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Abandon all hope ye who subscribe here. Varn Vlog is the pod of C. Derick Varn. We combine the conversation on philosophy, political economy, art, history, culture, anthropology, and geopolitics from a left-wing and culturally informed perspective. We approach the world from a historical lens with an eye for hard truths and structural analysis.
Varn Vlog
The Angels and the Poets: Rilke, Celan, and DA Levy with Alexander Benedict
What happens when we trace the unexpected influences between seemingly unrelated poetic traditions? In this exploration of German poetry's impact on American counterculture, we discover the fascinating connections between renowned German-language poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul Salon with Cleveland's underground literary icon DA Levy.
Levy, a Cleveland poet and publisher active in the 1960s who faced obscenity trials and ultimately committed suicide, created work that resonates with Rilke's mystical poetics in surprising ways. Both poets use angels not as mere symbols but as modes of address to readers – inviting us into a space where beauty and terror coexist, where mortality is acknowledged as the very thing that gives life its meaning.
As we examine Rilke's "Requiem for a Friend" alongside his more famous Duino Elegies, we see how his approach to mythology established patterns that would later emerge in Levy's work, despite their vastly different cultural contexts. The conversation expands to include translation theory, with insights from contemporary translators Pierre Joris and Johannes Göransson who understand translation not as equivalence but as transformation – every act of writing being itself a translation of experience into language.
We also examine how Levy's Buddhist influences connect him more meaningfully to Gary Snyder than to the Beat poets with whom he's often categorized, revealing the complexity of his literary lineage. From Federico García Lorca's concept of duende to the rich ethnic diversity of Cleveland's literary scene, this discussion illuminates how poetry transcends borders while remaining deeply rooted in specific geographies and experiences.
Have you discovered DA Levy yet? His work, much of it being republished through Between the Highway Press, offers a portal into a uniquely American poetic vision that draws from international traditions while speaking directly to readers with urgent, transformative power.
Links mentioned in the video:
https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2025/01/alexander-hammond-benedict-from.html?m=1
https://rilkepoetry.com/duino-elegies/first-duino-elegy/
http://homestar.org/bryannan/duino.html
https://herhalfofhistory.com/2023/07/13/requiem-for-paula-modersohn-becker-by-rainer-maria-rilke/
https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2024/10/new-from-aboveground-press-fragments-of.html
https://betweenthehighway.org/
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Hello and welcome to VarmVlog. And today I am actually fulfilling the other parts of the show's mission, which everyone forgets, including myself, to actually do, which is to cover non-political or quasi-political topics. This may overlap with politics, but that's not how we're primarily approaching it. Today we're talking about Ohio poetry. We're primarily approaching it. Today we're talking about Ohio poetry, specifically the poet DA Levy, who was a favorite of both Alexander and myself, I think, a massively under-read poet. I remember finding a lot of his books randomly at a shop his books, um, randomly at a shop, um a shop where I bought some books that uh, gary snyder and and rex roth actually had some of their collection like left at. So there's a da levy uh collection there which I believe was actually like in someone else's collection, another poet's collection. But we're also talking about something completely seemingly unrelated, although Alex has recently written an essay for Periodicities, a journal of poetry and poetics, on this topic, which is uh, raina maria ralca, uh paul salon and the general influence of german poetry on people like da levy. And um, a lot of say second half of the 20th century poetry, um, and we were just talking off air about how we were introduced to this. I love german poetry.
C. Derick Varn :When I was studying poetry way back 20 years ago, um, I had to take a translation class and I picked the two languages I kind of know, kind of know, uh, which by that I mean I can read fluently but speak terribly Um, and that was German and Spanish. And so I got really into translated Roka and in fact when I was in high school I got I think it was my, my junior year of high school I was in a bookstore and for like $3, because it was highly discounted and this was also in the before times when books were way the hell cheaper I bought the Stephen Mitchell translations of Rauka and became obsessed with them, and between that and Nietzsche and Hegel is why I even bothered to learn German at all. So not a bad reason.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, mostly philosophy, but it was some poetry, and I really love German poetry. I know we don't talk about it a ton On the channel, but I'm a big Goethe fan. I like Hölderlin, but I also like modern German poetry, including even super reactionary poetry, like Gottlieb Bien. But I also like Paul Salon and, of course, rilke. I think everybody's supposed to like Rilke, except when John Berryman called him a fascist in that one Dream Song.
Alexander Benedict :And it's more than just Berryman, actually, although I left that out of the article, but it's something I hope to tackle in some further writing. Yeah, one of the reasons I think when people talk about.
C. Derick Varn :German poetry, but it's something I hope to tackle in some further writing. Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean one of the reasons. I think when people talk about German poetry they don't talk a lot about the 20th century, even though everyone reads Rauke and I, you know, I do think most professional poets do get exposed to Rauke. Maybe they are exposed to Trekel and most of them know Paul Salon. But poets do get exposed to Rauch. Maybe they are exposed to Trekel and most of them know Paul Salon. But there's a big reason why a lot of people go to the German poets in the early part of the 20th century and I wonder why that is. No, I don't To get to the point of your article and let you talk for a little while. What the hell does DA Levy have to do with Ralka and Salon?
Alexander Benedict :Well, I wouldn't say I wouldn't make such a direct connection as you did in the introduction To say that Levy was influenced by Ralka or Salon or by German poetry in general, Though he certainly did read German poetry in translation. He did take German for a few years in high school, as I know doing my biographical research, but I don't have any direct connections with him to Rilke or Salon or other German poets. I'd say mainly, looking at international literature, he read a lot of French poetry. René Char comes up a few times in some of his prose writing.
Alexander Benedict :But the most direct connection that can be made between Levy and Rilke is actually something that a friend of his made a connection in this anthology that his friends put together in support to raise funds for one of his trials I believe it was the obscenity trial.
Alexander Benedict :His friends RJS and TL Chris put together this anthology called the you Can have your Fucking City Back anthology after a phrase that he said during a reading where a friend of his said that he was a leader of the literary scene here in Cleveland. Anyways, a friend of his made a connection with him and Rilke based on a line from Rilke saying that who can speak of living, Endurance is all, and that's how I prefer to translate that line. I can't quite remember the original German, but sometimes it's translated as who can speak of living? To survive is all I prefer to endure. But the connection that I'm making between Levy and Salon and Rilke in this article is purely through their writing. So it's you know there could be some connection that Levy made himself through his reading. But really I'm just searching through the writing and outlining some connections that I found myself through reading each of them deeply through reading each of them deeply.
C. Derick Varn :So, for our audience, we're going to break this down because I'm going to assume when I talk about poetry my audience doesn't know shit, which I normally don't assume, but today we're going to have to. Who is DA Levy? Who is Rainer Maria Rauke and who was Paul Salon? Let's just start with the very, very basic before we go deep.
