The Angels and the Poets: Rilke, Celan, and DA Levy with Alexander Benedict

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 ?

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

I might just have to get my copy of the book , but I do have one handy . 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 . so go ahead .

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 . 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 ?

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 ? Is this person crazy ? You know you got to wonder what is this ? Is this person crazy ?

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 .

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 .

Kerouac or otherwise .

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 .

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

.

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . As I think we all do in the process of just reading other people .

We take up their expressions constantly .

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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 .

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 .

But you know Levy did have actual connections with Diane de Prima and Ed Sanders .

Because Levy didn't only publish books through his presses .

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 .

We don't talk a lot about the female beats .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .