or person) today.

‘Born in Newport Beach, California, in 1967, Stark studied at San Francisco State University before attending the Art Centre College of Design. She says she had been obsessed with language from an early age so it isn’t surprising to find that many of her influences are literary and that she has published a series of collected writings. She wrote recently: “I am envious of those who can deliver nuggets in tightly wrapped packages. The economy of Emily Dickinson is a huge inspiration.”

‘Stark’s practice – whether it is drawn, written, painted or filmed – is about the laborious process of making art, detailing its frustrations with a wry humour. It is possibly best summed up in the collage Still Life with IBM Cards and Violin (1999), a parody of a Picasso cubist collage, in which she sends up the limitations of being an artist, unable to compete visually with the emotional impact of music. This issue has also led her to use soundtracks from Throbbing Gristle to accompany home videos that are as banal as the rock band is outlandish.

‘A see-sawing between conceptual inquiry into the nature of an art work and its production, and attention to the mass of details that constitute daily life, is at the heart of Stark’s practice and is well demonstrated in the show’s dense, a-chronological hang. Avoiding the easy elegance that a sparse and spacious installation of her largely white, often delicate, mostly paper-based works would offer, the artist has opted instead for the concentrated effect of many works, hung close together. The blank expanses of her earlier works begin, over time, to accommodate more text, imagery and pictorial elements until we reach recent collages such as Foyer Furnishing (2006), in which large Mylar and paper cut-outs form a two-dimensional interior with dresser, mirror and handbag. The role of language modulates from subject matter to means of representation; a favoured effect is to compose words or sentences vertically, stacking carbon-copied typed-out letters while repeating them horizontally, drawing lines from letters to form undulating landscapes or endless horizons while scrambling the viewer’s usual means of deciphering both text and image. Much peering, squinting and head-cocking are required to make out the tiny, faint, dislocated, rotated and repeated words in her works. In every case, however, the textual elements act like a thought bubble, as a cerebral way out of the two-dimensional picture plane.

‘Stark’s well-articulated personal anxiety encompasses George Orwell’s statement that “each life viewed from the inside is a series of small defeats”. In her quiet yet persistent inquiry into the human condition, she delivers, with devastating candour, the poignancy of human failure.’ — collaged

 

____
Extras

All of this and nothing: Frances Stark

One Question: Frances Stark

FS: CalArts, School of Art visiting artist lecture (excerpt)

In conversation: Frances Stark, Dave Hullfish Bailey, Jimmy Raskin

 

_____
Further

Frances Stark Website
Audio: ‘Trapped in the VIP and/or In Mr. Martin’s Inoperable Cadillac’
FS @ Marc Foxx Gallery, LA
FS @ Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NYC
Frances Stark @ greengrassi, London
‘On Frances Stark’ @ Art in America
‘Structures That Fit My Opening and Other Parts Considered in Relation to Their Whole’
‘Frances Stark’s Best Thing’ @ T Magazine
‘THE LETTER WRITER, FRANCES STARK’
‘Frances Stark: Artist uses her personal life’
Video: ‘Frances Stark in Her Studio’
Buy books by and about Frances Stark

 

_______
Interview
from Blouin

 

Banal household tasks and high-minded ruminations are twinned in your work. To this end, what did you do today? And also, what are you reading?

Today I avoided the studio, the excuse being that some long-overdue personal paperwork that is overflowing out of my handbag needed attention. I have recently dipped into In Praise of Folly by Erasmus; an old Richard Hamilton catalogue; also On Being Ill, by Virginia Woolf; and an interview with Malcolm McLaren. And I’ve been voraciously reading about all things related to the upcoming US presidential election. It’s an ugly addiction at this point. But I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of a recent eBay purchase, A Happy Death, by Albert Camus. I am hoping this book that I loved 25 years ago (gasp) will be just the thing to wean me off the politics.

You once wrote about someone who, when he asked Dorothy Parker if he could see her manuscript, was presented with a box containing a pile of unanswered letters and unpaid bills. In the collages that present the detritus of your daily life, how do you decide what goes in and what stays out?

