I Fancied Myself a World-Weary Picaresque Melancholic Poet Dude (Part One – In which I Embrace a Splendid Squalor)
When a young person is starting out in the writerly arts, the first thing he or she must do is ask three soul-searching questions –
1 - Where do I fit into this wide, book-filled universe?
2 - What do I have to write about that will further humanity?
3 - How can I be cooler than Jack Kerouac?
Hemingway was big, too. But even old, uncool people liked him, so Kerouac, being more exclusively admired by the younger set, became my standard for literary coolness. He was syncopated Jazz Scat on paper. He was a resounding Beat in the big drum of the Cosmos. He was everything I longed to be – a spiritual seeker and life embracer, a marrow sucker and word experi-mentor.
Granted, I didn’t have Kerouac’s capacity for drugs and booze. I was more of a teetotaler in those days (although I had experimented with strong coffee). And I had yet to travel cross-country by the seat of my pants, as Jack had done in On The Road. So I had to take stock of my other virtues. Upon close inspection of my own limited journey so far, I decided the two greatest strengths I had going for me as a writer were –
1 – I was heartbroken.
2 – I was poor.
Admittedly, it wasn’t much to work with. In fact, anyone with any savvy would likely have sensed from the outset that it was a surefire recipe for sentimental, self-absorbed drivel. But as Emerson said – A man must suck the sucker he is given to suck. (Paraphrased) And so I started to carefully shape and craft my persona.
My first move was to find new housing. Since starting college, I had lived with four other guys in a rented house. They were great friends, but they had little interest in traveling the same dark pathways of the psyche that I needed to explore in order to become a literary giant. Besides that, our digs were just too lavish. It was undermining my angst. How could I plumb my mortal and forlorn depths if I was sitting around in brightly lit rooms with these good-natured comfort seekers in puffy chairs, watching music videos, while eating relatively well-rounded meals? No. It was obvious to me. If I was ever to succeed, I needed squalor of the variety enjoyed by George Orwell or Henry Miller. I needed misery. I needed solitary confinement in the drabbest cell I could find.
Now this wasn’t Paris or New York, but Moscow, Idaho, a town of no more than 18,000 inhabitants at the time, and drab cells – looked down upon by the general public – were not easy to come by. But at last I found just what I needed in a sagging, three story building right in the center of town. I took a corner room on the second floor for eighty-five dollars a month. It had high peeling ceilings and three tall windows looking out onto the main street on one side, while three more windows on another wall looked over the town square. A fountain geysered below me in the square – its spume sometimes wafting through my open windows on breezier days – and laughing children often floated sticks and paper boats in the fountain while their parents waited nearby. A clock on a pole told dubious time beside the fountain. A bar was just across the street, and oblivion-seeking college kids poured in and out of its doors most nights until the wee hours.
My room was furnished with a sink, a hotplate, and a shelf complete with a bowl a plate and a pot. It came with a half-size Frigidaire refrigerator that hummed the doleful, meditative tune of a Cistercian monk. The room had a large bed and a wide table made of boards. A spoke-backed chair sat before the table, and an armchair was placed in the corner where the windowed walls came together in a sort of cloistered nook. I also had a lamp on a flexible pole that I would move back and forth from the table to the armchair, depending upon where I was writing or reading. A steam radiator stood like a medieval sculpture under one window. The communal bathroom – la pièce de résistance – was down the hall. My room emanated an odor of rodents and lead paint and long-gone budding poets. Silverfish scurried into cracks whenever the lights were flipped on. Street noise was constant. The place was squalor incarnate.
My favorite touch was the ice cream shop on the ground floor directly beneath my room. This seemed profoundly fitting to me. While the masses were enjoying their sugary, double-scooped treats down below, I – the self-sacrificing wordsmith at the edge of society – would be laboring on high to create for them offerings of a more soulful worth.
I took two classes at the university that fall – Shakespeare and Modern American Poetry – since that was all I could afford. I eschewed student loans in those days because, I reasoned, that would only obligate me to the Machine, turning me into a slave as I struggled to pay them back. Poetry was a precarious occupation after all, sometimes not paying big money until a poet was well into his thirties. Besides, taking only two classes would afford me more time to pour out my heart into the beautifully cadenced sonnets and poignant villanelles I saw drifting before the open window of my mind’s eye.
