Philip Kobylarz, The Poet George Wallace, Photograph
All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I had never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.
—Denis Johnson, from Jesus’ Son, last story, final paragraph
“I can’t remember very many situations,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “where I had even the tiniest idea what the heck was going on. Meanwhile, you humans, you Earthlings—you all seem right at home.”
—Aaron Thier, quoting Johnson from an interview with the Los Angeles Times in his essay, Denis Johnson’s God published in The Point, Issue 17, September 29th, 2018
I doubt there were more than a dozen others at the tables around us. All men. Middle-aged, middle-income, midwestern. Golfers. In this twilight they were more imagined than seen, but I felt surrounded by the practitioners of a sacred mediocrity, an elegant mediocrity cloistering inaccessible tortures. I don’t know quite how to put it. People, men, proud of their cliches yet full of helpless poetry. Meanwhile the music whamming and bamming. The women shaking themselves almost shyly.
—Denis Johnson, from The Name of the World
‘It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.’
—Oscar Wilde, Lord Henry speaking from The Picture of Dorian Gray
‘A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.’
—Oscar Wilde, Lord Henry speaking from The Picture of Dorian Gray
I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I’m doing…the emotional reaction is all that matters, as long as there’s some feeling of communication, it isn’t necessary that it be understood.
—John Coltrane