I’ve used mostly studio and art-related promotional printed matter that I receive in the mail. My use of printed matter that comes through my mailbox isn’t interesting because it’s mine, but because there are a lot of other people who receive that same stuff. It ends up being just material, like paint.

You show your work in galleries as well as publish books. Can you talk about how preparing for each is different?

I haven’t published that many books, but I am often shocked at how increasingly intuitive the process is for making work for exhibitions, and that seems to also be the case for the books. Only writing is just very, very different in the sense that I can’t hire an assistant to help me move or glue down some unwieldy scrap.

You’ve quoted Thomas Bernhard’s novel Old Masters, in which the main character, Reger, is chastised for being neither a philosopher nor an author but accused of having “sneaked” into both. What do you think one gains by straddling two disciplines, as you do with art and writing?

Because I am a complete pessimist, it’s hard for me to admit I do gain anything besides anxiety and perpetual self-doubt. At the same time, I am not so naive to acknowledge that without my writing, my artwork might not have an audience, and vice versa. I see my own straddling as very specific to the support structures of the artworld and not nearly as impressive or significant as the kind of cross-discipline straddling (and waffling) that occurs in Bernhard’s characters. But I identify with the process of deferral at play in these characters who are never able to complete that pure text on music, or philosophy, or whatever, and this is not about a kind of interdisciplinary utopia, but psychological despair and human failure. In fact, that Dorothy Parker reference above is a perfect metaphor for my own straddling technique.

 

____
Show

Videos

My Best Thing, 2011

‘My Best Thing is an animated film projection by the American artist Frances Stark. Its narrative is based on a series of online communications between the artist and two Italian male strangers which took place during the run-up to her inclusion in the Venice Biennale in the summer of 2011. Stark met the Italians through internet chat sites, and they communicated with instant messaging and webcams. Stark used the free software Xtranormal to make the animation in which her character and that of the male strangers are presented as crude Playmobil-like ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ figures wearing fig-leaf underwear. The figures appear against a bright green monochrome ground and speak with electronic voices. Stark’s words are voiced in a soft American accent, and the two Italians’ in a crude and amusing computerised ‘Italian’ accent. The film was produced in an edition of five plus two artist’s proofs.

‘In the first sequences of the animation, Stark’s character and the first Italian stranger, called Marcello, engage in ‘cam-sex’ but remain distanced from one another on either side of the screen. There are no animated representations of sex-acts, nor of sex-organs, simply graphic dialogue about these acts and body-parts. These virtual sexual encounters are the basis for a relationship and a discussion of several interrelated subjects, most notably Stark’s taste in dancehall music; the meaning and authenticity of virtual relationships initiated through web-sex; the nature of artistic anxiety, creativity and pedagogy; and the increasingly tense political situation in Italy. The animations are punctuated by a pop video by the reggae-dancehall artist Beenie Man, an excerpt from Federico Fellini’s film 8 1/2 of 1963 and by short video documentation of a riot in Greece during the economic crises of early 2011. These clips are sent as attachments and links between Stark and Marcello during the course of their online conversations. The pair begins to discuss collaborating on a film but the plan is interrupted after Marcello is injured by police in a political riot. Stark loses contact with him and begins communicating with a second Italian, the son of an avantgarde filmmaker.

‘The cam-sex between Stark and the second stranger is followed by discussions about the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and Jacques Rancière (born 1940); reflections on Stark’s communications with Marcello; conversations about the novels and suicide of David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) and Thomas Bernhard (1931–1989); and discussions about Stark’s preparations for the Venice Biennale. Stark decided to use the encounters with Marcello and the second man as the basis for her video, but one of her main concerns was how to make a work based on this narrative that would be able to hold viewers’ attention, with so much other work available to see at the Biennale. Stark’s solution to this problem was to split the animation into eleven episodes: each episode begins with a summary of the previous instalment.’ — The Tate

 

Frances Stark transcribes Gaga’s ‘Telephone’, 2010

 

Bobby Jesus’s Alma Mater b/w Reading the Book of David and/or Paying Attention is Free, 2013

‘Continuing her “brazen pursuit of unlikely alliances,” the work centers on a text projection based on conversations with Bobby, a self-described resident of “planet ’hood” who has become her studio apprentice and friend.’ — Carnegie Museum of Art

