Heap was driving to
The
about the ’20s, the Lost Generation, especially Hemingway,
and P. J. O’Rourke made fun of Hemingway’s writing about fishing.
John M. Bennett once called a book of Heap’s poems fishing stories.
Houndfish. What book is that in? The ladyfish (skipjack)
is related to the tarpon. Skipjack, caught in the pocket, rally.
O’Rourke is the business suit who put the net ban in
so they could make money off developing the frontier.
Too old for that now. I can barely remember.
The electric shock treatments put Hemingway
out of business. But I wouldn’t make fun of him.
He was a genuine artist, and sincere.
Sure he was an anti-semite, and he used
the N word. He wanted to write like
people talked. It rubs modern audiences
the wrong way. Their consciousness has been raised.
It’s difficult to teach. Heap wasn’t taught.
He wasn’t published. He published himself.
He was a do it yo’self (DIY) or die artist.
You can’t eat them but they’re fun to catch.
You can’t release them because they’ve been gut-hooked.
This seems wasteful and gratuitous. As Mickey Rourke says
in Barfly, “Why Eddie—he’s so obvious.”
Bukowski played the horses.
Evan Shipman made a living
writing for the Daily Racing Form.
