My latest Strange Horizons column has been posted:
"Phil and Jack", about the often-overlooked connections between Philip K. Dick and Jack Spicer. I wrote it a few months ago, but various factors out of just about anyone's control caused its publication to be delayed (it's surprisingly difficult to get long lines of poetry to wrap and indent in some types of HTML!).
The column's a little bit scattershot, but that felt appropriate. And let me just say again that if you like poetry and haven't taken a look at
My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer
, you really owe it to yourself to do so. It's one of my favorite books of recent years.
Nice article. Ever since I learned about the biographical connection between Spicer and Dick, I have been obsessed with it.
ReplyDeleteAlan DeNiro is reading Spicer seriously as well. A few years ago I almost presented a lecture on Spicer and sf at Moe's Books alongside Kevin and Peter, but the day job interfered. Besides the Dick connection and Alex's novel, there are Spicer's wonderful conceits about Martian radio, and, on the science fiction side, Dhalgren. Back when I was trying to write fiction myself, my first and most tenacious ambition was an allegorical history of post-war America refiguring Spicer and Frank O'Hara as rival masters of a new church -- I drafted some fragments at the same Clarion Alex attended, but don't remember if we ever spoke about the inspiration....
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