 

Nothing is enough, 2012

‘The film Nothing Is Enough by artist and writer Frances Stark consists of documented text fragments from Stark’s online chat with a young Italian man, ranging from contemplative, self-reflective discussions to cybersex. Lacking any visual imagery, the film is set to a moody improvised piano piece played by another man Stark met in virtual reality. In a very personal way, Stark turns virtual conversation and chat room exchanges into art.’ — IDFA

 

Writings

‘Notes Towards the Eroticism of Pedagogy’
‘Always the Same, Always Different’
‘At the Rim of the Fucking Paradigm’
‘A Craft Too Small’
‘I’m taking this opportunity to feel some holes in addition to filling them: On Raymond Pettibon’
‘The Architect & the Housewife’
‘Professional Me’
‘Knowledge Evanescent’
‘Pull Quotable’

 

Drawings, paintings, collage, sculpture

 

from Ian F. Svenonius’s “Censorship Now”, 2017
Gesso, sumi ink, oil and acrylic on canvas

 

Behold Man!, 2013
Inkjet prints, paint

 

Trojan Bin, 2014
Sumi ink on Arches paper with collage, vacuum sealed on aluminum and wood

 

Push, 2006
Collage, latex paint, tape, and graphite pencil on panel

 

Pull After “Push”, 2010
Paint, printed matter, linen tape, and stickers on panel

 

Why should you not be able to assemble yourself and write?, 2008
Rice paper, paper and ink on gessoed canvas on panel

 

Music Stand, 2008
Vinyl paint and paper on gessoed canvas

 

Chorus Line, 2008
Paper collage, graphite on paper

 

After “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World”, 2011
Mixed media on canvas

 

The Inchoate Incarnate: Bespoke Costume for the Artist, 2009
Wearable fabric costume (silk organza), dress form (resin, expandable foam)

 

The Inchoate Incarnate: Summon Me and I’ll Probably Come, 2009
Wearable fabric costume (linen)

 

Bird and Bricks, 2008
Collage on paper

 

Structure That F(its my opening), 2006
Gouache on paper with silk on panel

 

In-box, 2004
Printed matter, Chinese paper and linen tape

 

Understater, 2002
Casein, spray paint, collage and linen tape on canvas board

 

Birds Harmonizing on an Upended Table, 2001
Carbon, casein, and collage on canvas board with nails

 

Om (On Kerouac), 1997
Carbon and watercolor on paper

 

Bees, Birds, 1996
Carbon on vellum, linen tape

 

Untitled (Tropic of Cancer), 1993
Two paperback books with drawing paper and carbon in between each page

