Honestly
()
About this ebook
It begins with research into a forgotten relative who was kicked out of the author's family after he was jailed for conscientious objection to WWII, and who then moved to New York to become a composer. From there the poem swerves into a series of minor-key personal anecdotes, interlaced with conversations with friends about work and relationships. Throughout, communication is framed by the economics and psychology of the home. Dialogue takes place in close quarters—constrained by money, space, ego, and empathy.
Steven Zultanski
Steven Zultanski is the also the author of Pad and Cop Kisser. He co-curates the Segue Reading Series and occasionally curates and edits other things too. He lives in New York City.
Related to Honestly
Related ebooks
Luxury, Blue Lace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForbidden City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Thousand Crimson Blooms Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just This: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlyover Country: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDesires Mothers to Please Others in Letters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBestiary Dark Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReenactments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anyone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5&luckier Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSoundtrack of My Life: Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSunset at the Temple of Olives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYear of the Rat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNavigate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSignage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Darkness of Snow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Booktiful Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGlasshouses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrabeland: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAerial Concave Without Cloud Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Who Are We Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLosers Dream On Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSocial Poesis: The Poetry of Rachel Zolf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmpty Clip Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is Still Life: Poems: The Mineral Point Poetry Series, #8 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Guard The Mysteries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Memory of Brilliance & Value Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAsked What Has Changed Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5More Anon: Selected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHome Burial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Poetry For You
The Way Forward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Waste Land and Other Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things We Don't Talk About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Honestly
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Honestly - Steven Zultanski
first edition
Copyright © 2018 by Steven Zultanski
all rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Book*hug acknowledges the land on which it operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Zultanski, Steven, author
Honestly / Steven Zultanski.
Poems.
Issued also in print and electronic formats.
ISBN
978-1-77166-410-3 (
softcover
)
ISBN
978-1-77166-411-0 (
HTML
)
ISBN
978-1-77166-412-7 (
)
ISBN
978-1-77166-413-4 (
Kindle
)
I. Title.
PS3626.U58H66 2018 811’.6 C2018-900360-X
C2018-900361-8
I never met my great-uncle, Dick Stryker.
But about ten years ago, while visiting family, I found his copy of Joyce’s Ulysses; the inside cover was stamped with his name and the pages were dotted with marginalia.
I asked my parents who he was, but it had been so long since anyone had mentioned him that they could barely remember the rumors: he was a pianist and a composer; he was jailed for being a conscientious objector during World War II; he spent two years in a prison in Ohio; his father kicked him out of the family; he moved to New York; he was gay; he was an alcoholic; at some point, he burned his face off somehow; he might have been homeless for a time; he refused to have anything to do with his family.
I wanted to know more, I wanted to feel a slightly stronger mild connection to this person I’d never heard of.
At first, it was hard to find information about him; as you might expect, his name is difficult to google.
There are many Dick Strykers, and most of them are the pseudonymous authors of porn.
But I did find a brief reference to our Dick Stryker—my Dick Stryker—participating in an early production by the Living Theatre, and this led me to the published diaries of its founder, Judith Malina, which contain frequent references to Dick.
Turns out he was roommates with Malina and her partner and collaborator Julian Beck, and he wrote music for many of their early plays.
Unfortunately, the diaries don’t provide many personal details, but the glimpses into the company he kept suggest that he lived an active artistic life, despite his eventual obscurity and disappearance: he hung out with John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara; he played one of the radios in the first performance of John Cage’s Imaginary Landscapes