Alexander Benedict :Sure, of course. Well, levy was a Cleveland poet and publisher. I'd like to emphasize that latter part, him being a publisher. He was born in 1942 here in Cleveland. He started publishing poetry in the late 60s under Renegade Press and Seven Flowers Press and a few other press names. He had a lot of different press names. I'm currently writing a biography on him and I'll be holding a screening here in Cleveland actually later this April about a documentary film on him called If I Scratch If I Write, by the filmmaker Khan Petruchuk. Levy has a very difficult biography. I'd highly recommend anyone to look into my thesis that I wrote on him a couple of years ago. But I think we'll just be brief here so I'll just leave it at that.
Alexander Benedict :Rilke was, you know, all three of these are poets. Obviously. Rilke actually did do a little bit of publishing of his own, although it was a very short-lived project. But he's mostly known here in the US for his elegies, while in Germany he's known for this actually ballad I can't quite remember its name but it's a war ballad which I found really interesting doing my research for this essay that in Germany he's known for an entire other book other than the Elegies, which he's primarily known here in the US for Now Salon.
Alexander Benedict :And here's a point between Salon and Rilke. So Rilke was born in Prague and he eventually came to live in France for a majority of his life, although he later lived in Switzerland. And Salon was Romanian I believe I could be wrong on that and you know, in this period of the late 1800s nationalities, you know, changed around quite a bit as territories changed during some wars in the period. But Salon also came to live in France, just like Rilke. And there's a line in my essay about how Rilke.
Alexander Benedict :You know they're both German speaking authors, salon and Rilke, but you know they're very interlinguistic. They bring a lot of languages to their poetry, especially Salon, which makes translation of him especially difficult, which is why I give props to Pierre Jaurice for his translations of him. And you know you titled this episode. I noticed Derek with Salon at the beginning and I found that really interesting because when I was starting this essay I only approached Salon as a kind of entry point for talking about Rilke and Levi, but he became much more of a focus as I continued to write the essay. Yeah, salon fascinates me, but he became much more of a focus as I continued to write the essay.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, salon fascinates me. You're right, he was born in Romania, although the city he was born in in Romania is no longer in Romania. It is now in the Ukraine. Okay so, and yeah, he was part of that Sudetenland German language speaking group, although he was Jewish too. Yes, and he is one of the poets approved by leftists to like, which is kind of funny. Which is kind of funny because there's not a whole lot of easily read poets from this time period whose politics make most leftists happy. But Salon actually was a socialist and sided with the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War and has good credentials there. I'm not actually interested in his politics today.
Alexander Benedict :I also find it interesting. I didn't know that at all, actually, but it wouldn't surprise me.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, the Dunaisa Elegyan are the yeah um the uh dunaisa elegy and are the duino elegies um. Baralka is where I started. Like I think most people is that in the sonnets forpheus, um, although I think more people in english probably actually read his letters to a young poet, which is not even poetry.
Alexander Benedict :Yes, I think the most republished of his works here. And I believe, yeah, like we were talking before the show was aired, we both came to Rilke through Stephen Mitchell's translations, that vintage edition, rilke through Stephen Mitchell's translations, that vintage edition and you know, I immediately gravitated also towards the elegies. The elegies, besides the letters to the poet which I believe you know, the letters to the poet, letters to a young poet, are probably the most circulated of Rocha's materials in English. But you won't find nearly as many translations of that book as you will the Duino Elegies. There's a certain fascination with the Duino Elegies and their constant need to be retranslated into English, their constant need to be retranslated into English. And so that was what preoccupied me with the elegies, because when I first started translating Rilke I was actually interested in a somewhat, I wouldn't say, unrecognized poem of his, but one that doesn't garner nearly as much attention as the Elegies or Letters to a Young Poet or the Sonnets to Orpheus, which are a project closely allied with the Elegies.
Alexander Benedict :But one thing I hope to accomplish with this essay was to see the significance of this earlier long poem, requiem for Ein Affoinden, requiem for a Friend, a woman friend that is, which was a poem he wrote for his friend and former lover, paula Becker, that is Paula Motorson Becker, as she was married and Rilke would later marry a friend of hers that he both met. He both met them in the town of Orpswede in Germany. They were both painters. Actually, rilke's later wife, clara Vesthoff, was a student of Augusta Rodin, was a student of Augusta Rodin, and later Rilke would become Rodin's secretary in France, in Paris, and this is the period of time where he wrote his poem Requiem for Anna Freundin, for Paula, after she passed away. And in the essay here I'm trying to establish the significance of his relationship with Paula in this poem's importance for Rilke's later work, like the Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus, because I think that hasn't been discussed in English scholarship, although it has been approached in some German scholarship.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, it's interesting. I was aware of the poem because I've read a ton of Roca, but I've never really considered it all that important, which is probably not super smart of me. There is a translation that I have found by Stephen Mitchell that was published in 1981 in the parish review, so I'll just read that and then, if you want to read the German, you can if you like. I don't know. You know, I don't know if my audience cares one way or the other, and I don't love the Mitchell translation of this poem.
Alexander Benedict :I could just read you, because I translated this and I actually had it published earlier this year by the same editor who runs Periodicity's, Rob McClennan, If you'd like. It's quite a long poem, so I wouldn't expect we could get all the way through it. I could just read you the opening.
C. Derick Varn :Read me some critical selections from it, because I could read the entire poem, but I do think a lot of people will probably start to yeah, that could take at least 10 minutes.
Alexander Benedict :It's quite a long poem. Let's see if I can find it very quickly here and what collection was this in originally? So actually it was published alone. It was paired with another Requiem for, I believe, a soldier, a poet who died at war, count Calcrest, I believe, but I could be mistaken. Actually, let's see here. I might just have to get my copy of the book, but I do have one handy.
Alexander Benedict :One moment here, it is Okay. So this is the first stanza and I think this will do enough. This is from Requiem. Freyna Freunden, I carry the dead and I let them go and was surprised to see them so confident, so soon at home in death, so satisfied, so unlike their reputation. Only you, you turn back. You brush me, you skirt by, you want to bump against something so that it sounds of yourself and betrays you. Oh, don't take from me what I am slowly learning. I am sure you wander when you are moved toward any one thing out of homesickness. We transform this from within our being as soon as we recognize it, and so in my essay here.
Alexander Benedict :so go ahead.
C. Derick Varn :Oh no, you go ahead no, no, I was about to let's get to the essay, but I I really like your translation. I'm going to read to others uh, so that people got to feel for how variant this can go um, this is the this.
C. Derick Varn :Is this the standard version by stephen mitch, which I don't like. I'll just read the same thing. I have my dead and I have let them go and was amazed to see them so contented, so soon at home and being dead so cheerful, so unlike their reputation. Only you return. Brush past me, loiter, try to knock against something so that the sound reveals your presence. Oh, don't take from me that I am slowly learning. I'm sure you have gone astray if you moved to homesickness for something.
C. Derick Varn :In this dimension, we transform these things. They aren't real. They are only the reflections upon the polished surface of our being Now. The polished surface of our being now. The polished surface of our being, of course, reminds me of john ashbury. But, uh, your translate and I'm not just saying this to flatter you, because I have no problem pissing off guests um, but your translation reads a lot better. And one of the things that used to frustrate me about mitchell's I could see something in raucca, um reading mitchell, but I would often be. Why are there so many small words in the English translation that are in the German Like?