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Carsten, Thanks. Well, it’s our loss actually, but what can you do. We’ll find a way. I smoke at a window. When Yury’s here I smoke at the bedroom window with the door closed. I only smoke in the apartment when he’s away for a few days and I can air it out after. And even then I only smoke inside when I’m Zooming or otherwise stuck in a chair. I don’t mind. Clayton Eshleman … don’t get me started, haha. To say the vibes between him and my writer friends and I, including Ed, were unfriendly is putting it very mildly. He made it well known that he thought we were silly, unserious children and was relentlessly condescending and snobbish to us. I invited him to do readings and events for his magazine at Beyond Baroque, and then he treated my writer gang and I like we were his servants who should have felt honored to be in the presence of The Great Poet. He was an arrogant, entitled asshole. So no love lost there, yeah. ** Jack Skelley, Zingy, nice, I’ll take that. Interesting about that book about Ed. I’m happy to talk with him, of course, so send him my way if you like. Yay about your trip! Efteling! What, no reading in Paris? What’s that about? Not even at After8? Gosh, I hope if you’re coming to Paris, that your dates and mine will align. I’ll be here except for around the 18th to 20th when I’ll be with ‘RT’ in Berlin and then around the 30th for a similar gig in Amsterdam. Love you avalanchely. ** Alice, Hi. I’m good. Happy you like the Ed Smith work and ‘My Life’ too. And of course very good news about the increased work hours and nerves-quelling results. And your new pad. Well, you sound to be doing quite, quite well. How was it conceptualised? Uh, the scene and song choice happened simultaneously. The fit seemed both complicated and a little too on the nose, which we liked. We were just ‘praying’ that Dan/Destroyer would okay us using it for essentially no pay, and he was. So many people here referencing Proust lately, it’s strange. Whatever helps you write your novel is a gift, so very happy to hear that. You have a swell rest of the week too. ** Adem Berbic, Giraffe-themed, huh. Giraffes might be my favorite animal, don’t ask me why. My weekend? I’m meeting up with an interesting French artist named David Douard for an introductory coffee. I’m zooming with an Italian theater maker about a possible collaboration. I’m seeing the new James Benning film at a festival here. I need to start prepping for the Iowa City trip and figuring out what I’m going to read at reading I have to do there which is harder than usual because there are concerns on that end that I don’t get too ‘controversial’. It is Iowa, after all. So like that there. ** _Black_Acrylic, Congrats to your Mum, but where is she going to live anew? I assume she has that sorted already? ** kenley, Hi! I don’t know Truck Violence, but I will, sure as shootin’. 10 bands successfully coordinated, that’s big or seems big. Nice. And nice that hearing Pollard brought me to mind. And ‘Gold Star …’ is a good one. It’s from his days as an elementary school teacher. ** Steeqhen, Obviously high hopes for the appointments today. I feel confident they’ll do something good. But how were they in the real world? ** HaRpEr //, Live snooty voice, very nice. I think the original ‘Blade Runner’ is kind of a great or certainly very influential film. The remake was misery central though. Well, with ‘Cattle’ where the conceptualisation was ‘actors’ speaking lines they didn’t understand, it was a little difficult to rehearse them, for instance, and Zac did most of the heavy lifting there. With ‘PGL’, all the performers spoke some English, so that wasn’t hard, and, by the time we shot the film, I understood the French script pretty completely or well enough to be able to coach them in the nuances of their line deliveries. So it wasn’t hard in that case. ** Hugo, Hey. Nice that you got the Peschel translation. I only met Louise for a few moments, just greetings and pleasantries when our films were at the same festival. I don’t really know how I would pet a human being, but since we’re talking brain to brain, you can assume that I’m trying to imagine doing that to you. ** Bill, Hi, B. Are you still overseas? Ed Smith was wonderful and very fucked up, and so is his book. I’m going to see the new Sharon Lockhart film at a festival here tonight, and it seems pretty up my alley. ** Thom, I’m trying to think of plot heavy books I’ve read. I did have a ‘dark detective novel’ phase, so, like, Jim Thompson and James M. Cain and those guys. Those were pretty fun. Ed Smith is really special. That book is really worth getting. Thanks, man, about ‘Dear Todd,’. There’s a video online of me reading it a million years ago that I actually don’t mind. Oh, one horn is okay. Roxy Music had a horn. I was thinking more of these intolerable bands from the 70s like Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago and those sorts of beasts where the horn sections were way too high in the mix. For me. That band sounds just fine. Pseudo-symphonic shoegazy is completely doable. Have a Thursday of high note. ** Okay. Today I’ve filled my galerie with works by one of my favorite artists, Frances Stark. Please have an attentive, leisurely stroll through the array. See you tomorrow.

* (reconfigured)

 

‘I’d like to use this opportunity … to introduce you to a poet you’ve never heard of before. Ed Smith. A common enough name. There are a zillion Ed Smiths on Facebook—I gave up counting them once I reached one hundred. But this Ed Smith was no ordinary Ed Smith, let me assure you. He was born in Queens, New York, in 1957; his family moved to Southern California in 1959. He grew up in Downey (the hometown of Richard and Karen Carpenter) and attended Pomona College in Claremont for one academic year (1975-76). He then made his way to Los Angeles, Hollywood specifically, where he worked as a paralegal and for an independent record and video company, became involved in the punk rock lifestyle, then finally found his niche as a poet in the scene that centered around Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in Venice, California, when Dennis Cooper ran the reading series there in the early eighties. The Beyond Baroque scene has sometimes been called “hip,” sometimes “infamous.” It was lively, that’s for sure. Other young poets who gravitated to the literary liveliness were Amy Gerstler, Bob Flanagan, Jack Skelley, and myself.

