I often wonder about the chance meeting of writers, whether it ever happened or was merely anecdotal. In a recent Ray Carver poem I sent via Poetry Dispatch (“Poem for Hemingway & W. C. Williams”), Carver beautifully and thoughtfully captures each man’s character and way with words through the simple act of fishing. But did the two ever meet? Did they ever fish together? Did they have anything in common? Did egos clash? What did they discuss?

One thinks of the strained friendships between Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Sherwood Anderson, and Hemingway and Gertrude Stein (each claiming to have taught the other how to write). These are fact. So too the general consensus that Hemingway was not a particularly good friend to any of them, with the possible exception of Gertrude Stein.

An old Chicago bookstore friend and mentor of mine, Paul Romaine, (see CHI TOWN. Northwestern University Press, 2003) once told me about a meeting in a cornfield between Hemingway and Faulkner (Faulkner had flown in) that is mostly unrecorded in America literary history. (If it ever happened at all.) Romain also showed me an old copy of a famous literary magazine, Salmagundi, where both Hemingway and Faulkner appeared, and neither writer had ever heard of the other, both being young, unknown, little mag writers at the time. This I saw, for a fact.

A fascinating book on this subject, which I highly recommend, is A CHANCE MEETING, Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists, 1854—1967 by Rachel Cohen (Random House, 2004). Did Henry James ever meet Mathew Brady? Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant? How about Hart Crane and Charlie Chaplin? Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp? Did James Baldwin face Norman Mailer, eye to eye? The answer is yes, to all of the above.

There’s another Ray Carver poem I have always relished for all kinds of reasons: “You Don’t Know What Love Is (an evening with Charles Bukowski).” It’s a poem suggesting a chance meeting prior to a poetry reading, probably at some California college. Was Carver a student? Was he teaching there at the time? (The pre-gathering of academics, students, all manner of literary types, seems the perfect target for bombastic Bukowski to let ‘em have it.) Carver captures not only the moment but the very voice and tough-ass presence of the poet as well. (But did the two actually meet at this reading, and Carver merely set it all down? Or did he make it all up? How well did they know one another?)

Part of my fascination with this poem reflects my own mixed feelings about poetry readings--a long or short subject for another time. And if the reading described by Carver took place on a campus—to just imagine mad Bukowski in academia is a joy. But this feeds into yet another fascination and conflict of mine: imagining Hemingway or Bukowski, or say, Nelson Algren, succumbing to the writing workshop experience, anywhere! The short history of Nelson Algren attempting to teach/survive a stint at the Iowa Writers Workshop is worth every precious page of a personal essay he once penned. The first two paragraphs read like this:

“Dear Mr. Algren,” a young lady writes from Wheaton (IL) College, “I am a freshman and am standing on the threshold of a literary career. What is my next move?”

“Your next move, honey,” I had to caution her, “is to take two careful steps backward, turn and run like hell. That isn’t a threshold. It’s a precipice.”

--from “Hand I Hand Through the Greenery, with the grandstand clowns of arts and letters,” THE LAST CAROUSEL, by Nelson Algren, Putnam, 1973.

That’s all I have to say for now, except I wish I would write a piece about my own chance meetings (including readings, encounters on the street, in bars, restaurants, homes, parties…) between writers and artists. Including Steinbeck (in line at American Express in Paris. the early 60’s). Ray Carver (before he was Raymond Carver, mid 60’s) at writer Curt Johnson’s home in Western Springs, IL Robert Bly in Marshall, Minnesota (the 80’s). e.e. cummings reading in Chicago…(late 50’s?).

