draft it occurred to him
that he didn't need the first 7 pages, and that
sort of thing will happen too in poetry . I
remember sitting on the beach at Aquatic Park with
Spicer and I was writing a poem in a notebook and I
erased a line and put another line in its place.
Spicer was watching me and Spicer said, "George
always has to put another line in when he erases a
line"--but of course, I've gotten beyond that. I'm
willing right now to say I'm working on say a 3
page poem and say I don't need the last page or the
first page, but I may not realize that till after
19 drafts of the poem. So it can come either way.
It can come just unexpectedly--a wonderful poem--or
you can spend B: You were saying a couple of weeks
ago it's not really work. Do you remember that
conversation? G: No. I may have been referring to
the use for example Hannah Arendt makes when she
talks about the difference between labour and work,
and action. She would have said that writing a poem
would be more a form of action, and Olson would
have said that too rather than work. Work would be
something like workmanship--making a good piece of
furniture. B: Were you saying you were feeling a
bit guilty because it looks like work, it is work,
but its not really... G: Well of course there is that
bourgeois way of looking at 19th century paintings
and the intention seems to be to make the viewers
say, "oh how much work must have gone into that,
how wonderful it is" and that's just the opposite,
the opposite. The phrase is "ars celare artem"--the
art is to conceal the work. B: I was going to ask you, since we're
dealing with biography, about your initial
connection with Canada. G: I went up to Vancouver in 1971
because Blaser and Persky had moved there in 1966.
My father died in December 1970. My mother died in
January 1968--about 3 years apart--and I just
finished my M.A. See, I had gone back to university
after being out for 11 years in the bohemian
beatnik hippy worlds, B: At this time, you're still
basically in San Francisco? G: Still basically San Francisco,
except for 1 year in New York and I had my M.A., my
parents had just both died, the 60's were over; it
was time for a change. I just wanted to go
somewhere., B: Out of that experience at CP you
wrote the poem, "Donatello's David". G: "Donatello's David," ya. So the
fact was, all during those years--the early 70's
which I think were horrible years for everyone--the
hangover after the 60's--and what we didn't
6 months working on something
that turns out not to be a poem at all, and finally
with a great expression of relief--throw it all
away.
I had no concept of Canada. I
thought of Vancouver as being someplace like
Denver. The fact that it was in Canada was less
important than the fact that they both ended with
the same syllable [laughter]--so I came up here and
I got stuck here--that's basically what happened. I
ran out of money. I spent the small amount of money
I had. I went on a trip to Europe with Scott Watson
and then I came back here and I started working for
Duthies and then I started working for
The
Grape
which was an underground newspaper,
and then I worked on Opportunity for Youth (OFY)
grants with New Star Books and and eventually I ran
out of money, then I had to go to work loading
trucks for CP transport.