Beats in the BUCKET

 How  did  the Beat  movement come to me in Pawtucket? 

Like so many of the good things that came to me there. it came to me through the good offices of  a member of the Boucher family.

Their son Raymond, my  friend Lucille's brother, had started  his college education at RISD while  Lucille and I were going to Saint Xavier's Academy, a great school in Providence.

The first year Raymond had an old Volkswagon Beetle that he had painted a brilliant yellow. He drove Lucille  and me into downtown Providence and  we walked up Broad St to the Academy. I gave him a couple of dollars a week for gas and for  a while it worked.

He also shared with us some of the new things that he was reading. He knew that I was interested in poetry and that I tried to write it. One day he handed me a  book with a one word title --HOWL.

"This is how poets write now--contempoary poetry" he said as he showed me the black and white volume.This was in 1956 and my freshman  year at high school.

I remember reading the long poem and being struck by its  daring form. I loved it. In fact in recent years I have written a  Pawtucket version that  won me a prize in the Galway Kinnell poetry contest.

Here is that poem

A HOWL IN PAWTUCKET-- Circa 1959

 

I am with you in Pawtucket

 

My greatest fear as I sneaked a smoke

with the black leather-jacketed boys

at the White Tower on Main Street Bridge

was that someone who knew my mother,

sitting on one of the buses lined up at the light,

leaning forward in her window-seat might

 

spy me standing there: cigarette dangling,

blue uniform skirt rolled thigh high

black turtleneck hiding Catholic school badge,

mouth smeared with white lipstick.

eyes outlined in kohl like a baby owl.

the Beatnik of Pawtucket: I had read “HOWL”

 

I am with you in Pawtucket.

 

Where are you now? The boys who dived

at Limerock Quarry, their skin porcelain

in the milky water; or the dusty boys--

come on back where you belong

of Sunset Stables who always copped a feel

at the dismount? Where is little Lucille?

 

 

Who would skate with me those cold starry

nights at the Blue Pond? Where is Roland--

with his red sweater, his white '51 Ford

with the fairy fringe, and his dazzling smile?

Or sweet Eleanor who would walk with me

through the dappled lane of Dunnell's shady lea?

 

I am with you in Pawtucket.

 

 

We reached  that pond at Prospect Heights

on those long hot days filled with polio scares

and paper dolls on my porch. And where are you?

That black-haired boy who met me in the Back lots

and showed me the broken-walled reservoir

where he looked for any signs of Indian lore.

 

Oh, that's right, -- we married for a while ; our son

called last night. So where am I? That one—the one

who would sit for hours with my Bronte novels

and dream of writing my own romance idylls?

I am older, not richer or wiser, just older.

Grading papers, giving marks-still reading and writing.

 

I am with you in Pawtucket.

 

Let's meet up for a “First and Last Chance” reunion

Start at the White Tower, walk up Main past Peerless

to Shartenberg's, go to the Windsor for a drink

and end up at the LeRoy for a late show---

or better still-- go on up Broad to Warner's Ballroom

where sounds of “Harlem Nocturne” pierce the gloom.

 

Sweet blues sax papering the world with longing,

 the mirror ball spangling speckled light all over my pink

and white gingham dress with tender embroidered berries

spilling over the bodice; dancing to our favorite song.

 Your cheek closely pressed to mine – “This is our song”,

you whisper, “This will always be our song.”

 

I am with you in Pawtucket.