The Hotel Wentley Poems

by John Wieners

The Joy Street Press printing of John Wieners' classic The Hotel Wentley Poems.

Genres: Poetry

28 pages, chapbook

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

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

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Wieners is the god of poetry where everything goes wrong but it's so good. The true king of the Beats and queer on top of it. He had such a vision that was totally Wieners. You could pretend to be John, but the John was a true master. I love his poetry. Everything else is shit.

[Trane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wieners famously wrote The Hotel Wentley Poems over the course of six days in 1958. The Hotel Wentley, where Wieners stayed, was a San Francisco Beat institution and this set of poems is an important document in terms of both Beat poetics and the San Francisco Renaissance in general. While the subject matter of these poems — junkies, heroin, queer life, and painting — all too easily fall within the stereotypical subject matter of Beat poetics, Wieners' poetic training at the Black Mountain College under Olsen and Duncan lends his poetics a quiet formalism, an ability to make space, that is often lacking in the expressive/prophetic outpourings of Beat poetry (not that expressive/prophetic outpourings are necessarily a bad thing). My favorite poems in this book are "A poem for record players" — a poem about sound that turns the poem itself into a kind of verbal record player — and "A poem for the old man" — a beautiful and respectful poem about an older lover.

Most of the language here is as fresh and vibrant as ever, and what this book really does is open up an atmosphere that is mostly only a memory in San Francisco (except for the heroin addiction, but it's a different kind of heroin scene now). Some of the language is dated, and some of the sentiment of the poetry really does feel like it was written by a 24-year old. But that shouldn't stop you from reading this amazing little book.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Wieners achieved something in the span of 11 days in 1958 that defined him as a poet but also haunted him as an artist. This book's success and legend shadowed Wieners through the streets and asylums of Boston, NYC, San Fran and home to his Milton grave. He subsequently wrote to escape it's burden as he wrote to remember its drug fueled visions. His juxtaposition of the denizens of the streets - their sounds and sights of the streets commingled with his heavenly visions, in sparse crystallized language is the drama of poetic truth. He captured the chaos and beauty of his world in a fractured tear and single gunshot ---a monument to the moment and to the drama of the loss of every and each moment filled with memory's flowers of forget. Wieners knew what he was doing when he checked in to the Hotel Wentley and translated a Frisco Hotel into the heaven of a book for the ages.

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique and emotionally visceral - a true 'beat' classic and any poet who has penned poems of such beauty in their first publication should be mighty proud. What a great start to a phenomenal career - John Wieners is a fantastic poet!

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m infused with the day
I’m out in it.

from the demons
who sit in blue
coats, carping
at us across
tables. Oh they
go out the doors.
I am done with
them. I am
done with faces
I have seen before.

For me now the new.
Unturned tricks
of the trade: the Place
of the heart where man
is afraid to go.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

“I shall be placed on probation. The poem
does not lie to us. We lie under
its law, alive in the glamour of this hour
able to enter into the sacred places
of his dark people, who carry secrets
glassed in their eyes and hide words
under the coats of their tongue.”
—
“The street aswarm with
vipers and heavy armed bandits.
There are bandages on the wounds
but blood flows unabated. The bath-
rooms are full. Oh stop up
the drains.
We are run over.”
—
“Only the heart remembers
and records in the words
of works
we lay down for those men
who can come to them.”
—
“Well we can go
in the queer bars w/
our long hair reaching
down to the ground and
we can sing our songs
of love like the black mama
on the juke box, after all
what have we got left.

On our right the fairies
giggle in their lacquered
voices & blow
smoke in your eyes let them”
—
“Remove this desire
from the man I love.
Who has opened
the savagery
of the sea to me.

See to it that
his wants are filled
on California street
Bestow on him lar-
gesse that allows him
peace in his loins.

Leave him not
to the moths.
Make him out a lion
so that all who see him
hero worship his
thick chest as I did
moving my mouth
over his back bringing
our hearts to heights
I never hike over
anymore.

Let blond hair burn
on the back of his
neck, let no ache
screw his face
up in pain, his soul
is so hooked.

Not heroin.
Rather fix these
hundred men as his
loves & lift him
with the enormous bale
of their desire.”
—
“hanging on the wall,
heavy breasts and hair
Tied to a tree in the garden

with a full moon
are the ladies of the street.
Whipped for whoring.

Their long hair binds them,

They have lain long
hours in bed, blood
on their mouths, arms
reaching down for
ground not given them.”

[Francisca · Rating 4 out of 5]

expanding on all possible connotations for the idea of 'culture,' Wieners mixes art with the everyday counter-culture of queer people during the 60s and 70s. my only complaint is its brevity; I would love for just more of this.

[Louis Cabri]

"Who remembers the linguist of the Hotel Wentley?"
- Ron Silliman, Lit

"After the fire, the Wentley became the Polk-Sutter Studio Apartments."
---, demo to ink