The Poetry Project

Anne Waldman

Kenward Elmslie, Never a One Night Stand

Anne Waldman dancing with Kenward Elmslie, outside on a lawn. A party of folks mills about in the background.
Anne Waldman and Kenward Elmslie. © Naropa Archives

It was as exciting as performance being around Kenward, welcome in his aura. Often a special occasion, celebratory, bells and whistles. Occasional poems read aloud, on birthdays, handmade valentines, a stunning new Joe Brainard collage, and deep gossip. Dress up. Nights in perpetual motion. Sometimes dancing. Kenward himself already a performer, celebrated lyricist, librettist. High talk, punning repartee. New York School screwball comedy over soap opera. An edginess of spontaneity. Lots of cultural reference to a wittier time. Much later I realized it was the wittier time, and we were the wittier time.

Exciting as performance too was his poem Girl Machine, which I published in a small edition (Angel Hair Books, 1971). With Steven Taylor, it became performance, and invoked the dazzling and dizzying choreographic magic of Busby Berkeley.

Kenward recalled: “When Gerard Malanga asked me to write a think-piece about Busby Berkeley’s films for Andy Warhol’s Interview … I decided to take the easy way out and write a poem. I measured the width of the column the poem would need to fit into, and departed from my usual practice of seemingly scattershot line breaks. I worked up a visual design for my poem: a series of exactly proportioned chunks, mostly square in shape, which would form an orderly, varied columnar sequence. The poem was accepted and … I began to include it in poetry readings—the first time at MoMA. Girl Machine jumped out at listeners, provoking an immediate, energy-charged response my other poems failed to elicit. So mysterious! Grrrr! I had no idea why. It was a poem written to order … I had nothing to do with it … Understudy becomes Star. How savvy of Angel Hair to publish it solo. A star turn, ta-da, on the page, and, subsequently, as sung.”

But Kenward was also serenely laid back, mysterious behind his maniacal propensity for what I like to call “ulatbamsi” or upside-down imagination/language. “Ulatbamsi” is a Sanskrit term used for tantric practices and descriptions of seeming surreal contradiction. I watched him calmly gardening with a watering can. Playing cards, snoozing over a stack of novels. A gentle body for one of his size, both elegant/awkward, always endearing. Sophisticated insouciance. I still hear his voice, eyes wide and theatrically rolling. Amusement! He was also up to date with catastrophes as well. Good civilian, empathetic. Caring for friends with AIDS. Staying abreast of the Vermont doings, a citizen of Poets Corner. He published my poem pamphlet Cabin written at his lake I had named Veronica.

Once on LSD we were mystified by an alien fungus in a trembling patch of landscape ateem with bug buzz, and dance of shadows. Chiaroscuro. The fleshly creature vibrated with a pale paddle foot as if reaching for light. I didn’t want to touch it. “Paddlefoot?” (laughter). Or did Kenward know and was he just having me on? It was a bandaid I had discarded maybe a half hour before.

We were a duo during the Palm Casino Revue, on 3rd Ave, in 1974, with our tuxes and penguin costumes singing several of Kenward’s greatest hits. Lines drift in sometimes from “One Night Stand” when I otherwise might be asleep:

.........tends to use the verb: “enthuse”,
 one night stand keep it a one night stand.........

.........when I first spied him I loved every freckle, 
now I can’t abide him bring back Dr. Jekyll.

We were over the moon in the company of Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis, and some of Charles Ludlam’s stellar company. Kenward was always a pro, prompt, waiting our turn in the wings. We had carefully put on our makeup together. I remember dark blue eyeshadow.

Kenward Elmslie Remembrances

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