Intro by Michael Grover, editor of Outsider of the month: When I was asked to do this feature and pick a featured poet and profile them every month, I thought national poetry month is coming up, plus this would be the first one, so I had to make it good. There was only one name that came to mind. I just prayed he would go along with it.
If you look at the beat generation you would think that is the only literary movement that has happened in America. Personally haven taken part in Larry Jaffe’s Poetic License movement in the late nineties and early two thousands, I can tell you that is inaccurate. But I am not here to talk about that.
If you look at the beat generation and listen to the mainstream one might think the only poets or writers of this movement were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and Laurence Ferlinghetti. Then there was the true genius of the beats, the ones that never got recognized. People like Bob Kaufman, Jack Michelline, Charles Bukowski (Who never got recognized until long after the beat generation was through.). And A.D. Winans the underdogs and outcasts were the ones that he befriended, because he was one himself. So I present to you, the first Poet Of The Month for the month of April, A.D. Winans.
<!--[if !vml]--> A. D. Winans is a native San Francisco poet, writer, and photographer, whose work has appeared internationally,and has been translated into eight languages. He is the author of over 45 chapbooks and books of poetry and prose, including The Holy Grail: Charles Bukowski and the Second Coming Revolution (Dustbooks). A collection of Selected Poems was just published by Presa Press. He is a graduate of San Francisco
State University and a member of PEN. He edited and published Second Coming for seventeen years, where he met and became close friends with the late Bob Kaufman, Jack Micheline, and Charles Bukowski. He can be contacted at
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1. Since this is outsiderwriters.org what would be your definition of an outsider writer? I'm not much for definitions or labels. For instance, many people label me a "meat" poet, but if I am to be called anything, I'd prefer to be called a Bohemian. An outsider by its very definition is someone not on the "inside." Not part of the establishment. Not part of the Academic scene. It is probably kin to the "outlaw" label. But like I said, I am not much for labels. But since I belong to no school of poetry and court no favors and have maintained my integrity over all this time, I would say it's safe to say I'm an outsider. ----------- 2. You have known some very interesting people in the literary world. Who is your favorite and why? Jack Micheline, but only because he was a friend of mine, who happened to be a damn fine poet, and the closest thing to a mentor I have had. I met John Lee Hooker, a great Blues singer, shot pool with Janis Joplin, met the Jazz man, John Handy, and knew or still know many of the Beat and post-Beat poets. But I'd take Micheline over all the others because he was not a phony like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and so many others out there. Bob Kaufman would be a close second. Another pure poet, and maybe the best jazz poet of them all. -------------- 3. What is your favorite story about them? I was in North Beach drinking with Jack Micheline and we were both on our way to becoming stone cold drunk. Out of the blue, he said, "There's an AA meeting in Chinatown, let's go." I asked him why in the hell would I want to go to an AA meeting in Chinatown. He said "Because it's a great place to pick up women." We went to the AA meeting. It was the first time for me. Each person raises their hand and says, "My name is X, and I'm an alcoholic." When my turn came, I raised my hand and said, "My name is A. D. Winans and I don't know if I'm an alcoholic or not." It was a time when the Vietnam war was raging on, and when Jack's turn came, he said, "My name is Jack Micheline, and, if you people were really serious, you'd be out bombing distilleries and not napalming women and children." You can imagine the reaction to that. To sum it up, the only thing we scored that night was a cup of coffee and some sugar cookies. ----------- 4. What is your view on the state of the world and the future of literature? THE STATE OF THE WORLD? The state of the world is fucked-up. If some one doesn't drop a nuke and start WW 111, we'll kill off future generations with global warming. We are nothing but cave men with advanced technology. As for literature, who knows. Technology has made reading a lost art with many of our young people, and I just read that 20% of our population is functionally illiterate. How many of the other 80% read books, and how many of those read poetry? ---------------- 5. What advice would you give a young writer? Young writers have to travel down their own road. Listen to those who have been there, but filter out the real from the BS. If you want to write, really write, spend more time to yourself writing and less time in coffee cafes and bars. Remember the only thing a writer truly owns is his or her "integrity." Sell that and you have sold yourself to the devil. Write because you have to write and never use the words "poetry career." There is no career in poetry. Those who found it in the academic world are among the walking dead. MDG: What does America or the world for that matter do to poets? ADW: It does nothing to poets and nothing for poets. Poetry prevails despite America. ------------------------------------------- THE OTHER SIDE OF BROADWAY SELECTED POEMS By A.D.WINANS PRESA :S: PRESS ISBN 0-9772524-5-0 131 pp. Paper $18.00 A.D.Winans is one of the most prolific poets writing in the world. He is an
internationally acknowledged word-slinger of the first order and this new
collection "The Other Side of Broadway" proves that statement. I have known
Winans for some years now and have reviewed several of his books for both the
Rattlesnake Review and Poetry. Now still this poet never ceases to amaze me with
his intense body of work for when a new A.D.Winans title appears it is simply a
treat for any lover of poetry. Winans and his poems are filled with soul, heart and compassion and maintain that natural ability to draw the reader into the body of the work with the full throttle of a direct punch in the face with his delivery of clear lines with a heartfelt uncompromising rage of language and unique observation of his San Francisco.
