LAOMEDAN COLLECTIVE #1

Kangaroo Poet Jaymes Gormann collects Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway memorabilia and books. Norman Mailer had a life-long fascination with Ernest Hemingway, and admired him greatly, but they shared few interests other than boxing and drinking, and had very different writing styles. Some of the other Kangaroo Poets have also been very interested in both authors, and so there are some (distant) connections. In 1974, Kangaroo Poet K’lakokum was a candidate for Mayor of Toronto [see South of Tuk Issues #16, 17, 18, 19] during the course of which he was twice interviewed on Gordon Sinclair’s CFRB radio program. At the time of the second interview, Sinclair presented K’lakokum [sold it, actually, $10 – typical Sinclair] with a copy of Mailer’s book, Existential Errands, pointing out that Mailer’s platform as a candidate for Mayor of New York City in 1969, recorded in that book, was virtually identical with K’lakokum’s campaign in 1974. The latter had never read Mailer -- the connection was co-incidence [synchronicity?] – but subsequently read all of Mailer’s books, leading to many long debates with Kangaroo Poet Jaymes Gormann who worships Mailer. This is part of the background to the following collective poem written at a Kangaroo re-union workshop. The poem includes K’lakokum’s tongue-in-cheek criticism of the whole body of Mailer’s work, comparing it unfavourably, by parable based on James Churchward, with Hemingway’s work, which prompted tough guy Jaymes to interrupt the workshop and to defend Mailer with his fists, in an assault on K'lakokum which Robbin stopped and K’lakokum still refers to as “the dance of Jaymes” [in a pun on Tough Guys Don’t Dance]. So teen-age Kangaroo Next Generation Poet, Keesha, (13 at the time) had to finish the poem mostly on her own, with Natt Morris gathering the earlier scattered fragments off the floor and putting it all together as a cohesive unit….


                                  LAOMEDAN COLLECTIVE #1
                     THOUGHTS ON Norman Mailer & Ernest Hemingway
                                                              by K’lakokum
                                                        and Jaymes Gormann
                                                         with Robbin Warde,
                                             and introducing Keesha Washington
                                                         in an accord-ion effort
                                                    inspired by E. F. Dyck and
                                              edited by Wm. Nathaniel Morris IV
                                       at a workshop at the 4th Kangaroo re-union
                                         Honey Bear Camp, Mexico, Indiana, 2004


K’LAKOKUM: Uncle, was Hemingway to Mailer,
                           an old man of see-saw accord
                           of balanced brevity, few words glower
                           his gloved fist to punch out a chord
                           not cascaded with paragraphs echoing
                           naked and dead thoughts, his sting
JAYMES:          immediate.
                           short.
                           sweetly pointed.
ROBBIN:           sharply biting the flesh.
                           incisive.
                           simple.
K’LAKOKUM: He not the corpuscled torrented heats
                           draining the sun, nor unfecunding prosist
                           whom no obedient atmosphere greets;
                           no catalyst to make the light persist;
                           word-constipated and asphyxiated, he rasps
                           abbreviations, aberrant fragments grasps
JAYMES:          What?!!! Me or Mailer?
K’LAKOKUM:  Poet and photographer?
ROBBIN:           See, Marilyn Monroe’s chastity
                           sniff, the other disaster
                           taste, tempest and bleeding
                           hark, death for the ladies…

KEESHA:          Whateverrrr!!!

                           Ah dunnt no yer HemmingMail, tho Einstein flunked
                           june-yer math cuz seven looked like a noze
                           and Pick-axe-oh’s brain was so dunked
                           by paint sniff he made triangles of doe’s
                           eyes; so my poems are likewize the axe-i-dent
                           of dimension-clash where perspective went
JAYMES:          a-rye.
                          somehow long
                          of the ordinary.
KEESHA:         So ah unnerstan yer Mailingway talk and so pity
                          Norman jealous to Ernest, Jaymes jealous to Karl
                          and vice vice versa, but you wrote in the city:
                          “Dyl’an’Mailer shared…” [why do you now snarl??!!]
                          “…were better than alone.” I love the math;
                          sacred numbers are my chosen path ----
ROBBIN:          equations.
                          logarhythmn.
                          geometry.
KEESHA:         Poets are like katz dunnt add dunnt subtract
                          but shurrazell multiply the meanings in the word
                          of our equation, our akchord, this our new pakt
                          where Norman’s boxes full of sentences are heard
                          a diffrent tune than Ernest’s wee post-kard:
                          both turn koal into diamonds; is it too hard
                          to memorize the equations
                          which are merely transformations
                          of peecocks, roses, whales
                          and trilling knighting-gales?

                                  COPYRIGHT © 2004, 2007 NEBIRU CROSSING