The Journal of John Wieners Is to Be Called 707 Scott Street for Billie Holiday, 1959

by John Wieners

Begun on March 8, 1958, this never-before published document takes the reader through one of the richest literary periods of the great American poet's life, from the time of his first publication, The Hotel Wentley Poems, until 1960, the period he lived in San Francisco and participated in what now is described as the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Uncovered in his personal papers, 707 Scott Street represents the poet at the height of his powers, and in this important work he alternates between the personal and the general, between prose observations and diaristic entries ("Sur-real is the only way to endure the real we find heaped up in our cities".) and some of the very best of his poetic lyrics. In fact, 707 Scott Street might be best described as a series of poems in the form of a journal, which, given Wieners' belief in living as a form of poetry itself, should come as no surprise to his readers.

Genres: Poetry

110 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1996

About the author

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

Reviews

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wieners, great at all times, spent two white-hot years in San Francisco in the late ‘50s, and this book republishes the journals from one of them. It shows the young poet getting his chops together and blowing his mind apart with a lush, unvarnished directness that carries the odor of Wieners’s Lou Reedy mid-century milieu like cigarette smoke trapped in a couch. Aside from the title, it musters little of the loose grandeur he commands in The Hotel Wentley Poems, which he was writing at the same time, or the high disjunctive rhetoric he’d developed by the time of Behind the State Capitol or Cincinnati Pike, and in that amazing interview with Charley Shively in the back of the Black Sparrow Selected. “remembering how/poems under drugs sound so poor/on re-reading/but so great/when writing them” could be the book’s epigraph, but Wieners poems stoned or straight are still pretty great, like Charlie Parker B-sides, or Billie Holiday outtakes when she laughs and talks off-mike.

[C.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

P.S. selections from this book now up on the WIENERS EPC page, click here: http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/wieners/




What a fantastic book! We need this back in print! I picked it up from Interlibrary Loan at my local library and read it in one sitting.

"All I am interested in is charting the progress of my own soul. And my poetics consist of marking down how each action unrolls. Without my will. It moves. So that each man has his own poetic."

THIS AND SO MUCH MORE! Like, "I must learn how not to write. I must watch with my 5 senses."

BRILLIANT BOOK, all poets PLEASE enter here!
CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com

[Zack]

This book was the first of Wieners that I've read. It makes me want to read a lot more.

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was both a fantastic and extremely fascinating book.

707 Scott Street, is one of several journals that John Wieners kept in the late 50s, around the time or just before he penned his immaculate beat-classic debut, The Hotel Wentley Poems.

I love how Wieners seamlessly combines journal entries, which include just random passing thoughts such as "I must unlearn how to write" or something to that effect, with poems and with quotes from books or authors he is reading at the time.
Therefore, what we end up with is a highly original 'fruit salad' of poem sketches, journal entries and notebook quotes.

Wieners appears to have been a great observer, judging from these journal entries and so it's a pity he didn't try his hand at writing a novel. I think he could have been a good novelist too.

This is a nice easy entry into the wonderful world of John Wieners. I recommend reading this together with The Hotel Wently Poems or just prior to reading that book for essential background information on what was happening at that time in his life. I was lucky to find a free digital copy of this book online.

There are at least three books of Wieners' journals, to my mind, which have been published so far - 707 Scott Street, Kidnap Notes Next (very weird but fascinating) and also Stars Seen in Person (the most recent publication which I have yet to read).

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good but I wish there were more journals and less poem drafts. No offense to all poets everywhere ya gotta draft somewhere . I just wanted someone else’s proper journal to combat my own raging inner world lol