| Writing | |
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POETRY |
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| Baby
on the Water
I was introduced to poetry at very early age, even before I could read. When I went to sleep at night, my father recited to me the only poem he knew, Blake’s Tyger. Night after night I drifted off into the dream world hearing, Tyger, tyger burning bright in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could tame they fearful symmetry. My mother was always reading to me from her worn copy of Longfellow’s Collected Poems. He was her favorite poet and her favorite poem was the one about shooting an arrow and singing a song into the air. The arrow was never found but the song, as I recall, was found again in the heart of a friend. With such inspiration it’s not at all surprising all I ever wanted to do growing up was write poetry. It took me a long time to get started. I had to learn and unlearn so much. It wasn’t until the 198O’s that I started to read my poems at an open mike, the great Matthew Courtney’s Sunday Night Open at ABCNoRio on Rivington Street in Manhattan. In
1992 Apathy Press in Baltimore published my first poetry chapbook containing
ten poems, Pushing Out The Envelope. I had to go up to the Post
office to pick up the small box that contained my fifty copies because
the box wouldn’t fit through the mail slot in my building.
Walking home, I clutched the box tight against my chest with both arms.
I felt like I was carrying the Rosetta Stone or the Holy Grail, so precious
was this achievement to me. Since then I have had published seven other
chapbooks of poetry. In 2002, Long Shot, the venerated press that first
gave my poems national and international exposure in their magazine
brought out a collection of my work, Baby On the Water, New and Selected
Poems 1992-2002. Praise for Baby On The Water:
“a rough and tumble wit at work, a humor brought to a high water
mark...” - American Book Review |
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| The
Motion of the Ocean
I would say I became an erotic writer by accident, except I don’t believe in accidents. I could say I became an erotic writer as part of the grand design but not only does that sound too grandiose, I don’t know if I believe in any grand design. I could just say that it was magic, sex magic of a kind. I
had a weekly Eros and Existence column in the now defunct New
York Arts Weekly DOWNTOWN. When a “friend” stole my beau,
although he and I were already on the skids, I was devastated. I started
writing about the break-up in my column. Although I disguised the names
of my former amour and my former friend, everyone on the Lower East
Side Poetry scene at the time knew who I was writing about. I wrote
a reminiscence right from my heart concerning him and I and a big, black
dildo. It was too raw, too personal even for my extremely personal column,
so I put it away in a red manila file that I labeled Heartbreak.
When a friend asked me for a piece for a little sex zine he was starting,
I gave it to him, thinking no one I knew would see it there. Some months
later, on the day before Christmas, I found a letter in my mailbox,
saying, Congratulations! Your story, The Sacred And Profane Country
Of Desire, has been selected for Best American Erotica 1995.
My new writing career was born. Praise for The Motion Of The Ocean: “The
only porn I read is Tsaurah Litzky's. It has the necessary Je ne sais
toit.” - Tuli Kupferberg and.... NEW BOOK! CLEANING THE DUCK
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