In The Enemy Camp. Selected Poems 1964-74

by William Wantling, John Osborne (Introduction), Thurston Moore (Foreword)

William Wantling (1933-74) was a veteran of the Korean War and a heroin addict who spent five years in San Quentin Prison, where he first taught himself to write. Despite being a convicted felon, he qualified for the G.I. Bill on his release in 1963 and went on to obtain a BA and MA in English from Illinois State University. He was a contemporary of Charles Bukowski with whom he had an unusual and ultimately destructive friendship. This selection brings together the best of Wantling's prolific output, including many poems dealing with Korea, heroin addiction and prison.

Genres: Poetry

103 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

William Wantling (November 23, 1933 – May 2, 1974) was an American poet, novelist, ex-Marine, ex-convict, and college professor born in East Peoria, Illinois. After graduating high school he joined the Marine Corps until 1955. He served in Korea during 1953. After leaving the Marines he moved to California and eventually had a son with his then-wife Luana. Wantling went to San Quentin State Prison in 1958 convicted of forgery and possession of narcotics. During his imprisonment Luana divorced him and took custody of the child. He was released in 1963, and returned to Peoria. There he married Ruth Ann Bunton, a fellow divorcee, in 1964. In 1966 he enrolled at Illinois State University, where he received both a BA and MA. He taught at the university up until his death on May 2, 1974. Wantling died of heart failure, possibly brought about by his extensive drug use.

Reviews

[Dave Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to read William Wantling in the special collections section at Pitt when I was 21 and 22 years old, waiting for a librarian to bring out the chapbooks which were held in special plastic wrappers. You couldn't just track down out-of-print chapbooks in 1993, not without money, so I spent one Friday a month reading small press literature in a tiny room on the 5th floor of the library. So it's wonderful that Tangerine Press pulled so many of these poems from obscurity and published them in an absolutely gorgeous edition.

Wantling's legend never reached the status of da levy, who either shot himself or was killed by the Cleveland cops, and Wantling certainly never crossed over into beatdom popularity, but his poems were wonderful, still the best I've read about the Korean war and some of the most honest work ever put down about the allure of heroin. Someone with more time than me should write a long essay on Wantling and Etheridge Knight as lost kin writing the same battles.

So many of the poets I love that started around the same time as Wantling--Larry Levis, Phil Levine, Jim Harrison--had years to grow as artists and expand their visions. It's such a shame that Wantling's addictions took him down so young, because he was already better than everyone else. This book is a reminder of that.

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good selection of poems by William Wantling, the Illinois poet who was a close correspondent of Charles Bukowski's until Wantling's early demise at the age of 40.

Wantling struggled on and off with various addictions (heroin and alcohol) but left behind a very strong body of work which speaks to the harsh realities of life, such as the horrors of war (which he witnessed first hand in Korea), being addicted to drugs, spending time in prison, losing wives and finally even the respect of Charles Bukowski, because Bukowski somehow thought Wantling had 'sold out' by becoming a university professor of literature at Illinois. Bukowski, in fact, might be partly responsible for Wantling drinking himself to death as he wrote a couple of nasty pieces about Wantling in his Notes of a Dirty Old Man newspaper column. And Bukowski didn't stop there. When Wantling's wife, now a widow, Ruth Wantling came to visit Bukowski, he tried to seduce her. And poor William still fresh in his grave barely had time to even shudder. Pretty damn dastardly when you think about, even for the likes of someone like Bukowski.

Many of the poems about Korea bite hardest here, as well as poems he wrote about his time in San Quentin prison. I noticed that he served time in San Quentin (which he calls 'Q' in this book) at the same time as Neal Cassady. I wonder if they knew each other?