Ensconced firmly in my splendid squalor, wearing my heart on my sleeve, with the ghost of Kerouac hovering over my shoulder, there was nothing left but for me to get to work.
1 - Where do I fit into this wide, book-filled universe?
2 - What do I have to write about that will further humanity?
3 - How can I be cooler than Jack Kerouac?
Hemingway was big, too. But even old, uncool people liked him, so Kerouac, being more exclusively admired by the younger set, became my standard for literary coolness. He was syncopated Jazz Scat on paper. He was a resounding Beat in the big drum of the Cosmos. He was everything I longed to be – a spiritual seeker and life embracer, a marrow sucker and word experi-mentor.
Granted, I didn’t have Kerouac’s capacity for drugs and booze. I was more of a teetotaler in those days (although I had experimented with strong coffee). And I had yet to travel cross-country by the seat of my pants, as Jack had done in On The Road. So I had to take stock of my other virtues. Upon close inspection of my own limited journey so far, I decided the two greatest strengths I had going for me as a writer were –
1 – I was heartbroken.
2 – I was poor.
Admittedly, it wasn’t much to work with. In fact, anyone with any savvy would likely have sensed from the outset that it was a surefire recipe for sentimental, self-absorbed drivel. But as Emerson said – A man must suck the sucker he is given to suck. (Paraphrased) And so I started to carefully shape and craft my persona.
My first move was to find new housing. Since starting college, I had lived with four other guys in a rented house. They were great friends, but they had little interest in traveling the same dark pathways of the psyche that I needed to explore in order to become a literary giant. Besides that, our digs were just too lavish. It was undermining my angst. How could I plumb my mortal and forlorn depths if I was sitting around in brightly lit rooms with these good-natured comfort seekers in puffy chairs, watching music videos, while eating relatively well-rounded meals? No. It was obvious to me. If I was ever to succeed, I needed squalor of the variety enjoyed by George Orwell or Henry Miller. I needed misery. I needed solitary confinement in the drabbest cell I could find.
Now this wasn’t Paris or New York, but Moscow, Idaho, a town of no more than 18,000 inhabitants at the time, and drab cells – looked down upon by the general public – were not easy to come by. But at last I found just what I needed in a sagging, three story building right in the center of town. I took a corner room on the second floor for eighty-five dollars a month. It had high peeling ceilings and three tall windows looking out onto the main street on one side, while three more windows on another wall looked over the town square. A fountain geysered below me in the square – its spume sometimes wafting through my open windows on breezier days – and laughing children often floated sticks and paper boats in the fountain while their parents waited nearby. A clock on a pole told dubious time beside the fountain. A bar was just across the street, and oblivion-seeking college kids poured in and out of its doors most nights until the wee hours.
My room was furnished with a sink, a hotplate, and a shelf complete with a bowl a plate and a pot. It came with a half-size Frigidaire refrigerator that hummed the doleful, meditative tune of a Cistercian monk. The room had a large bed and a wide table made of boards. A spoke-backed chair sat before the table, and an armchair was placed in the corner where the windowed walls came together in a sort of cloistered nook. I also had a lamp on a flexible pole that I would move back and forth from the table to the armchair, depending upon where I was writing or reading. A steam radiator stood like a medieval sculpture under one window. The communal bathroom – la pièce de résistance – was down the hall. My room emanated an odor of rodents and lead paint and long-gone budding poets. Silverfish scurried into cracks whenever the lights were flipped on. Street noise was constant. The place was squalor incarnate.
My favorite touch was the ice cream shop on the ground floor directly beneath my room. This seemed profoundly fitting to me. While the masses were enjoying their sugary, double-scooped treats down below, I – the self-sacrificing wordsmith at the edge of society – would be laboring on high to create for them offerings of a more soulful worth.
I took two classes at the university that fall – Shakespeare and Modern American Poetry – since that was all I could afford. I eschewed student loans in those days because, I reasoned, that would only obligate me to the Machine, turning me into a slave as I struggled to pay them back. Poetry was a precarious occupation after all, sometimes not paying big money until a poet was well into his thirties. Besides, taking only two classes would afford me more time to pour out my heart into the beautifully cadenced sonnets and poignant villanelles I saw drifting before the open window of my mind’s eye.
Ensconced firmly in my splendid squalor, wearing my heart on my sleeve, with the ghost of Kerouac hovering over my shoulder, there was nothing left but for me to get to work.
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