Alexander Benedict :right, because you have the grasp of German and you know, you're reading the bilingual edition and you can see, you know, these small discrepancies, which isn't to say that Mitchell's translations are inaccurate, because that is a point that I would disagree with in the theory of translation, along with Pierre Gerise and Johannes Kornstein. But we don't have to get too deeply into the theories of translation and I push folks towards the essay for some of those, for some of that minutiae.
C. Derick Varn :But yeah, you said, you had one more, I believe you have one more, this by James Ramus, and it's the same stanza. I have dead ones and I let them go and I was astonished to see them so comforted, so quickly, at home and being dead, so at ease, so different from their reputation. You alone, you come back, you brush against me, you move around, you want to bump against something, so it makes a sound and and discloses you. Oh, do not take from me. I slowly come to know I am right. You err when you moved. Have homesickness for anything, retransfigure it. It is not here. We reflect it out from within our being as soon as we recognize it. Which, again, thinking about the German here, these are both not wrong, but they have different. If I was being like super critical, they have different problems.
C. Derick Varn :And to go to your essay, and towards the end we'll talk about Pierre Jury. I met him once in New Orleans. Yeah, he's a fascinating guy, but I think you do a whole lot with this poem. So to go back to your essay, like, why do you find this poem so enlightening, particularly when compared to Levy? Because I will say this if you've ever read DA Levy, he doesn't remind you of Raulca, he reminds. I mean, I do see the similarities. I was reading your essay. I was like whoa. But you know, when you read DA Levy you're more immediately to think of oh, he's like some weird lost beat that got dropped in Cleveland somehow or something, which is not really fair, but that's most people's frame of reference.
Alexander Benedict :Absolutely, you know it is so. I believe one of your questions there is about the connection between Verrillo and Levy, and the first one was can you remind me? I'm sorry.
C. Derick Varn :No, it's just, it's just. How do you, how do you get from this poem Like? What does this poem illustrate to you about the relation to Levy?
Alexander Benedict :Right, Okay, Well I'll. I'll start with what the you know, the potential significance of Requiem for an Afroindan for some of Rilke's later work, and then try to connect from there to Levi. So elegies, the sonnets to Orpheus and back into the elegies, forwarded some translations from the North Carolina professor, David Need, of some of Rilke's French poetry, actually his poems on roses, which I really wished I could have had before I wrote my essay, but anyways. So this Requiem, I think, is where Rilke crystallizes his style and approach to poetry for the elegies and in my essay I get into the details of that, but I think it has to do with speaking. The poem being addressed to a particular person. I think is really significant in the Requiem and for the elegies as well, because you know, oftentimes scholarship will look at the elegies as an address to Rilke's former lover, Lou Andreas Salome, who people might be interested to know was just a stunning writer of her own and she was also proposed to by Nietzsche.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, but the same kind of famously rebuffed Nietzsche of all people, yeah, but the same kind of famously rebuffed Nietzsche.
Alexander Benedict :And may have led to his death in some ways, although I'm not quite so clear on that, but I'd like to propagate that myth. In any case, some myths are just, you know, too good to resist, but anyway. So I, you know, I'm looking at the Requiem as where Ril, you know, the elegies are dedicated to Princess Mary von Taxenhofer, are not necessarily dedicated but are the property of her, because that is how he actually dedicates them to her. So the elegies are really this address to a constellation of people in Roca's life and I think he, you know, he's first able to accomplish that in his requiem. And so now, moving on to this very kind of tenuous connection, but once you kind of first connect that first little spindly thread, I'm able to to make you know, connect that first little spindly thread, I'm able to make you know what I think and what I think you read in the essay was somehow a substantive connection to Levi, between Rilke and Salon as well. And I find that in their mode of not necessarily symbols, because that's something I dispute, but their use of mythology also and how they're able to address readers with mythological language, and primarily that comes through the figure of the angel, which is an extremely deep topic of Rilke's scholarship and one that I hope to kind of correct in this essay.
Alexander Benedict :But I have absolutely no illusions that this essay is going to somehow, you know, impact scholarship anyway, because it's published in an online journal and not in any kind of academic forum. It's published in an online journal and not in any kind of academic forum. But you know, purely just you know, as a personal interest of mine, because I also am hoping to translate Rilke's Do we Know Elegies as a book length project at some point, and I'm close to accomplishing that with the first few months of this year. But perhaps now we can get into you know, what the connection between Levy is, what the connection between Levy, salon and Rilke is with their use of mythology. I was really curious to know, derek, what you thought of you know, which I mean really honestly takes up quite a bit of the essays my treatment of the angels, because I do think you know, when anyone brings up angels or mythological creatures and talks about them at length, you know you got to wonder what is this?
Alexander Benedict :Is this person crazy? You know you got to wonder what is this? Is this person crazy?
C. Derick Varn :You know a little bit. Yeah, I find it. It was actually the kind of semi-religious references in Roka actually do fascinate me. References in Rauka actually do fascinate me, and the angels are obviously a point of contention because, just to bring up, the most famous reference of the angels in English isn't from Rauka himself I actually alluded to earlier. The angels are called fascist by John Berryman in one of the dream songs. So yeah, it's specifically. Angels are called fascist by John Berryman in one of the dream songs. So yeah, it's specifically jackbooting. Jackbooted angels, I think, is the phrase that Berryman uses.
Alexander Benedict :I'm going to retort with the title of a Lenore candle book they slaughtered the angels first, I believe. Right, they slaughtered the angels first, I believe.
C. Derick Varn :Right, and I think that the elegies are. I agree with you. They're far more commonly read in English, but they also baffle people because you have this strong interweaving of mythology with. I agree with you. They're not not really symbols. It's more emblematic than that. There's there, there, you know these things that are used to to invoke things, but not in a symbolic, one-to-one way. And then you have to figure out the mythological reference too, and Levy also has angels. I mean, levy also does that thing that gets him associated with the beats, where there's all kinds of Buddhist references as well. So, dealing with this, we're both practicing Buddhists.
Alexander Benedict :in my understanding, I'm a Pure Lander.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I am a former Theravadan and I'm now also a Shin Buddhist, although in the Bright Dawn school, so I guess I am also a Pure Lander.
Alexander Benedict :But I love me some some uh Buddhist poets from this time period, partly because they get so much wrong chapter in my biography would levy, because just reading him on a surface level, especially out of the context of some of his larger books, it can be easy to associate him with a lot of the figures of the time, whether that be Ginsburg, in particular, or Kerouac or otherwise.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, well, one of the things I think this actually does for me is the way that they use mythology. They being both Raulca and Levi, and I'm reading your article and, yes, listeners, I would strongly suggest you read it and it will be linked in the show notes so that you can follow. What the hell we're talking about is this way in which Buddhist mythology is invoked in Levy, and I compare it to Gary Snyder, because Gary Snyder is one of the beat poets that actually eventually learned actual things about Buddhism.
