Happy Birthday in heaven John! John Wieners was born this day in 1934. Photo of John, Kiev Restaurant, New York City, October 1985, snapped by Allen.
“Yours Presently The Selected Letters of John Wieners” are now available, lovingly edited by Michael Seth Stewart with an introduction by fellow New Englander, Eileen Myles. Michael writes:
“Wieners is largely disenfranchised from the various poetic establishments because he is, to literary historians, practically illegible. In those histories Wieners is often a footnote , remarked upon for his personality or sociological significance, not considered an integral part of the narrative. He’s hard to taxonimize…..Because of…twists and contradictions he has remained on the fringes of not just the canon but also the histories of those various subterranean schools he inhabited. His story teaches us about the permeability and cross-fertilization of those circles, and allows us to read their histories in an entirely new light..”
“so in the letters of John Wieners, assembled chronologically, we get not just the poet’s lifestory but a vast array of life stories, as told to various friends along the way.”