{"id":14960,"date":"2016-09-13T22:45:21","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T02:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=14960"},"modified":"2016-09-13T22:45:21","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T02:45:21","slug":"paul-blackburn-died-45-years-ago-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/paul-blackburn-died-45-years-ago-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Blackburn died 45 years ago today…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blackburn-rock\"<\/a>…just 44 years old. He had been a major presence in my first years in New York City, as mentor\u00a0& gentle commentator on my early poems. Here, for the occasion, a poem I wrote a few years later on another 13 September, thinking of Paul, New York and trying to be unusually (for me) O’Hara-ish (published in An American Suite<\/a>):<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE DAY PAUL BLACKBURN DIED<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>for Frank O\u2019Hara & Paul Blackburn<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

1.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is 6.28 p.m. in Tooting, London, just another<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday night coming on while Billie Holiday<\/span><\/p>\n

sings \u2018Them There Eyes\u2019. Just kissed<\/span><\/p>\n

Candy good-bye, Victoria is walking her<\/span><\/p>\n

to the bus-stop. At 7.30 we have to leave here<\/span><\/p>\n

to go to Richard\u2019s party, which is on Hampstead Heath<\/span><\/p>\n

or 45 minutes (at least) by subway.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>Watching<\/span><\/p>\n

James Cagney as rearadmiral something<\/span><\/p>\n

or other winning the battle of Guadalcanal in, was it 43<\/span><\/p>\n

or 4 on the BBC2 \u2018Saturday Afternoon Movie\u2019,<\/span><\/p>\n

my mind was on this poem, how I might get down to writing<\/span><\/p>\n

it, once Candy left, and if only I could remember<\/span><\/p>\n

what I did on September 13, 1971.<\/span><\/p>\n

2 days<\/span><\/p>\n

ago, on St. Valentine\u2019s day 1974, I checked<\/span><\/p>\n

my diaries for 71, but there was no entry<\/span><\/p>\n

for that day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>I was in London and lived in a<\/span><\/p>\n

basement on Finborough Road, near Earl\u2019s Court,<\/span><\/p>\n

with Billy and Victoria who hated and still hates<\/span><\/p>\n

that place, because it was dark and damp<\/span><\/p>\n

and Bill and I drunk too much that year,<\/span><\/p>\n

we were probably drunk that very night, or day,<\/span><\/p>\n

or else I was working on the s\/f script for<\/span><\/p>\n

the german radio, or maybe that was the day<\/span><\/p>\n

the tiny mouse came out from under the living-room<\/span><\/p>\n

closet, to sit in the middle of the carpet in<\/span><\/p>\n

the middle of the room and not caring about Bill\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

and my presence, sat there for a good twenty minutes<\/span><\/p>\n

before it suddenly keeled over and died.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>In my diary<\/span><\/p>\n

there is a gap from wednesday 8, to monday, sept. 20;<\/span><\/p>\n

the last entry on the 8th reads:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\u2018see you at the next disaster\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>2.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is just after 7 p.m. now, and I\u2019m still in Tooting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spent the last half-hour racking my brains re<\/span><\/p>\n

that day, but drew a blank.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no way I can<\/span><\/p>\n

remember what I did on sept. 13 1971, any more than<\/span><\/p>\n

what I did on july 26, 1966,<\/span><\/p>\n

though I think I was home<\/span><\/p>\n

then, in Luxembourg, studying for my<\/span><\/p>\n

medical exams. It is strange that those 2 dates<\/span><\/p>\n

are so much hazier than, say, for example,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Nov. 1st 1972.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know what I did that day: I spent the whole<\/span><\/p>\n

day writing a poem<\/span><\/p>\n

about the wholeness<\/span><\/p>\n

of that day. I called it \u2018Canto Diurno\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

til I heard the news about what had happened<\/span><\/p>\n

that day, over the radio, early the<\/span><\/p>\n

next morning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>Feeling nervous now,<\/span><\/p>\n

wondering if I can fit a bath<\/span><\/p>\n

between the end of this poem<\/span><\/p>\n

and the time we have to leave<\/span><\/p>\n

for the party, where I don\u2019t really want to go,<\/span><\/p>\n

knowing that I will have a lousy time<\/span><\/p>\n

watching Victoria having a great time<\/span><\/p>\n

flirting with Richard, while I\u2019ll<\/span><\/p>\n

get drunk to get through the required<\/span><\/p>\n

number of hours,<\/span><\/p>\n

and drunk, I\u2019ll try to talk<\/span><\/p>\n

to the young girls from LSE, this<\/span><\/p>\n

poem will be on my mind, so I\u2019ll babble<\/span><\/p>\n

about Frank and about Paul,<\/span><\/p>\n

they\u2019ll shake<\/span><\/p>\n

their heads and will walk away,<\/span><\/p>\n

so I\u2019ll go over to the stereo thinking<\/span><\/p>\n

Death, like, depending on what Richard<\/span><\/p>\n

is serving, if it\u2019s wine I\u2019ll most likely<\/span><\/p>\n

think of my own death, or about seeing<\/span><\/p>\n

myself dying,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>but if it is scotch<\/span><\/p>\n

or vodka, I\u2019ll think Murder<\/span><\/p>\n

the most likely victim being<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>Though he won\u2019t<\/span><\/p>\n

notice me killing him, he\u2019ll be too<\/span><\/p>\n

busy being the perfect host, and he\u2019ll <\/span><\/p>\n

apologize when I\u2019ll ask him<\/span><\/p>\n

why the hell he doesn\u2019t have<\/span><\/p>\n

any Billie Holiday records.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…just 44 years old. He had been a major presence in my first years in New York City, as mentor\u00a0& gentle commentator on my early poems. Here, for the occasion, a poem I wrote...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,1117,91,94],"tags":[1459],"class_list":["post-14960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-york","category-poem","category-poetry","category-poets","tag-paul-blackburn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14960"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14966,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14960\/revisions\/14966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}