‘We must travel in the direction of our fear.’ John Berryman
One night in New York, it was so hot and humid in a bookstore where I was reading my poems, I was soaked with sweat, my pants kept sliding down, so I had to constantly pull them up with one hand while I held the book in the other. A fellow I knew told me afterwards that he was enthralled. He and his companion were sure I’d forget for a moment and let them fall down. Another time in Monterey, California, I was reading in a nearly empty auditorium of the local college adjoining one in which the movie King Kong was being shown to a packed audience. At one point, during one of my most lyrical love poems, I could hear the great ape growl behind my back as he was on his way to strangle me. Back in the 1960s, in some youth centre in some miserable little town on Long Island, I was put on the programme between an amateur magician and a fellow who was a mind-reader and the audience of local punks was not told who I was and what I was supposed to be doing. I recall their bewildered expressions as I was reading my first poem. In Detroit, I had a baby howl while I read and then a lapdog someone had sneaked in started to yelp. I was so drunk in Geneva, New York, I demanded that all the lights be turned off except the one on my lectern, and then I proceeded to read for two hours, some of the poems twice, as I was told the next day. In the 1970s, after hearing my poem ‘Breasts’, a dozen women walked out in Oberlin, Ohio, each one slamming the door behind her. In a high school in Medford, Oregon I was introduced as the world-famous mystery writer, Bernard Zimic. In San Jose, I lost the fellow I was supposed to be following in my car at the peak of the rush-hour traffic and realized I had no idea where the reading was. I drove ahead thinking he would notice I’m not behind him and stop by the side of the road. I went past all the downtown and suburban exits and finally figured the hell with him, I’m going home to San Francisco. Since I had to go back the way I came from, I decided on the spur of the moment to take one of the exits and ask, except there was no one to ask at eight in the evening in a neighbourhood of small apartment houses and tree-lined streets. After circling for a while, I saw an old Chinese man walking alone. I stopped the car and asked him, very conscious of how ridiculous I was, did he happen to know of a poetry reading? Yes, he said, in the church around the corner. In Aurora, New York on beautiful Lake Geneva I gave the shortest reading ever. It lasted exactly twenty-eight minutes, whereas the crowd and the organizers expected a full hour. I had an excellent excuse, however. I squeezed the reading between the first and final quarter of an NBA playoff game and ran back to my motel outracing a couple of women who wanted me to sign books. In Ohrid, Macedonia I read into a dead mike to an audience of thousands who would not have understood me even if they had heard me, but who nevertheless applauded after every poem. Now, I ask you, how much more can one ask from life?