The Poetry Project

Maxine Chernoff

As a young poet, I had always adored the work of Kenward Elmslie. I don’t know how many times I read and reread Circus Nerves and Girl Machine among his many works.

So when Paul Hoover and I became board members of the Chicago Poetry Center, we were eager to invite him. He came to read in early 1981, and I was lucky enough to sit across from him at the dinner preceding the event.

Luckier still, I was sitting there when a drunk, homophobic poet on the board began to tease and harass him. My solution to this was to talk to Kenward and shut the homophobe out of the conversation. He and I got along splendidly from the start. There was much laughter and gaiety between us—it was as if we’d always been friends.

We began a weekly mail correspondence that lasted about 25 years. Our letters were newsy, intimate, and hilarious as our first meeting (and are archived at UCSD). They led to an invitation to visit his beautiful summer home in Calais, VT.

We drove from Chicago with our 6 year-old daughter and marveled at the beauty of his gray house with the orange shutters, his pond, the cottage by the pond where we stayed and all the beautiful furniture and Joe Brainard paintings on the walls. And then there was Joe, who was initially shy with us but very warm to our daughter, who quickly developed a huge crush.

Days were spent at the pond, where Joe, in short black trunks and lots of oil, would work on his wonderful tan and the Padgetts and their dog would often join us.

One afternoon there was a snake in the garden, which terrified our daughter and increased Joe’s hero status in her eyes when he kindly moved it to another location.

Dinners were Kenward’s daily offering (he’d write until late afternoon)—the most memorable was a 4th of July banquet with whole giant lobsters and fresh peas from his garden floating in butter.

After dinner there was an hilarious game they called “Shit on your Neighbor,” where you would dump all your cards on the person next to you. As we played this, we drank Lots of Jägermeister—we were quite drunk and sick (me) by the end of the evening.

Solo visits with Kenward in NY followed, where I stayed in an austere and beautiful bedroom in his tall, skinny brownstone in Greenwich Village. The most memorable of those visits was one when I was reading with David Leavitt at the Poetry Project. Kenward was working on collaborations with artists and along with Joe, artist Ken Tisa was at dinner. Kenward made a delicious meal including the best soup I ever ate (cream of artichoke), and Joe brought me a gardenia.

There were more visits of Kenward to Chicago, one which had a cabaret feel—Kenward had begun performing his poem/songs—“Sneaky Pete,” “Tango Bang Bang,” the beautiful “Who’ll Prop me up in the Rain,” and “Air.” The large audience was ecstatic.

Once he flew us to Columbus, Ohio, for the world premiere of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.”

For his 80th birthday I read a cento composed from our letters at St Marks. Kenward was in good spirits but needed a wheelchair, which Ned Rorem inquired about. “Why the wheelchair?” “Because I can’t walk well!”

Another wonderful surprise were the frequent vintage postcards sent randomly and always on my birthday a barrage signed with funny aliases including Richard Nixon and Tarzan (the postcard images were pertinent to the names.)

The last time I saw Kenward was in Vermont in 2013. His memory was impaired by then, but he knew me and the other visitors and told us fantastic stories involving a fox under his chair in winter and ladies from town who drowned working on his garden—I imagine he didn’t appreciate them taking over his job.

I will so miss this wonderful man and beautiful writer of operas, songs—one sung by Nat King Cole—and acrobatic, totally original and surprising poems. He could be a little testy, as we all are, but mostly he was a kind, wholly generous friend, whom I loved dearly. As our tribe says, he was a mensch and my best friend for 40 years.

Kenward Elmslie Remembrances

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