‘Ed published two books of poetry in his lifetime, both with Cold Calm Press: Fantasyworld in 1983 and Tim’s Bunnies in 1988. You’ll probably have trouble finding either of these titles—Cold Calm Press was a very small operation. Ed also published his work in Poetry Loves Poetry: An Anthology of Los Angeles Poets (Momentum Press, 1985) and in what Bruce Hainley calls “the most rambunctious publications of the day: Barney, Mirage, Santa Monica Review, and Shiny International [later just Shiny], a magazine for which he conducted interviews with artists Jim Isermann, Mike Kelley, and Chris Burden and eventually served as West Coast editor.” Publishing poems in rambunctious magazines does not pay the rent, so Ed worked as a typesetter, a movie ad copywriter, and a math tutor at a private school. He moved to New York City in the late nineties, married artist Mio Shirai, and founded Creative Systems Architecture, Inc. (CSAI), a consulting firm meant to help companies apply W. Edwards Deming’s principles of emergent intelligence to their organizations. (Sounds crackpot, but there’s something to it.) Sadly, Ed took his own life in 2005.

‘At first I didn’t care for Ed. I mistook his irreverence for disrespect. And maybe there was some jealousy. He was slightly younger than the rest of us in the Beyond Baroque group, cute (almost everyone was infatuated with him at some point), and punkish (he had, after all, come of age in the punk rock scene). I thought he could be obnoxious, a brat. But after I got sober (in 1984) and calmed down a bit (I’d been an uptight alcoholic, which kind of defeats the purpose), I became quite fond of him. Underneath the brash exterior was a very sweet, guileless young man. …

‘And what of his poems? Ed’s poetry was exactly like he was: playful, free of inhibition and decorum, troubling in just the right way. And wrought with intelligence, brilliance even, though on the surface they may seem apathetic to loftier poetic aims. He wrote “Return to Lesbos” (most likely his longest poem) in a black-and-white composition book, scrawling the whole poem throughout it, often with only two, three, four words per page. Ed apparently never typed or tried to publish it. He read the poem at least once to my knowledge, at Beyond Baroque in 1982. Lucky for us this performance (which Amy remembers as a sublime consummation of Ed’s talent as a poet and performer) was filmed and included in Gail Kaszynski’s 1983 documentary about the Beyond Baroque scene, Fear of Poetry. It’s breathtaking to watch Ed stand at the mike, wearing a short-sleeved nerdish shirt he undoubtedly bought at a thrift shop, and read the poem from the composition book, swiftly turning its pages. He simply gallops through the poem, as if he’s uncomfortable with what it’s saying. Fitting, since “Return to Lesbos” is an emotionally charged onrush in which he repeatedly questions his responsibility as a poet: is he going to just hold that “fucking pencil” or use it to “cry for civilization.”

‘Ed is at his best in his short lyrics. They have the sense that they were jotted down on scraps of paper while waiting at a bus stop or standing in a club nursing a beer he’d bought with his last bits of loose change. They probably were. I’ve always thought of Ed as a punk Dorothy Parker. Bruce Hainley refers to Ed’s poems as “toy time bombs.” I think that’s perfect. Something does tend to “go off” as you read them. They delight and cause unease at the same time—they’re authentic, that’s why. There’s real pain and real experience in them, despite their apparent toy-ness.

‘Last year, Bruce Hainley edited a generous selection of Ed’s poems for Court Green (issue 10), a journal I co-edit at Columbia College Chicago. The feature was called, appropriately enough, “Memoirs of a Thrill-Seeker.” This year, in Court Green 11, we published a transcription of “Return to Lesbos.” At the publication party in March, we showed a clip of Ed reading the poem. The audience went wild. “Where can I find his work?” many in attendance eagerly asked. Students, in particular, showed irrepressible excitement. Young people love Ed; his work speaks to them, it’s pertinent. Amy Gerstler and I have been talking about co-editing a book of Ed’s work. I think this would please him—his poems gathered up by two poet friends he hung out with. I’m glad we can continue to hang out with him, and that you’ll be able to, too, since he let himself get caught “being words on paper.”’ — David Trinidad