But back to “an evening with Charles” Bukowski” by Ray Carver:

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS
(an evening with Charles Bukowski)

You don’t know what love is Bukowski said
I’m 51 years old look at me
I’m in love with this young broad
I got it bad but she’s hung up too
so it’s all right man that’s the way it should be
I get in their blood and they can’t get me out
They try everything to get away from me
but they all come back in the end
They all came back to me except
the one I planted
I cried over that one
but I cried easy in those days
Don’t let me get onto the hard stuff man
I get mean then
I could sit here and drink beer
with you hippies all night
I could drink ten quarts of this beer
and nothing it’s like water
But let me get onto the hard stuff
and I’ll start throwing people out windows
111 throw anybody out the window
I’ve done it
But you don’t know what love is
You don’t know because you’ve never
been in love it’s that simple
I got this young broad see she’s beautiful
She calls me Bukowski
Bukowski she says in this little voice
and I say What
But you don’t know what love is
I’m telling you what it is
but you aren’t listening
There isn’t one of you in this room
would recognize love if it stepped up
and buggered you in the ass
I used to think poetry readings were a copout
Look I’m 51 years old and I’ve been around
I know they’re a copout
but I said to myself Bukowski
starving is even more of a copout /
So there you are and nothing is like it should be
That fellow what’s his name Galway Kinnell
I saw his picture in a magazine
He has a handsome mug on him
but he’s a teacher
Christ can you imagine
But then you’re teachers too
here I am insulting you already
No I haven’t heard of him
or him either
They’re all termites
Maybe it’s ego I don’t read much anymore
but these people who build
reputations on five or six books
termites
Bukowski she says
Why do you listen to classical music all day
Can’t you hear her saying that
Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day
That surprises you doesn’t it
You wouldn’t think a crude bastard like me
could listen to classical music all day
Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann
Shit I couldn’t write up here
Too quiet up here too many trees
I like the city that’s the place for me ,
I put on my classical music each morning
and sit down in front of my typewriter
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see
and I say Bukowski you’re a lucky man
Bukowski you’ve gone through it all
and you’re a lucky man
and the blue smoke drifts across the table
and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue
and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk
and I puff on the cigar like this
and then I lay the cigar in the ashtray like this • and take a deep breath
and I begin to write
Bukowski this is the life I say
it’s good to be poor it’s good to have hemorrhoids
it’s good to be in love
But you don’t know what it’s like
You don’t know what it’s like to be in love
If you could see her you’d know what I mean
She thought I’d come up here and get laid
She just knew it
She told me she knew it
Shit I’m 51 years old and she’s 25
and we’re in love and she’s jealous
Jesus it’s beautiful
she said she’d claw my eyes out if I came up here and got laid
Now that’s love for you
What do any of you know about it
Let me tell you something
I’ve met men in jail who had more style
than the people who hang around colleges
and go to poetry readings
They’re bloodsuckers who come to see
if the poet’s socks are dirty
or if he smells under the arms
Believe me I won’t disappoint em
But I want you to remember this
there’s only one poet in this room tonight
only one poet in this town tonight
maybe only one real poet in this country tonight
and that’s me
What do any of you know about life
What do any of you know about anything
Which of you here has been fired from a job
or else has beaten up your broad
or else has been beaten up by your broad
I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times
They’d fire me then hire me back again
I was a stockboy for them when I was 35
and then got canned for stealing cookies
I know what’s it like I’ve been there
I’m 51 years old now and I’m in love
This little broad she says
Bukowski
and I say What and she says
I think you’re full of shit
and I say baby you understand me
She’s the only broad in the world
man or woman
I’d take that from
But you don’t know what love is
They all came back to me in the end too
every one of em came back
except that one I told you about
the one I planted
We were together seven years
We used to drink a lot
I see a couple of typers in this room but
I don’t see any poets
I’m not surprised
You have to have been in love to write poetry
and you don’t know what it is to be in love
that’s your trouble
Give me some of that stuff
That’s right no ice good
That’s good that’s just fine
So let’s get this show on the road
I know what I said but I’ll have just one
That tastes good
Okay then let’s go let’s get this over with
only afterwards don’t anyone stand close
to an open window

from ALL OF US, The Collected Poems, by Raymond Carver, Vintage, 2000