Weird Deer

Robert Graves didn’t like Piero Heliczer’s poetry. Graves said as much in a letter to Heliczer, which Heliczer then gamely included as the introduction to his first book. I remember Noah thinking this was ironic because, he said, no one read Robert Graves anymore and Piero Heliczer had, at that time, seemed ascendant, luminous and famous in that coterie poetry way that obliterates all other considerations.

As it turns out, Robert Graves (Amazon Sales Rank: 474,734) is doing all right, and Heliczer (Amazon Sales Rank 1,249,116) is still, as he was in life, outside, relegated to the margins, dead to much of the world. As everyone seems to be saying these days, so it goes. But I’m still looking at the mesmerizing photo on the cover of A Purchase in the White Botanica, still deeply confounded by the mystery of Heliczer’s poetry.

I wish I could do my part in parsing a poem or two, but every time I try I just remember shaking, standing outside a squat University building, smoking someone else’s last cigarette and thinking of him. I wasn’t that cold, just shaking, feeling so cinematic there with my blue hands, thinking, “Piero Heliczer died without teeth, rooting through garbage cans, shaking.” Do we need our poets to suffer? I wanted to suffer, to write whatever came into my fingers. For poetry. I remember it now, in no small part because I’ve just listened to this recording, given to me by Eric by way of Stan Mir.

It’s spring. Time for a pastoral. Walk outside, take “England” with you, and listen to this life.

XO,
Travis

 "England" by Piero Heliczer [8:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup