encounters

by Dan Bern

A poetry memoir which recounts the author's real-life encounters with, among others, Wilt Chamberlain, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Carter and Hunter S. Thompson.

86 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

See also Cunliffe Merriwether

Reviews

[c.vance c.vance · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my mid-twenties, I lived in a travel trailer. Always drunk and reading. Always with a dog and a typewriter and a lil' boombox for company. I had decided to become a writer and mailed away typewritten original stories in manilla envelopes. And the self-addressed envelopes they contained always came back with form rejection letters. One even had the original story wedged into the tiny envelope and, on the front page, was just a very large sharpie-written, "NO." It got depressing living in a travel trailer that never traveled... and the drinking started leading to fighting and some very dark thoughts. And those self-addressed stamped rejections didn't help so I started writing other people. The boombox was always tuned to the classical station and at 07:00, right as I was usually heading to bed and instead of the news they would play Garrison Keillor's WRITER'S ALMANAC and he would tell anecdotal facts about whatever happened on whatever day that was in history. And it would always end, "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch." I was not well, no one else thought my work was good but I figured the last one would be easy enough to abide by--- so I wrote to Garrison Keillor. Often. But he never wrote back. Not once. Then I tried to keep in touch with Fred Child who hosted PERFORMANCE TODAY. Then to John Fante's widow. I tried to keep in touch with so many people I had never met on that lil' Smith Corona, hoping for anything in the mail other than a rejection-- and none ever responded. Then, reading the liner notes of Dan Bern's NEW AMERICAN LANGUAGE album as it played in that tiny boombox, I saw a mailing address and wrote him. Something about FIFTY EGGS and the fascination with Henry Miller. He responded within a week. A hand-scrawled letter on unlined paper. Barely legible. It was beautiful. I wrote him twice more and he wrote back with kind words each time. I saw him a few times in concert after that. The first was in Eugene, OR at Cafe Paradiso before it went under. Driving three hours after work to get there and they told me it was sold out. So I went across the street to a bar and drank. Drank hard. Planning to just listen outside the door, the new door guy sold me a ticket and I kept drinking at the bar within. Dan sounded great. A couple in the back were talking through his show so I drunkenly threw a glass at the guy. They left and I thought if I picked up the pieces of glass, no one would care that I had thrown it. A bit later the manager came over with a bunch of bandages and pointed to my pants where my pocketed hand was bleeding through and pooling in my shoe. I took the bandages and left. The next time he was in Oregon, I hit his back-to-back shows in Portland and Eugene. Still drunk but with a newfound drug problem, I approached him after one of them and told him how much his letter meant--- how suicidal thoughts can creep in when you are alone sometimes and his letters made me feel less alone. I offered him a typewriter to help make his hand-scrawled letters more legible and he smiled and accepted it. In '09 I moved to Minneapolis... got away from drugs, drank a bit less. At a show of his in St. Paul I wanted to give Dan my first book. To show him that even if I didn't keep in touch, I was doing weller and someone finally thought my work was good... but he was happy, telling someone some happy story about his daughter and I didn't want to interrupt.

That's how this book reads to me... little stories of encounters. But in poesy form. If you know Dan Bern through his work, this is a great read. If you are unfamiliar with him, it reads a bit like a small Bukowski collection--- if Buk had ever matured and been a nicer guy.

One comment to be made from an editorial point of view: this is a book that makes me want to edit it. Line breaks that let Word autoformat take over for quotes and capitalization, a couple of grammatical mismatches here and there. In truth, it reads like those letters Dan would send that were large and scrawled at an angle. Perhaps that is what it is--- a personal collection of Dan Bern's poetry handbound and illustrated for the reader. Signed on the inside cover. A kind letter when you need it.