Some people feel he should be included among the Beats. If being considered a member has anything to do with your poor down-and-out lifestyle, then yes he certainly belongs in that category. Probably, however, due to geographical reasons (he came from Illinois) and the fact that he came on the scene a little bit later than most Beats (mid-60s to mid-70s) he would be considered 'post-Beat.' But I need to remind myself once again: categories don't matter. They are just for the convenience of lit critics so that they can shelve everything and everyone comfortably in their own minds. The main point is he was a good poet, but has been mostly overlooked.

Bukowski did write something positive about Wantling too: he wrote an Introduction to Wantling's 7 on Style, which you can find in Bukowski's Notes from a Wine-stained Notebook.

In any case, I highly recommend checking out Wantling's poetry. I'm not a huge fan of his so-called American 'haikus' but his other poetry is very strong.

[Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A week or so ago I stumbled across a review of this collection and bought it on the strength of these two excerpts:

1. From 'Heroin'

High, once I ate 3 scoops of ice-cream
High it was the greatest
Greater than the Eiffel Tower
Greater than warm sex, sleepy
Early on a morning

2. Haiku

I don’t want to say goodbye
but I think it’s being said
for me

With poetry it's often hard to say exactly why you like something or what it is about it that does it for you, but these few words made me fairly confident going in that I was going to like at least some of what the collection had to offer. From the moment I read the first poem in the collection, The Awakening, I knew I'd made the right choice. When I got to 'Heroin' and then, in particular, 'Poetry' (which is so masterfully written that it's already one of my favourite poems of all time), I was floored by what Wantling was capable of producing and stunned that I had never heard of him before.

I won't say that I loved everything in the book, but then I've never read a poetry collection in my life where every single poem spoke to me, but there is loads of great stuff here. Personally, I was less fond of the haiku's than some of the slightly longer form poems, but there's still something of value in many of these, particularly the one singled out above which was my favourite haiku of the bunch. Given the theme, the missing syllable seems entirely appropriate.

However, I just loved this book as a whole and I'm so grateful to Tangerine Press for releasing it so that someone like me, who has no real reason to have ever heard of William Wantling, is able to enjoy his excellent work and hopefully cause a chain reaction that leads to him getting the literary credit that he deserves.

My favourite pieces were:

The Awakening
Pusan Liberty
Heroin
Poetry (the best poem in the book)
In The Enemy Camp
It Was 5am
And Who
Essay On Being 35
Dreams Are Cages
Sure
Korea 1953
2-Man Cell
Haiku (the one shown above)

[Tangerine Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Sentences flow over lines and across stanzas, raising questions while dragging you ever onward through squalid yet stunning tales; always with rhythm, rarely rhyme. For many who approach this outstanding collection, the brew may prove too strong.”
— Alan Bett, The Skinny

“…a brilliant gathering of poems. It deserves a wide audience.”
— Ian Seed, Stride

“There are poems here that read like Denis Johnson, poems full of beauty, poems full of sass and wisdom, poems that examine shortcomings as well as any poem Ray Carver ever wrote, poems about Korea, jail, drugs, love, the universe, poems that are reflective, keen, poems that turn a stern eye on themselves.”
— Bookmunch

“Wantling’s casual mastery of technique hoodwinks the reader. Many of the poems employ rhyme and half-rhyme but Wantling’s attention to form is hidden in the dark intimacy of his verse.”
— The Manchester Review

[Dave]

I don't know, 10, 12 years ago I got it in my head that I wanted white chocolate. I couldn't find vegan white chocolate easily so it became a kind of low-key obsession; I wasn't always thinking about it, but when I found myself in a place that could possibly have it, I would look. It was a couple years before I found a vegan white chocolate bar, and when I finally did, it was underwhelming - not terrible, but not as good as the dark chocolates I had been eating.

It's kind of the same thing with William Wantling: I've been low-key looking for his poetry for years, and when I finally found it (in the library of the Poetry Foundation here in Chicago), it was just ok. Sort of in the vein of Bukowski, poetry for MEN!, but with less sexism and more drugs. Not terrible, but the best part is I found him and can put the search to rest.

[Stan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pretty awesome collection of poems.