Stars Seen in Person: Selected Journals

by John Wieners, Ammiel Alcalay (Preface), Michael Seth Stewart (Editor)

A contributor to Donald Allen's seminal New American Poetry anthology, John Wieners was on the periphery of many of the twentieth century's most important avant-garde poetry scenes, from Black Mountain and the Boston Renaissance to the New York School and the SF Renaissance. Having achieved cult status among poets, Wieners has also become known for the compelling nature of his journals, a mixture of early drafts of poems, prose fragments, lists, and other fascinating minutiae of the poet's imagination. Stars Seen in Person: Selected Journals of John Wieners collects four of his previously unpublished journals from the period between 1955 and 1969. The first journal depicts a young, openly gay, self-described "would-be poet" dashing around bohemian Boston with writer and artist friends, pre-drugs and pre-fame. By the last book, decimated by repeated institutionalization (the first for drug-related psychosis, the rest the consequence of the first) and personal tragedies, Wieners is broken down and in great pain, but still writing honestly and with detail about the life he's left with. These journals capture a post-war bohemian world that no longer exists, depicted through the prism of Wieners' sense of glamour.

Praise for Stars Seen in Person:

"Like Rimbaud in Season in Hell, or Baudelaire with Intimate Journals, there's an unguarded spark and trust in John Wieners because impulse and imagination reign supreme. In 1955 he writes, "I shall try the only true thing I want to do. I shall go to my poems." Predating The Hotel Wentley Poems, moving through Ace of Pentacles, and ushering us into his life before Nerves, Stars Seen in Person further illuminates John as our future/former best unkept secret."—Micah Ballard

"Thanks to Michael Seth Stewart’s editorial legerdemain, at long last we have the magnificent John Wieners here before us, in his full undressed splendor: poet, stargazer, philosopher, shaman, flâneur, survivor. His journals––an inspiring monument, filled with taut provocations and purple illuminations––are valuable as cultural history, as lyric performance, as uninhibited autobiography, and as a motley, genre-defying epitome of gesamtkunstwerk aesthetic possibilities that seem as fresh and enticing as anything being dreamt up today."—Wayne Koestenbaum

"These pages of notebooks and poetry—so exhaustively exhumed and returned to light and breath—are equivalent to Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, but in reverse. John Wieners (forever young) evolved through his prose notes towards a sustained poetics of adolescence, holding that tormented phase on a long unyielding band-wave, resisting the sop of adult living with all his might and undergoing the inevitable punishments that such persistence brings."—Fanny Howe

"John Wieners remains one of the best poets of my generation. His work & life continue to influence younger poets. These journals reveal his deep commitment to poetry & the poem; they contextualize his constant questing & devotion to the art. I knew John during many of the periods his journals cover &, as always, remain amazed & moved by his deeply examined honesty & purity."—David Meltzer

John Wieners studied with Charles Olson at Black Mountain College, and later edited the small magazine Measure. He lived for a year and a half in San Francisco, where he wrote his breakthrough book, Hotel Wentley Poems (1958). In the early seventies he settled into an apartment on Boston's Beacon Hill, where he lived and wrote until his death in 2002.

248 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2015

About the author

John Joseph Wieners (January 6, 1934 – March 1, 2002) was an American poet.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poet's journal is always interesting, because it's looking into the mind of the poet, and one can trace the thinking pattern in what makes their work or writing happen. Or in some cases, not happen. It's very strange to come upon this book, because my dad, Wallace Berman, is mentioned in its pages - both in the introduction as well as in John Wieners' journal. At the time of writing "Blauuwildebeestefontein" journal, he was staying with us in Beverly Glen. So like a phantom, my dad does make an appearance, but alas, in the mind of Wieners it becomes a figure of importance, but alas, a faint mist.

The poetry / writing of John Wieners is very romantic. When he writes about his surroundings, or instance either Boston or Manhattan, it reads extremely glamourous. The city I often felt, were not made for citizens to live in, but for poets to comment on. The urban landscape becomes something else in the hands of a poet. John was (or is) a fantastic poet. He had an incredible eye for detail - in the sense that he was a great sketch artist capturing an image, but he would do it with words. The journals in this book (four of them) are sometimes a diary, in a very loose narrative, or straight ahead poetry. Sometimes a combination of the two - a narration as poetry. Nevertheless he captures angst in his words, and some of it is painful read, specifically about his one female lover (John was gay) and the child that didn't happen. Reading the unhappiness, I almost wanted to skip this part of the journal, but alas, it is either the pain or just his enormous presence on the page keeps the reader going.

In its simplicity, I love the last part of the journal where he just mentions a celebrity and where he saw that person. For instance:

"George Sanders
passing in Cadillac"

"Peter Lorre outside upper
Times Square Theatre"

The name that captured my attention is this section is Dean Stockwell and Bobby Driscoll, whom were not only actors, but very close friends to my dad and I have to imagine John knew them as well. It's interesting that he put them in the "Stars Seen in Person" category.

A beautiful book, with nice editing from Michael Seth Stewart, and a personal preface by Ammiel Allcalay, who met Wieners as a teenager. On a personal note, John Wieners was also my babysitter. A poet/babysitter is a very seductive quality for a future writer/publisher.

[City Lights Booksellers & Publishers · Rating 5 out of 5]

"John Wieners speaks with Keatsian eloquence, pathos, substantiality, the sound of Immortality in auto exhaust same as nightingale. He presents emotion on the spot - despair, nostalgia, bliss of love, dissatisfaction. And Glamor, coming from desire for Glamour…" -- Allen Ginsberg

"Thanks to Michael Seth Stewart's editorial legerdemain, at long last we have the magnificent John Wieners here before us, in his full undressed splendor: poet, stargazer, philosopher, shaman, flâneur, survivor. His journals - an inspiring monument, filled with taut provocations and purple illuminations - are valuable as cultural history, as lyric performance, as uninhibited autobiography, and as a motley, genre-defying epitome of gesamtkunstwerk aesthetic possibilities that seem as fresh and enticing as anything being dreamt up today" -- Wayne Koestenbaum

[Tay L · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection made me fall in love with poetry again. John Wieners has a crisp eloquence to his voice and his writing cuts straight into truths about struggles of his time.