What Just Happened

by Richard Hell, Christopher Wool (Illustrator)

In WHAT JUST HAPPENED, Richard Hell's new poems are interspersed with images created for the book by Christopher Wool. Hell's seminal essay "Falling Asleep" and "Chronicle," a list drawn from his recent years' notebooks, complete the collection. Kentucky native Richard Meyers dropped out of high school and moved to New York to be a poet, but after a few years of writing and editing poems and pamphlets and literary magazines he decided--in 1972--to change his name to Hell and sing and write songs in a rock and roll band instead. He still wrote poems at times but didn't want to be seen as a "rock poet," so he underplayed that part of his story. After 10 years and the impact of "punk," which D.I.Y. movement Hell had a lot to do with triggering, he left music behind too, in favor of fiction and journalism. He hasn't published a proper book of new poems until now, 50 years later. Nearly all the poems in WHAT JUST HAPPENED were written during the 2020-2021 pandemic. The poems are accompanied by an essay on the subject of "Falling Asleep," which experience Richard asserts as the seminal one of reality, and the book is completed with an 88-entry list, "Chronicle," drawn from Hell's recent years' notebooks. Poetry. Essay.

Genres: Poetry

143 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

About the author

Born in 1949, Richard Meyers was shipped off to a private school for troublesome kids in Delaware, which is where he met Tom (Verlaine) Miller. Together they ran away, trying to hitchhike to Florida, but only made it as far as Alabama before being picked up by the authorities. Meyers persuaded his mother to allow him to go to New York, where he worked in a secondhand bookshop (the Strand; later he was employed at Cinemabilia along with Patti Smith) and tried to become a writer.
He arrived in the Big Apple at the tail end of the hippie scene. He took acid (and later heroin), but sought to develop a different sensibility in the manner of what he later referred to as 'twisted French aestheticism', i.e. more Arthur Rimbaud than Rolling Stones. He printed a poetry magazine (Genesis: Grasp) and when Miller dropped out of college and joined him in New York, they developed a joint alter ego whom they named Teresa Stern. Under this name they published a book of poems entitled Wanna Go Out?. This slim volume went almost unnoticed. It was at this point that Meyers and Miller decided to form a band. They changed their names to Hell and Verlaine, and called the band The Neon Boys.
During this hiatus, Hell wrote The Voidoid (1973), a rambling confessional. He wrote it in a 16 dollar-a-week room, fuelled by cheap wine and cough syrup that contained codeine. He then played in various successful bands: Television, Richard Hell and The Voidoids.
Hell recently returned to fiction with his 1996 novel Go Now.

Reviews

[Harry Palacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bevy of abstract poems that have curious insight as though pecking and peering into the early New York City era of the factory and Jim caroll cbgbs and east village … essays again are a seeing into the natural making something unnatural

[Justin Little · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Hell’s poems & his prose style, but his essay was pure headassery, respectfully.

[Mike Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve gone down a Richard Hell rabbit hole of late. It started when I wrote an essay about his brilliant song “Blank Generation” and it’s taken me to reading two of his most recent books simultaneously. I finished both on this vacation.

What Just Happened is a collection of poems he wrote while quarantined during the pandemic. Hell is in his 70s now and some of these poems speak of loneliness and a longing for his youth. The saddest moments are when he expresses regret because regret gets exponentially worse with age. When you’re in your 20s or 30s you have a lifetime to make atonement. But as the end gets closer the window to turn things around begins to close and Hell is not only keenly aware of that fact, he writes eloquently, if painfully, about it:

Forty years ago when I
was a junkke I craved
something to believe in.
The feeling has returned
but now
I know I won’t find it.

And even worse (from Advanced Age):

It’s awful
to realize that one can no longer assume
bad behavior was aberrant
I’m not the person I thought I was.

I think Richard Hell is one of the most important musical artists of the 20th century. Like all true punk rockers his career was meteoric and short-lived (Iggy Pop being the notable exception). If “Blank Generation” was the only thing he ever did he’d still be essential to the punk rock story. But he’s much more than just his greatest song. Without him CBGBs is still playing obscure blues music and The Ramones and Talking Heads (et al) have no club to play their sloppy, loud music in. Without him there’s no Pistols and without the Pistols everything that happens in rock and pop music from Bollocks on is different and by different I mean suckier and blander and more predictable.

I usually end my reviews by recommending a book to a certain kind of reader but I don’t know anyone who would actually enjoy these two books so in the spirit of punk rock, piss off, don’t read either of these.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

quite liked his prose & essay, liked his poems less

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a fan of the poems, but glad I made it to the final piece called Chronicle. Loved the bounce of each entry off the next.