Alexander Benedict :Yes that is a very good comparison. Yeah, I'd agree.
C. Derick Varn :Whereas when you read Jack Kerouac and to a lesser degree when you read Ginsburg, even though they're the most the more famous Buddhists, like in their poetry and in their prose, you get the feeling that they don't always understand Buddhism and it's that well at all, and it's hard to get what they are getting from it. I mean, even if you read Dharma bums, you almost like, I think this guy's that's Jack Kerouac, by the way, for people who don't know this literature, but by the end of it, don't know this literature, um, but by the end of it, because I reread it with a with actually did a reading group with a bunch of buddhists on it and we were at the end of it.
Alexander Benedict :We're like, I think this guy's catholic he is that was a direct biographical statement he made later in his life um you know a lot of, a lot of the most popular books, whether it be from kerouac or Ginsberg are from earlier in their careers.
Alexander Benedict :You know, with Ginsberg it's how cat-ish you know, you know. And so later in his life Ginsberg sobered up quite a bit and became more of a serious practitioner. I believe there was one song in particular that he even donated to at the end of his life when he passed away. But yeah, snyder, I think, is more of a concrete comparison to make with Levi in terms of his religious practice. But of course, you know, with Ginsburg, with Salon and with Levy, they all come out of a Jewish background also and that's significant for Levy's treatment of angels because he primarily discusses in his work, in specific, the Hebrew angel of death and Rilke's invocation.
Alexander Benedict :I really like that term that you're using because I would agree that, although a lot of scholars treat the angels as a symbol, you know, I think they're, you know, and you know we don't have to speculate here, we can just look into his biography, which isn't to reduce, you know, the poems to his intention, but just to say that he has elaborated a theory, you know, of his poetry and we can look to that in his own biographical writings, you know, obscurely, referential, he did directly connect them to Islamic angels and, you know, originating in Sufi mythological creatures, and he, you know, he especially, outlines a theory of poetics where the perspective of the speaker, of the writer, is within the angel. And that's, you know, really, where communication for us and with anyone participating, you know, in this, discussion or listening in, could break down. Discussion or listening in could break down, because it can be very difficult to contextualize a statement like that. The poem or the address is taking place within the angel. What does that mean? But really, I think what I'm trying, what I'm trying to, you know, accomplish here, and I believe you know this is what I conclude with in the essay.
Alexander Benedict :It really cuts to the chase is to say that you know Levy and Rilke, and I don't believe this, for Salon actually is that they're making a direct address to readers, is that they're making a direct address to readers, and I think they are addressing readers as an angelic audience, which really what I mean to say with that is that Roka and Levi, they both believe in the potential completeness of humanity. Roka also had an interest in Buddhism. I wouldn't say it was nearly to the same degree as either Snyder or Levy, or perhaps yourself or myself, derek, but he does have quite a few poems. I believe it comes up and maybe you can remember this, his new poems, where I believe one is addressed. One is titled the Buddha in Glory.
C. Derick Varn :And there's another.
Alexander Benedict :But it ends, I think, one of his collections. There it's either new poems, one or two. So he was also interested, you know, in the Buddha, but I'm not quite sure if this has any relevance to his interest in angels. But yeah, so really, I think Levi and Rilke they're both addressing their readers with full faith in their readers, and Rilke and Levivy are both especially stark on these terms because in the case of Levy he commits suicide and he really entrusts himself to his readers, I think with his death. And the same can be said of Rilke in this case, although he didn't commit suicide, he said at one point during his writings of the Duino Elegies and I believe he wrote this to Lou Andreas Salome in a letter either to Lou or to Paula or Clara, I mean that he could die at any point and be satisfied with what he's accomplished.
C. Derick Varn :And that's quite the statement really. Yeah, I mean, rauka is an interesting transitional figure for a lot of ways because he's a clearly modern poet, but he also there's this late 19th century German romanticism that's kind of there and kind of also being rejected. And I find the figure of the angels in your piece really interesting, the figure of the angels in your piece really interesting. And one of the reasons why I really liked your piece is that I had to put on all my various brains except my political brain. So I had to also put on my religious scholar brain, which I don't put on that much these days. But thinking about the difference between Islamic angels and specifically between Islamic angels and specifically Malakha Maveh, which is the angel of death, just to speak a little bit of Hebrew poorly, malakha means like well, angel also sometimes means king, kind of. So the angel of death is in Jewish lore associated with the devil, but again, the devil's not what the devil is. In Christian theology the devil is, uh has, satan the accuser and is, is the release.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, the opponent, the accuser, the adversary, um, but is not really evil in the kind of almost dualistic, quasi-Zoroastrian way that you have in Christian understandings of the term, because the devil is still doing God's work yes, that's a really key distinction right, and so the angel of death is also still still doing God's work.
Alexander Benedict :Yes, yes, the angel has no will outside of God, to put it bluntly. And you know another. You know I think I might have brought up earlier Another, you know I think I might have brought up earlier. I really wished I could have gotten into some of the work that the scholar David Need has done on Rocha's later French poetry. But another source that I really wish I would have read and integrated into this essay is the Andalusian poet Federico Garcia Lorca's essays on Duende, because that essay he directly counters the poetic inspiration of the muse and the angel, in contrast to the Spanish concept of duende, which cannot be reduced to either an angelic inspiration, which is to say revelation, or the muse, which would be to pull from, you know, greek tradition and further on. And really Lorca's concerned with the motivating force of death. And you know impermanence, you know, is something that I would, you know, connect Lorca to you know, connecting Lorca's notion of duende to you know a Buddhist, you know concept here of impermanence.
Alexander Benedict :And you know what really struck me reading Lorca and why I would have liked to include, you know, some of his work on the duende in this essay is because I realized immediately on reading, and you can find a ready English translation of this. I have no luck of Spanish in me at all. Like you might, derek, you can find ready English translations of these essays. But the reason I'm so fascinated with this Duende is because I realized immediately that that Levi, you know, is interested in the angel of death, right, so he's kind of skirting past his argument here. So really it's another form of duende, and with Rilke also, you know, we have to, you know, consider that he's only speaking of angels in his work, at least primarily in the context of death, with his poem for Paula, requiem, frana Forna. It's a requiem, you know.
Alexander Benedict :This is taking place, you know, at a Catholic mass of mourning and also, you know, in the elegies, you know, and also in the elegies, he's invoking the angel immediately in the context of death, on the death of who really? Of lovers of himself.
C. Derick Varn :Perhaps in some ways, yeah, who isn't dining in the Duano elegy? I love that concept and that connection because for Raucca in my reading, the angels are almost pure beauty, but they have no will of their own, but their beauty encountered upon reflection of things lost, both in the elegies and in the requiem, and that's in the poetic form. I mean both elegies and requiems you write I guess you can write elegies for things that aren't dead, but you usually don't, and requiems it's got to be. It's a death poem. It's like Tonka in Japanese it's about something dead, that's all they're about. So I find that connection fascinating.