 

_____
Trailer

 

___________
Buy the book

https://bookshop.org/p/books/punk-rock-is-cool-for-the-end-of-the-world-poems-and-notebooks-of-ed-smith-ed-smith/5d29fe3798226cdc?ean=9781885983671&next=t

 

_____
Homages

‘In the very early ‘80s Ed was intimidatingly skinny and gorgeous and as reckless and charismatic as that guy in The Libertines who got caught doing coke with Kate Moss, but very, very talented and massively intelligent, and even when he was a little too wild, he was always so kind and heartbreakingly sweet and smart. Saying he was our Rimbaud is way too lazy, but there was that. I thought of him as LA’s John Wieners. Ed’s poetry has Wieners’s deep melancholy and low-key, note-perfect lyricism, mixed with Ed’s strange, bright ideas and his dead-pan, startling sense of humor. I‘m one of the many people who misses his poetry a lot.’ ― Dennis Cooper

‘Years ago my wife slept with Ed Smith and wrote him into her novel; we goggled, bemused by his ubiquity. It was a time when Ed was everywhere, or so it seemed, and his energy and taste for the zany and the outrageous fit right in with what we in San Francisco appreciated most about the heroic LA artists―Bob Flanagan, Mike Kelley, Amy Gerstler, Dennis Cooper, so many more. The present anthology is not only the best of Ed’s writing but contains in his notebooks the single greatest account of the genius brewing in the Southland at that moment. Hats off to David Trinidad for bringing it all back home―his exquisite care in selecting and contextualizing is the greatest gift he could have given his late friend. — Kevin Killian

‘Sappho invented civilization, and Ed Smith made it punk.’ — Tony Trigilio

‘Reflecting the heroic editorial efforts of David Trinidad, this collection of Ed Smith’s poems and journals makes me nostalgic for a lost era; sad that this talented if troubled poet took his own life; glad that we included his work in The Best American Erotic Poems, and in total agreement with David Trinidad that Smith’s poetry would have a salutary effect on a group of young writers, such as those attending a graduate writing program.’ — David Lehman

‘Ed Smith was this brilliant, handsome, charismatic, disarming, hedonistic, wounded math and science nerd who discovered punk music and art and poetry and was swept away, besotted with all three, and never looked back. He loved drugs and bands and science fiction and science and Sappho and poets and poetry. He liked to give people a little treatise by Alfred North Whitehead on mathematics for a gift. He loved being part of a cool scene. He introduced me to Prince’s music when his first album came out. I think he would have described himself as bi-sexual. He was intense and sensitive and wild. He burned hotly.’ — Amy Gerstler

 

_______
Gallery

Ed Smith and Mary Emerzian, December 3, 1981. Photo by Sheree Rose.

First row (left to right): Amy Gerstler, Ed Smith, Bob Flanagan. Second row (left to right): unknown, Michael Silverblatt, Mark McLaughlin, David Trinidad, Sheree Rose. (1985)

(L.to R.) Michael Silverblatt, Bob Flanagan, Tim Dlugos, Donald Britton, Dennis Cooper, Jeff Wright, Amy Gerstler, Ed Smith. (1981)

Ed Smith, Venice, California, 1980. Photo by Skip Arnold.

 

___
Page

 

_____
Extras

Dennis Cooper, Bob Flanagan, Jack Skelley, Amy Gerstler, David Trinidad, Ed Smith,, Sherree Rose.and Steven Hall. (very poor quality)

A poet and a comedian: Taylor Negron, Ed Smith (very poor quality)

 

____
Book

David Trinidad, editor Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith
Turtle Point Press

‘In Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World, David Trinidad brings together a comprehensive selection of Ed Smith’s work: his published books; unpublished poems; excerpts from his extensive notebooks; photos and ephemera; and his timely “cry for civilization,” “Return to Lesbos”: put down that gun / stop electing Presidents.

