There is a great interview with former Northeast Ohio poet Alex Gildzen on the blog Otoliths. Here is an excerpt:
So many colorful people have drifted through my life. I close my eyes and see Jacob Leed preparing gins and tonic, Jonathan Williams photographing Tom Meyer and I skinnydipping in the pool at Twin Lakes, Richard Grossinger doing tai chi in my livingroom, Ira Joel Haber and I laughing so hard our sides hurt, R. B. Kitaj introducing me to David Hockney on my first trip to Europe, Robert Drivas coming at me with a knife, Jean-Claude van Itallie in the Berkshires giving me a cat to bring home, Ned Rorem pausing during lunchmaking to smash a cockroach, Jim Provenzano housesitting for me on Morris Road, Robert Peters portraying Mad Ludwig in my diningroom, Gerald Mast and Peter Burnell preparing lobster for David Meredith and I in Provincetown, Richard Martin giggling through lunch at Barrymore’s, Edward Field gossiping at an Indian restaurant in Akron, James Ellroy wearing a kilt while howling like a mad dog, Todd Moore introducing me to the bookstores of Albuquerque, Matthew Wascovich spreading the Century Dimes on a bridge over RTA tracks in Cleveland.
Check it out!
2 comments:
Thanks for posting this, Mark. Gildzen is one of my favorite poets, and he will be coming all the way from New Mexico to read here in Cleveland THIS WEEKEND during Tres Versing the Panda: Three Days of Poetry Soiree. Now I'm on my way over to read the rest of his interview.
this is a cool interview--by a poet who gave THIRTY yrs to Kent State library, in the special cllctns.
he recently celebrated forty yrs since his first chapbook.
he's made postcard poems and mail art. he's edited anthologies and acted in movies.
a native Elyrian, the lucky dawg stays warm in New Mexico now, but he has Cleveland in his heart o.
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