C. Derick Varn :The Duende is interesting, kind of an interesting hot topic. I don't think people would have nearly the problem finding information on Lorca's Duende if they want to find it, because Tracy K Smith did a whole book playing on it. Ursula K Le Guin wrote a poem based on it. So it's kind of in the if you're into contemporary poetic idiom, lorco's Duende comes up a lot. Now, what it is, I have no idea exactly. I mean like what, I've gone through it I'm like, okay, so Duende is like tragic, but it's like not the same as like bittersweet and Greek. It is also something that imparts beauty, but through some realization of negative emotion.
Alexander Benedict :It's an intense emotional response, you know to use an idiom, fatal attraction captures some of it. But you know, I think the primary distinction that Lorca is trying to make in those essays, from my recollection, is that you know the muse, you're being dictated something and with the angels, you're being. You know, the action is kind of thrown upon you, but with the duende, the artist takes the motivating force within themselves and takes control of it. And that can be, you know, the sense of the tragic which is able, you know, to give rise to beauty. And I think beauty is, you know, a good point to touch on here.
Alexander Benedict :For you know the elegies, because I think what you're recalling here in connection with the angels and beauty, you know, really comes out of that first stanza of the elegies. And just like we did for the Requiem, I'd love to read my translation of that opening stanza. So I also have this in my essay, just like I did that excerpt of the Requiem. And this is the first stanza, and I love comparing the first stanza especially.
Alexander Benedict :You know the many uh, do we know uh translations, and I think, um, I have the exact number in my essay, but I think it's close to uh, 50 different translations in English. Now, um, of the do. We know elegies, um, and that is only the book itself. So you know there are probably many other translations either scattered online or in excerpts to other publications, but I'll read this out because this might help ground some of our further conversation. Who, if I cried out, would alone hear me of the angels' orders? Don't hear me of the angels' orders, and even if one firmly held me against their heart, I would decay from their intense being, because beauty is nothing other than the terrifying opening that we still only endure and we so adore, because it firmly refuses to crush us.
C. Derick Varn :Each and every angel is terrifying, and I think that's duende yeah, um, yeah, I'll just read the Stephen Mitchell Out again so we can compare. And again, I really like your translation. I've actually Tried to translate this poem. I don't have, I probably do, but I'm not Digging it up. But I think this may have been the very First Rock a poem I ever read. So but I'll just read the Stephen Mitchell translation. We won't go through all 50 or so that are available.
C. Derick Varn :Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels hierarchies? And even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart, I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are still just able to endure and we are so odd because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying, which you know, I. You can see how this leads to the jackbooted angel image. It also can lead to like Paul Cleese famous painting of angels, that yes, benjamin was talking about, yes, but it's. But it's Another deep cut. For those of you who wondered when that reference actually comes from, it's a triple reference in Ben-Hameen it's a Klee, but Klee's. Actually. I think Klee is directly Responding to Ralka. I'm pretty sure that that's true.
Alexander Benedict :I believe so, but I would have to confirm that also and I just want to really quickly Say you know if that's the only one that so, but I would have to confirm that also and I just want to really quickly you know, say you know if that's the only one that we want to read as a comparison. I also want to say and I can't remember the translator, I really wish I could, but one of the I think the first translation of the elegies that I read, other than the Mitchell, had that last line saying that every angel is terrible.
C. Derick Varn :had that last line saying that every angel is terrible. Oh yeah, no, I had it. This is another common one. This is a. I'll read one more. This is by Robert Hunter. This one is formatted very differently and breaks the lines very differently.
C. Derick Varn :The loud would hear me in the angels orders. By the way, that was now two lines, not one. And should my plea ascend? Were I gathered to the glory of some incandescent heart, my own faint flame of being would fail for the glare. Beauty is as close to terror as we can endure. Angels would not condescend to damn our minger souls. I don't even know where that's coming from. This is why they are. This is why they are and why they terrify us. So every angel is terrible.
Alexander Benedict :There we go.
C. Derick Varn :Which I. I'm just like. Those are some choices, uh and I. I don't want to get into theory of translation here. I actually think these are both valid translations, but one is doing a whole lot more leg work for the reader than the other. Um, uh, one is doing a whole lot more legwork for the reader than the other and adding a bunch of stuff that I don't remember being in the German. But that's even true, though, for Mitchell, in that, like I was mentioning, mitchell really likes using linking words for some fucking reasons. I don't understand.
Alexander Benedict :Right, you know a lot of the situation has changed, for for no reason really, and and that that that really that really confuses me, to be honest. Um, you know, because you know one, you know punctuation. It's kind of like a mathematical language in a way and english and german punctuation are not that terribly different no, no, I mean, we gain most of our punctuation you know from.
Alexander Benedict :You know German in a lot of ways, although it really is interesting. You know how the use of em dashes has increased. You know, over the last half century or more. In English, you know usage, although I couldn't really say much about the history of punctuation in English.
C. Derick Varn :Although I couldn't really say much about the history of punctuation in English.
Alexander Benedict :That's just how it seems to me. But yeah, no, thank you for reading that, because I had forgotten the translator in that line.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, robert Hunter. Yeah, the angel, yeah, that every angel is terrible is like well, I mean, I think that's technically correct, but that's not really what that means.
Alexander Benedict :No, yeah, it just sounds like something a child would scream out at the end of a Catholic.
C. Derick Varn :Mass.
Alexander Benedict :Every angel is terrible, but yeah.
Alexander Benedict :We could skirt by. You know the theory of translation, but one thing I really would like to bring out on this point is that I'm drawing primarily from Pierre Gerice and the Swedish translator, johannes Gorenson, who also edits for the wonderful publishing house Action Books that does a lot of translation work, and one thing I'd like to mention about that is that I'm drawing from Jaurice's translations of Paul Salon's later work. He's gone on to do more of Salon's work, but that's something that you know. I begin the essay with and with Goranson.
Alexander Benedict :He recently translated this poem, I believe it's something about a green angel Also, you know it's about an angel, but with their theories. Their theories are not really their theories because they both don't really elaborate, you know, anything close to an analytical framework for translation. But both of them, both of their approaches, stem out of their own translation work and their own approach to their own literary production, because they're both poets. Also, dries has a lovely book I'll just mention briefly, called Fox Trails and Trots, and Goranson, one book I mentioned in the essays like a colonial pageant, I believe and both of their translations the style of them at least really resemble a lot of her own literary work.
Alexander Benedict :And I think that makes a lot of sense to me, because they're both, you know, poets who don't come. You know, english is not their mother tongue. For Goranson it's Swedish and for Joris it's, I believe. Well, I know German, but also I can't quite remember. I did read a book of his biography once, so apologies on that, I can't quite recall.
C. Derick Varn :He was born in Luxembourg and I'm trying to remember what all they speak in Luxembourg.
Alexander Benedict :Yeah, I'd imagine it's quite a lot of languages really. But anyways, both of their approaches really overlap, and that's something that fascinated me because as far as I know they aren't in direct communication, or at least they haven't done any projects together as far as I'm aware, but both of them approach translation as really the basis of all literature. Like you know, for them translation isn't just this auxiliary task of literature, but it really provides the basis for doing literature itself, because writing literature itself for them is an act of translation. The act of translation is also the result of translation, the translation, whether that be of thoughts or images, into words or experiences, into language.
