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Poem
Hospital records show Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle was born in Boston on November 4 (in Scorpio, with the Lion rising) precisely at midnight in 19__. He now lives in Paris, and in New York City. In 1995 I was clinically classified schizophrenic. A complete unknown, just two years before my initial appearance in print I could not write my own name . . . Enduring school no longer than the law required, I matriculated to a life in rooming houses. Unlike the young Rimbaud, I first went to Harar! I did not begin writing till I reached a wholly unlooked-for advanced age. I never came back from my adventures. I’ve eaten dog food on the street at Christmas and dined with Jasper Johns. I’ve seen Venice and Kyoto, lived ina whorehouse in Oaxaca and a halfway house in New Orleans. The Sans-Culottes sent a private limo for me to read poetry in Paris. In London I shot dope using public toilet water. I attended an exclusive film premier with Benicio del Toro! My handwritten manuscripts can be viewed on the Hollywood screen. If today I buy my shirts by the pound in Brooklyn, it all went to fuel our matchless macabre élan! I survived outside in NYC for 5 years— on the streets, in psych-wards and Men’s Shelters. Fortune favors the brave. We strive to preserve our childhood hearts. He has been published in Bald Ego The Boston Review, EOAGH, Explosive!, Exquisite Corpse, Fence, Jacket, Lit, MiPoesias, The Paris Times, Pom, Purple, and Verse, as elsewhere. He is the author of two books of poetry, Nuit Maudit (2006) and Close to the Art of Those Fearless at Sea (2007: withdrawn from publication). He is the editor of the poetry journal Dear Bear. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2004. His handwritten notebooks are featured in the film Finding Forrester, directed by Gus Van Sant. He is a staff art critic at the Brooklyn Rail, a regular contributor to Purple Journal, and a contributing reviewer at Rain Taxi. |