‘Ed Smith blazed onto the Los Angeles poetry scene in the early 1980s from out of the hardcore punk scene. The charismatic, nerdy young man hit home with his funny/scary off- the- cuff- sounding poems, like “Fishing”: This is a good line. / This is a bad line. This is a fishing line.

‘Ed’s vibrant “gang” of writer and artist friends― among them Amy Gerstler, Dennis Cooper, Bob Flanagan, Mike Kelley, and David Trinidad― congregated at Beyond Baroque in Venice, on LA’s west side. They read and partied and per-formed together, and shared and published each others’ work.

‘Ed was more than bright and versatile: he worked as a math tutor, an animator, and a typesetter. In the mid- 1990s, he fell in love with Japanese artist Mio Shirai; they married and moved to New York City. Despite productive years and joyful times, Ed was plagued by mood disorders and drug problems, and at the age of forty- eight, he took his own life.

‘Ed Smith’s poems speak to living in an increasingly dehumanizing consumer society and corrupt political system. This “punk Dorothy Parker” is more relevant than ever for our ADD, technology- distracted times.’ — Turtle Point Press

 

Excerpts

UNTITLED

This is a good line.
This is a bad line.
This is a good line.
This is a bad line.
Here is a country,
an idea we share.
There is an idea for paying
all debts public and private.
This poetry is now in its own future,
and let me say as an eyewitness
that we are quite primitive back here,
sophisticated only in things we do not do.
My people roll their autos
over goddam asphalt.
This line is doing its best to remain indifferent,
but here it is in this poem.

1982

 

BENEDICTION

Fuck you.
Fuck your mom.
Fuck your cat.
Fuck your mom’s cat.
Fuck your cat’s mom.
Fuck your mom’s cat’s second cousin
from Schenectady.

1982

 

LETTER FROM THE GRAVE

This situation is so embarrassing
that i’m considering approaching it
sheepishly,
but i can’t cause i’m too numb.
Well, numb isn’t exactly the right word,
but it’ll do for now.
Anyway, this is called “Letter from the Grave”
cause i was supposed to have killed myself
last Tuesday,
but i didn’t:
i’m still here,
and next year i’ll be eleven.

1982

 

A LIST OF 3 LETTER WORDS

fun
sex
art
gin
you

1983

 

ODE TO A STREETLIGHT

O ye moon
who shines so bright
it hurts my eyes

1984

 

THE POEM THAT CANNOT BE

I want my whole life to be a poem.

1984

 

CHEATING THE STORK

We fuck
for pleasure alone.

1984

 

DEAR FUCKFACE ASSHOLE JERK,

I am writing you because of the bad review you wrote of my book in Magazine. Not that you thought the book was all that bad just that your review sucked. As an example of how inattentive and lame your supposed criticism was and without going into too much detail you didn’t even manage to get the goddam line breaks right in the quote you took. I won’t even bother demanding a formal apology from a jerk like you, but instead I’ll leave you with this curse: may you wake up with a ringing in your ears, hair in your teeth and Clayton Eshleman lying in bed next to you.

Most Sincerely,

Ed Smith

1984

 

YOU CAN’T LEGISLATE MATURITY

In 1986 I was arrested and charged with armed robbery, possession of a controlled substance, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, statutory rape, indecent exposure and lewd conduct (but not resisting arrest!). Fortunately, that year I was awarded a Literature Fellowship in Poetry by the National Endowment of the Arts and was able to use the Fellowship money to retain some state-of-the-art legal counsel. What with plea-bargaining and all I only ended up serving two years forty-seven days. Since my release I have attained the eighth Operating Thetan level in the Church of Scientology. My short-term goal is to have my civil rights restored so I can pursue my long-term goal of being elected President of the United States.

1985

 

You have to use a washcloth
on the hot water knob in
order to turn it hard
enough to get it all the
way off. I never told
you that. I just went
in every time after you took
a bath and did it myself.

1990

 

MY LAST BEER

It was a long time ago and
I don’t remember it. I was
sitting in a stuffy, dark bar
on a hot sunny afternoon and it
came in a mug. It was one
of those things I thought
I would enjoy more than I
actually did. And not the
first time either. One of
those many things. One of
those many things that just
gradually got replaced by
what’s become everything
else, everything else that’s
just always never enough.