Alexander Benedict :I'm reminded of, I believe, the French poet's remark to Degas on him not being able to write poetry, and I believe this is I don't quite know the pronunciation Mallarmé. I know he's a French poet, but he says you don't write in images or thoughts, you write in words. And I think that's significant because when we're doing translation work, we're producing something. You're not just shifting some words over into another, completely separate field of speech. All languages are connected to each other and every language has its own modes of expression, and that entails a transformation. And so both Therese and Goranson agree on this point that every translation cannot be based on equivalence or accuracy, like we were talking about earlier, derek, but every translation is a transformation. And also, you know necessarily, perhaps you know a self-transformation, and that's something I've experienced myself in doing a lot of translation work is that it definitely impacts. You know how I write myself. You know getting deeply involved with another person's writing.
Alexander Benedict :As I think we all do in the process of just reading other people. We take up their expressions constantly.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, it's actually. You even take up discourse patterns. When I lived in Mexico, I would find myself doing a lot of translation of Mexican and other Latin poetry just for myself. I wasn't like doing a lot of translation of, like Mexican and other Latin poetry Just for myself. I wasn't like doing it to publish, I was just trying to make sure that I understood what the hell I was reading. And it amazes me how even the syntax and grammar and rhythms of these languages will get in your head and you know it's not new. I mean, like, even like English, renaissance poetry is highly based on the rhythms that come out of Italian Renaissance poetry, et cetera, et cetera. But it does really affect you. And if you're a person who's operating in multiple languages, particularly if you're operating in multiple languages where you use them all the time, you will start creating a patois in your head and I think that that's unavoidable. And with someone like Levy, for example, there's so many different influences going in there. I mean, there's several different languages, there's many different cultures.
Alexander Benedict :Yeah.
C. Derick Varn :Go ahead.
Alexander Benedict :Cleveland is just a massive hub of ethnicities. You know a lot of immigrants, especially, you know not, not just you know early on with. You know inter. You know North American travel from, you know the East Coast, but also my family, who moved to Cleveland in the early 1800s, is from Czechoslovakia and Hungary in particular. So, yeah, I mean Cleveland. You know there's a lot of you know speaking. You know influences you know that are going on across the different neighborhoods. You know influences you know that are going on across the different neighborhoods.
Alexander Benedict :And yeah, levy, you know has, you know, an immense amount of literary influences that may not at all be obvious because of the way he writes in such a simple address and you know he gets caught up in this sort of scholarly tendency to include him in you know beat poetry, which makes a lot of sense on the surface level, but actually a lot of his you know direct literary influences that I have noted coming out.
Alexander Benedict :You know, studying his biography, um are a lot of local uh poets and artists um, you know, including uh Russell, the late Russell Atkins, um who helped edit, along with Adelaide. Simon uh the, and Kenneth Patchen was another major influence in Ohio Poet who later moved to California as well, as you know earlier on. You know, I think you know there's no direct biographical connection here, but the Ohio poet, cleveland poet, hart Crane, who did begin writing the bridge here in Cleveland although a lot of writing tends to connect that with New York for obvious reasons of the Brooklyn Bridge but it was actually written here in Cleveland, fascinatingly. Not that Cleveland needs that, but it might.
C. Derick Varn :Well, levy's interesting for a variety of reasons to me in this way and for those of you who aren't as familiar with poetry, you're just going to have to deal with what I'm about to say. But Levy's associated with the Beats, I think mostly because of the Buddhism and the direct address. I think mostly because of the Buddhism and the direct address. But his actual connections in in Cleveland, like Russell Atkins, actually make him kind of a bridge between these West Coast poets and the New York school and he seems to be more related to the New York school and people expect.
Alexander Benedict :He did hitchhike to New York. Yeah, right, yeah. And people expect you did Hitchcock to New York.
C. Derick Varn :To say this. People expect the New York school to be influenced by all over. For some reason, the beats are. I don't know. The beats are interesting. Also, I'm going to say something somewhat controversial. My favorite beat poets are, like rex roth and snyder, not kerouac and ginsburg, but kerouac and ginsburg are pop culture figures and that's why, like you know, you discover the beats, like you discover paul sartre, when you're in high school. At least you know when we well, when I was in high school in the 90s like it's, it's not reading critique of dialectical reason.
Alexander Benedict :Or you know, saint janae, or, uh, the book on flaubert, you know, and all that you're reading you know, uh, you know nausea.
C. Derick Varn :You're reading nausea. In fact, that's all you're reading is nausea. Then you're going to jump to Camus and then you're going to realize, oh, sartre is actually interesting as a scholar, like when you're in your 30s Because all of a sudden you're like, oh yeah, there's a lot more here than what I thought for reading nausea, but but go ahead.
Alexander Benedict :I thought for reading Naja, but but good, oh I, you know, I would say you know, out of, out of some of the beat figures, you know I would, I would connect, you know, I would say Rex Roth and Snyder. You know Levy was, you know, interested in Snyder. He did dedicate, I believe, a poem to him, you know, based off of the cold Mountain poems. But you know Levy did have actual connections with Diane de Prima and Ed Sanders.
C. Derick Varn :I was about to say Diane de Prima was who I was thinking of.
Alexander Benedict :Yes, he published one of Ed Sanders' first books of poetry, king Lord, queen Freak. I believe there are not many copies of it. I have never actually read a copy of it. Hopefully I'll get the chance eventually because it's just a great title. Before that was published as a collection in one of his periodicals.
Alexander Benedict :Because Levy didn't only publish books through his presses.
Alexander Benedict :First one was Renegade, which was primarily letterpress and printed in the basement of his cousin's house here in Cleveland, and the second press being Seven Flowers, which was mainly mimeograph, and the latter being a lot of newsprint work, which was mainly mimeograph and the latter being a lot of newsprint work but he also did. Besides the book projects were a few different periodicals and journals, the first of which being the Silver Cesspool, which is kind of a play on Lake Erie being extremely polluted, as it was and continues to be, but it's swimmable. Now, you know, I would say you know during the I love this anecdote during Levy's time here and specifically under the mayorship of the first, I believe first, african American mayor of a major metropolitan area, carl Stokes, in the 60s here, he sectioned off part of Edgewater Beach here in Cleveland and had it highly chlorinated so that it was safely swimmable, while the rest of the lake was unswimmable, and this was part of his campaign for a cleaner Cleveland. Nowadays you can swim in Lake Erie, but it's still not the best.
C. Derick Varn :But, anyways.
Alexander Benedict :So he ran Silver Cesspool, which was mainly haiku actually, and a lot of inking. He did some. Prints Levy was also a collagist and a printmaker as well. Prints Lévi was also a collagist and a printmaker as well, the second periodical being what he's primarily known for and I think this might be why he's so primarily associated with the Beats because of his advocacy for the legalization of drugs, particularly marijuana. This periodical was called the Marijuana Quarterly and I've seen this reprinted, you know, as the standard spelling of marijuana, but it was Marijuana with two N's and an A-H, like marijuana.