This new book is one of the poet’s best collections to date is a thrilling overview of work. Composed "between" 1965-2005. The book serves as a very cool and composed introduction to this rare extraordinary talent. Broken down into seven distinct sections "The Other Side of Broadway" draws the reader deep into the author’s world with almost painted compositions of the people and places which dwell and literally scream on and off the streets of his beloved City of San Francisco. Here we are given a poet who is hasn’t any fear of being politically incorrect in his arresting point of view and reportage of the desolation that is the result of society with all its contradictions and hypocrisies. Nowhere in the work of A.D.Winans will you be exposed to the dull formal white academic bullshit poetry fills page after ungodly page of the Pushcart Anthology with its "Let’s all write in the same voice philosophy" No, here you get the real deal. Winans is a poet of the people. His poems are hard-edged and honest in their observations he has no time for the sweet and delicate flowers of the Formalist Movement because like the late John Lennon he is a working class hero who writes from the heart with a sensitivity toward the injustices of the world he occupies.
If you have not yet discovered the work of A.D.Winans you are cheating yourself for he is one of the great American poets and "The Other Side of Broadway" is the best introduction that I can recommend to his large body of work you won’t frown on the choice.
--B.L. Kennedy
The Rattlesnake Review --------------------
STATE OF SEIGE Mc Donald's wrappers
mating with coca cola cans
floating across the rivers of America
Walt Whitman's children forced
to inhale exhaust fumes worse than
a coal miner's lungs
Christ run out of town
for practicing his trade without
a union card
children weaned on Campbell's
chicken noodle soup
not withstanding all those tiny
booger hearts floating in a sea of fat Late at night I can hear the
cannon fodder of Union soldiers
the sound of Confederate rifle fire
deadening my dulled senses
knowing I can't escape the
hangman's noose stretched out
across the face of America In the shadow of night
I hear the whimpering
of soft skinned women carrying
silkscreen fans in bone white hands
mothers of the children
I will never know ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LADY DEATH she's a bitch, a whore,
a toad. she's two-hundred
pounds of lard hiding in
a one-hundred pound body
she convinced Napoleon
he was six-feet tall and
sent him off to his Waterloo
she lit the last cigar of George Burns
blowing smoke in his face
minutes before he died
she convinced Custer he was God
lit the match that set Rome on fire
she made love to Eva Braun
before fucking Hitler in his bunker
seconds before dousing him
with gasoline
she disguised herself in the robes
of the Pope blessing the
bomb before it fell on Hiroshima
she pulled the trigger that blew
d.a. levy's head off
then repeated it with Hunter Thompson
just for the fun of it
she sucked-off Buddha before
he could cross his legs
and become an idol
she's a mafia hit-man
a sniper in waiting
she's a terrorist with
a bomb hidden in her skirt
she lit the match that set
Joan of Arc on fire
she built the cross that
Jesus died on
she convinced Houdini
he could come back from the dead
she burrowed her way into the vagina
of the Madonna and turned
Caen against Abel
she's in the testicles of every male
primed and ready to be released
sucking the life out of you
like a child sucks the juice from
a straw NORTH BEACH YUPPIE BAR Hard to believe Richard Brautigan
Jack Spicer and other Beats drank here
As I sit and watch two business men
Playing liar's dice at Gino and Carlo's Bar
In the heart of North Beach
Their faces white as pie crust
Wearing double breasted suits
And Italian imported shirts
The legal mafia making their own rules The one with the twisted smile
Hides behind his dice cup
His coconspirator silently poking
At the olive in his martini glass
Looking like a hit man waiting
To fulfill a contract ------------------------------------------------------------- POEM FOR THE JAZZ MAN
AT THE ANXIOUS ASP they say he's burned out
but no one has bothered
to tell him
his Sax igniting a spark
across the room
his lips working pure magic
each note attacking the
heart strings of the soul
and for one brief moment
he loses sight of the bubbling spoon
the heated needle
each note a burst of machine gun fire
just like he used to before the
angel of death took him
on a straight line to hell ------------------------------------- POEM FOR MY MOTHER A week after Saint Patrick’s Day You passed away Yet remain in my heart Half smile, half frown Like a drifter walking through A ghost town And I still visit your grave On Mother’s Day Tied to death’s umbilical cord That will not let me go Knotted like a noose Tied to my neck Too tight for comfort Not loose enough To set me free ------------------------------------------------------------- POEM FOR MY FATHER TWO I look at your picture hanging On the wall Think back to the conversation We never had The way you sat there And stared out the window The last year before your death No amount of drinking Can erase the memory As I toss one drink after another Past soft liver tissue Trying to avoid the vacant Look in your eyes Pieces of my brain stapled To the lamp shade CHINATOWN SWEAT SHOP You see the coming But never going Working l4, l5 hour shifts Six, seven days a week I imagine the sewing machines Humming: “A stitch in time Saves nine.” You see them coming But never going I imagine the boss madam’s eyes An executioner in disguise Watching waiting as the universe Grinds them into oblivion Last update : 10-04-2007 18:07
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By: Rajean Gallagher (Guest) on 02-04-2007 06:43