1991

 

When I wrote
this poem rays
of sagacious
afternoon sun-
shine were
streaming in
through the
south-facing
windows, billowy
white clouds
billowed across
the azure dome
of the sky,
birds sang and
chirped to each
other gaily,
the kittens were
asleep in the
living room, one
on the couch,
one on the easy
chair and one
on the futon,
and the tv was on.

1991

 

15 LINE SONNET

You lie on your side back curved
legs bent your knees drawn
up in front of you. I nestle
behind you the two of us
like heavy silver spoons
wrapped in velvet my arms
reach around your tiny
shoulders my hands grip
my forearms securely.
You hold my erect penis
inside you. We rock together
lazily and twist our bodies
slowly. Your head bends
forward and I lick the
back of your neck.

1994

 

ART AND POETRY

Don’t kid yourself it’s
all about power and control

1995

 

SEAT 47K

The last time I was on an
airplane was when I was
leaving you.

1995

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Adem Berbic, Hey. Dude, I’ve been doing not much else than trying to set up film screenings in other cities for more than a year, and it is a pain for sure, but the things themselves are worth it. Own that penis, man. It should be possible. Presumed hug from Zac and actual hug to Tadhg. ** Carsten, Yeah, she’s very interesting. No, I don’t know Bernard-Marie Koltès, but just the fact that her new film is based on a play curls my lips further downward. Who knows, we’ll see. Or you will at least. The filmmakers you mention are all prominent, respected, proven artists with distinct possibilities of Cannes premieres and worldwide theatrical distribution, etc. as calling cards, and Zac and I are nobodies making strange very low budget films with no future financial or critical establishment benefits in sight, so, no, those examples do nothing for us, unfortunately. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yes, yes, on both fronts. ** Steeqhen, Hang in there until your appointments and max them out for every bit of info and help that you can get. I’ve never been very interested in Gorillaz. Just was never inclined to dig deep there. But I assume they must do something special. Based on the video clips I’ve seen, seems you’ll have fun. ** HaRpEr //, Are the announcements live voices or pre-recorded ‘Mind the gap’ type things? I think maybe ‘Play It as It Lays’ is her best work maybe? I have a fondness for ‘Lord Love a Duck’ too. K. Dick definitely does only what he does, but I do think he can pretty extraordinary at it. ‘Ubik’ is my favorite, but I also really like ‘The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch’ and ‘VALIS’, among others. ** Nicholas., I just blinked twice. More than twice, actually. Gigs that give you time to write are obviously the best gigs except, I guess, on the financially rewarding side in many cases, which is my way of applauding your inclination. I’m not famous except somewhat in select places, and I really like it. My friends who are actually famous do nothing but complain about it. My dinner was some vegan material and mashed potatoes wrapped in two flower tortillas. Treated me okay. Update me as you see fit and enjoy the ride. ** Thom, Yeah, because, like you it seems, plot is my least favorite part of fiction. If a plot more than a novel’s forwardly propulsive, well integrated fuel I get antsy. Okay, horror, yes, there it’s a thing. But there the plots are so blatant and roller coaster track-like that they’re kind of fun. Interesting: I’m going to find those short novels of his, ‘A Mountain to the North …’ first if possible. ** Laura, Yep, on TW. There was a band called Tuesday Weld at some point, but I don’t remember them being interesting enough to have deserved that name. ‘Sex Kittens Go To College’ is a hell of an influence aka nice! Oh, sure, I still read and love poetry, yes. I think my gif fiction is much better than my poetry, but who am I to judge. I don’t think my emotions are chaotic enough anymore to inspire poetry. I think I understand myself too well. I have a good friend here who has long Covid, and it’s more than kind of shocking what she has to continue to deal with years later. Terrible, terrible thing. I have yet to predetermine what would stick to going kaboom rather than exploding, but my mind is hunting. <3 returning. ** Right. I’ve relit the old spotlight that fell upon the book of collected poems by the late, exciting poet and a dear friend and comrade of mine from my early writer days, Ed Smith. I swear that there’s great stuff for you therein. See you tomorrow.