Alexander Benedict :And the third, which has a really fascinating title the Buddhist Third Class Junk Mail Oracle class junk mail oracle. And it was in that latter publication, I believe, that Levy published one of DiPrima's revolutionary letters. So he does have those connections with, you know, figures of the beat in New York, but not much so, you know, with Ginsburg or Kerouac or a lot of the other figures.
Alexander Benedict :Perhaps also we could throw in Gregory Corso, which had ties with the Chicago poet and publisher Douglas Blazick who published one of these books which was called Cleveland, the Rectal Eye Visions, quite late on in his life, but I'm kind of losing the thread here. But you know, those are some of the actual connections in Levy's life between you know some people that we might associate with beat poetry, which really I think is kind of an illusion, really created by Ginsburg in a way kind of stringing together a lot of these people under a convenient label, and then Kerouac himself, who created the term, would later go on to dispute his own connections to it and try to redefine it as well.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I actually was recently watching Kerouac's conservative Catholic interviews with William Buckley on Crossfire, where he's railing against the other beats. Kerouac kind of dies, a bitter man and also a rabid alcoholic. I find that very different compared to someone like the Prima, and I find that I find that very different compared to someone like DiPrima one. We don't talk a lot about the female beats.
Alexander Benedict :There were several DiPrima and Ann Walden being who also went on to help direct the Naropa Poetic Center with Ginsburg. Yep met her the same time.
C. Derick Varn :I met Pierre Gerice actually again the Naropa Poetic Center with Ginsburg. Yep Met her the same time. I met Pierre Gerice actually again in New Orleans but had a lot of sketchy literary adventures in New Orleans. But the I find this kind of interesting To tie this back to this early 20th century German Poetics and also the French poetics I mean you do like I do think with Levy, marlame, rene, char, the French symbolist and surrealist Poets, they actually are a major Influence, yeah, and I think we also do need to mention people like John Cocteau also was a direct influence on Levy, and there's probably quite a few others that are escaping me right now.
Alexander Benedict :You know, I probably wouldn't go so far as to mention, uh like, uh, valerie or something like that.
Alexander Benedict :Um, because I am kind of, I was kind of speculating today reading his book, the you know charms, uh, whether one of his books is drawing from that which is called tombstone for a lonely as a lonely charm, um, a Lonely Charm something, a three book length project that he published with another local poet here who later moved to California, dr Wagner, who was also unfortunately recently passed away.
Alexander Benedict :But that's another thing I hope to you know, I to um focus on here is just, you know that, uh, a lot of you know the poetry that has been happening here in cleveland, um, you know it can be really, you know, I think, tempting to look at literary history and scan it, you, you know, even internationally, as we're doing, derek, and consider, you know, with Levy, you know what some of his influences may have been from some of these larger figures. But the really difficult work when doing a biography, and this is why I think biographical research is really necessary in the case of Levy and a lot of poets really is, because there's a lot of lesser known figures that aren't not, that are not written about. You know that books were published in small editions but that were very important figures in their lives, especially, you know, in their local milieu, you know their local scene and you know a lot of people for Levy, you know remain, you know fairly.
Alexander Benedict :You know, if not unnamed, then certainly they're not, uh, approached with the same analysis that we bring to Rilke and other, you know made, you know, figures that we call major poets, not minor poets, you know minor minor literatures, youatures, you know, for example, as a term, um, and so that's, you know, I I think I'm falling into that tendency here with with this essay um in, you know, uh, uh, looking, you know, at levy, alongside of rilke and salon, who, who are, of course, some of the most widely read German poets in English today, if not the most widely read German poets.
C. Derick Varn :Those are probably the most read, even though in Germany I would say Hölderlin and Goethe and a lot of their predecessors are more important In English not a whole lot of people read Faust.
C. Derick Varn :I mean mean I did in college, but I think that was close to you um, uh, but I don't think it's common anymore and not a whole lot of people read anything by holderlin. Usually when that gets up it's actually usually in a philosophical context or something. And DA Levy is fascinating for me because I mean, in my head he falls into this weird category that people have accused Ezra Pound of being, which is a major-minor poet, and I don't like the distinction between major-minor poets as a minor poet myself, but also Levy's, really influential in a very specific sphere of influence.
C. Derick Varn :But for a long but for a long time you could only get him in two books that I knew of that you could find, and that was his reprints in the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, which saved a lot of people, if we're quite honest, from utter oblivion. And then I told you I found a version of the Buddhist third-class junk mail oracle.
Alexander Benedict :The Art and.
C. Derick Varn :Poetry of DA Levy. Class junk mail, oracle, uh, the art and poetry of da levy levy in a yeah by mike golden um, which has a bunch of levy poetry in it. But I found it and it was from another poet's collection and I bought it because it had a weird title like you know, that's how I got, I became yeah when I was looking at your first uh press stuff I was like, oh, you're into da levy.
C. Derick Varn :there's only like five people I know who don't live in cleveland, although you do so I guess you counted the cleveland contingent who really are in the da levy right like um. But it does seem like there's been a renaissance and and like levy scholarship at the same time. One of the reasons why I want to do these poetry shows, even though they can be arcane to people and even the most widely-wed German poets in English, rauke and Salon, are arcane to a lot of people is that even fairly educated people now are intimidated by poetry and I mean I don't get that. But people are like, oh, oh, I don't understand poems and I'm like you read Hegel, like how is, how is Rilke difficult when you're reading Hegel? Um, you know um. But I do think getting back into this world for a lot of people would be fine.
C. Derick Varn :I think the thing with Levy is that we've talked about this beat element of it. The other thing with Levy is he constantly got in trouble for obscenity trials, like almost, you know, like a Lenny Bruce as much as anything else, like a Lenny Bruce as much as anything else. I mean. So if, if you're a purient teenager, um, do those still exist? I don't know Teenagers today. I teach them to see them every day. I don't know if they have those kinds of interests anymore. Um, maybe the internet has killed all joy in their lives, but, um, it does seem like it's Levy's an interesting poet in that they can seem really simple, they can seem even crude, and then the more you read them, the more you find there, the more richness there is, the more you see these layers and layers of meaning, and it's hard for me to even compare him to other poets in that way, particularly poets in English.
Alexander Benedict :Yes, and I think that's because and again here, this is a comparison that I perhaps because it's almost I'm so close to the material I've completely forgotten. But the obvious comparison to make is that all of these poets are writing in long, lengthy forms. With Salon it is in the song cycle form, you know, although it's, you know, written in very punchy, short episodes. You know his books are really lengthy, especially when Jaris compiles them together. You know the last four or five books of his later work, from Atemwende onto Sprachschluff, or I might be mistaken there with the last one, but, and with Rilke, you know, with the elegies, you know there are 10 elegies and the Duino elegies, each of them being anywhere from three to five or more pages in length, depending on how it's printed. And you know a lot of his other work you know being in the form of a long poem and you know you mentioned the books that you came across, you know, with Levy's material and unfortunately those are probably instances where Levy has been, you know, kind of torn apart out of his context. You know some of the shorter poems are presented, possibly maybe one of the larger poems or an excerpt of it. But the way Levy was published during his lifetime was as a book length, was in book length format. These weren't collections, they were primarily almost all long poems and you know anywhere from you know 10 to 30 pages in length, like the Suburban Monastery Death Poem from 1968. You know.
Alexander Benedict :So there's difficulty when approaching long poems. Or, as Octavio Paz would say, you know the extended poem which I prefer, and you know when you get into a long poem and then especially when you're looking at you know the potential relationship between you know many different long poems and poets you know work, the difficulties really just multiply Because you know, you know Salon and Rilke and Levy, they're working, you know, with a lot of intertextuality and intratextuality. And this gets especially difficult because a lot of Levy's work isn't just working with literary references but it's a really highly geographical poetry, and not just the geographical poetry across Ohio, as some of Kenneth Patchen's work is or Hart Crane's work is, but also locally and here in Cleveland. You know, particularly in his poem Cleveland Undercovers. You know he's naming streets throughout the poem consistently and you know specifically discussing. You know what is on that street. You know and kind of approaching, you know streets, as he says in that poem, as magical names.
Alexander Benedict :And this is where the conversation could shift into what is called concrete poetry or visual poetry, which has been the primary focus of scholarly research into Levy's work, which I don't think, you know, I'm not taking issue with that, but I would say that it might be a shame or at least an unfortunate circumstance, because Levy did produce so much lexical work. And so I think, you know, by getting into Levy's work as a translator, through Rilke and Salon, I was able to, you know, hone in more on the lexical aspect of his work, which I think has been neglected because of everybody's, you know, interest in his visual work, as a collagist or with his typewriter poetry, which you know is primarily, you know, shown in a lot of the periodical work and in some of his later work, such as the Tibetan stroboscope or the Egyptian stroboscope, which was a collaborative project with DR Wagner. But yeah, you know, again, I think I've lost the thread here, so maybe you can hone in on some of this if you picked up anything tell people to do is uh.
C. Derick Varn :I do think the lexical is interesting in gay levy and unfortunately, um, he is sort of presented as, uh, either a beat or concrete poet, uh, or kind of poet, art collagist. Um, I would think that I would tell people to read your essay, to talk about the way mythology and um, and the way that informs the images and the collages and these layers of textuality. I would also tell people that I know the way we talk about this makes these poems sound incredibly difficult and um, in some ways they are. But I also want to say got into raucca just playing around the barnes and nobles, uh, in a sales rack, you know, as a teenager.
C. Derick Varn :So, and maybe it was because I didn't have the pressure or the shame of being particularly worried about having it make sense that I fell in love with it because it was so bizarre to me and and that that actually attracted me to it. Um, levy is similar because I I saw levy. I mean, you're right, the matt golden book is not always a great representation. And I would also add that, like um, it is part of this way that you kind of can see him as like this countercultural beat figure, because the golden speculative essay definitely like, weighs into that.
Alexander Benedict :Yeah, that essay is a real shame because it is pretty much the main reference point for a lot of people and I would point to, I would point people you know if they're looking for, you know, somewhat accessible book on Levy.
Alexander Benedict :I would point people to the Ingrid Swanberg edited edition from Ghost Pony Press, which is out of print but there should be available copies online being sold and used, which is called Concrete and Etc, which does present, you know, a fair amount of his concrete and visual work, but it also does present some full length books of his lexical work. So I find it to be a pretty balanced anthology along with some biographical points of interest that follow the anthology. And I am actually in the process right now of putting together republications of all of Levy's work for an event I have here. So I have some available through Between the Highway Press right now for free and I continue to make them free, but I'm redesigning all of them because currently I just have them as excerpts but I'm fully redesigning a lot of work that hasn't actually been republished since it was published in the 60s and so that's an ongoing project of mine and people can find that, you know, on the press website, hopefully, you know, by this summer. Yeah.
C. Derick Varn :All right. So, alexander, what press do you work for? I know, but they don't, and I'm also going to drop people. I would actually, when people ask me what Paul Salon they should read, I actually suggest Pierre D'Aurice, anyway.
Alexander Benedict :It's a hefty volume, but it's worth it.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, that is. There's the early ones, which is Memory Rose into a Threshold of Speech, and then the later ones, the later books, which is Rough Turn into the Timestead. And no, they're not super cheap, because they're huge.
Alexander Benedict :It's a real dance topper yeah.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I was like. You can use them as weapons if you don't like them.
Alexander Benedict :That's great. I always used to tell my friends this is the book that holds up all my other books at the end of the top of my shelf. Everything rests on Paul Salon, really, so it doesn't fall over.
C. Derick Varn :Right so, but where can people find your work, your press's work and all that, Alex?
Alexander Benedict :Sure, so people can find the press. It's Between the Highway. The website would be betweenthehighwayorg. Thank you, derek. Yeah, I have this essay that was put up by Rob McClennan of Above Ground Press. This is through his online journal Periodicities. He publishes quite a bit of material on there all the time. It's in this lovely old blog format. You know that a lot of presses don't use anymore format. You know that a lot of presses don't use anymore, but he still does. Uh, uh. Besides that, um, yeah, I would tell people to look out for this summer for the republications of Lovey's work, and I also publish new authors every summer. Um, yeah, besides that, uh, working on the biography, and that could be a decade long project, as, as you know. Like you know, these kind of projects go barn.
C. Derick Varn :I know you're working on something with christopher lash, uh, and I agree, yeah, which is now like we're half decade in and I have written all of two chapters. Um, so, uh, the problem would the problem when you're writing something even exeical, like I'm not writing a true biography, but it's like I now have to do archive work and I have to literally read everything, and in multiple drafts, so that I don't say something stupid.
Alexander Benedict :Yes, Archival work. It's a very long process. It entails travel usually.
C. Derick Varn :Luckily, here a lot of the archives for Levy are here in Cleveland.
C. Derick Varn :You are lucky enough that they archive Levy too. I was actually happy to hear that, because some of these poets I have found poets in some of these collections, like poems from the millennium, are the, the, the, the outlaw Bibles that it's really really hard to find any of their work, even in archival form, like it's just like we got like five poems, there's like probably a hundred more somewhere, but we don't know where they're at. We got like five poems, there's like probably a hundred more somewhere but we don't know where they're at.
Alexander Benedict :Yeah, sometimes you know people's work like that just does not get included in archives because it's either destroyed you know moving apartments, getting kicked out of apartments or their family, you know, takes over the materials, throws it away. That happened in the case of a lot of local poets here that I've just started to get research on.
C. Derick Varn :you know, trying to get correspondence from people you realize their work was never archived. It was thrown out, you know, by their family members. You know, yeah, I think that's yeah. It's often tragic as a person who is mixed on whether I want anyone to have any of the other books that I haven't published, which I have about five of them that I have like just sit and look at and think about, oh, I should probably revise this and publish it one day, and then the other parts of me is like or I should burn it.
