Will Dockery
2016-02-02 17:56:48 UTC
Notes for the reconstruction/revision of the "Jo Cairo" poem.
Thinking about my "Jo Cairo" poem this morning, and, indeed, writing about it, and then thinking on the poetry chapbook that poem is a part of, the 1983 "Red Zeroes" collection, which was really my first widely published work (besides the poetry I put in the Carver High School newspaper and literary zine a couple of years before, and the small press zine "Phobia" before that) that has never been reprinted, or, mostly, even put on the internet. Some rare "Will Dockery" poetry, and slightly problematic, or the "Jo Cairo" poem in particular, because, as I wrote elsewhere, earlier:
Funny thing, that words such as "f**k" (typed thus because I have become aware my grandchildren are using search engines on "Will Dockery" now, as are others who will find the actual word offensive, and I have no reason to alienate those readers)...
I can remember the exact instant I first saw the word, spray painted in the shell of a building on Morris Road at Mulberry Drive, half way to my daily walk to Edgewood Elementary each morning, starting in May, 1965, when my parents bought a house and moved into that area, and I finished my last bit of 1st Grade there, leaving my beloved Waverly Terrace and all my friends in Jordan City.
I do have a poem that appeared in my first chapbook, summer 1983, that blew it all out of the water, as the poem describes me "going down" on a girl I knew while we were riding to work one morning, and I used the word for vagina that starts with a "p" in the poem, one line in the poem states that I ate it as she drove... a very high profile poetry chapbook that had a print run of 500 copies, was basically my debut as a poet, and /everyone/ read it, friends, relatives, my Uncle John made sure he bought one of the first copies... my wife of course read it. We split up for months, but I just now had it dawn on me that it might have been this poem, "Jo Cairo", depicting an event that did not happen with us, as almost always it was me getting the head, since most of the time I was driving.
What was I thinking?
I honestly don't know... arrogance of youth, I reckon.
The poem was good, told (I thought) a good, interesting story... but it sure could have been, should have been, handled, or rather /written/ differently.
My first son, Clay, was only five years old in 1983, but of course he would soon read my poetry book, and wonder "Did dad eat a cat?"
:)
I still have yet to rewrite or post that poem to the internet, but the time is way past due, and 33 years later I still am not sure how to approach that one.
And so it goes.
I know now that really the events chronicled in the poetry of "Red Zeroes", with the poems there-in such as "Jo Cairo", "Chessmen & Dominoes", "Green Ringlets" and so on, is that there are plenty of details that could be expanded on, such as the prose piece I write last year shows:
====================================
I did but the most memorable LSD trip with Bob Dylan would have to be called a bad trip... in late fall of 1981 I did two hits of blotter and suddenly my life, mostly by coincidence, hit a major crisis (one I have yet to fully recover from, or even really write about in detail) unexpectedly and /right then/... there was quite a bit of terror and desperation in the trip, which I enjoyed completely on my own.
The details will wait for another year or two, maybe longer, but the Dylan portion is that as I ran around late night East Atlanta frantically searching for Kathy, who had simply vanished from the less than a block walk from her job at Old Hickory House BBQ on Piedmont Road (building is still there, now a steak house, next door to what is now Smith's Olde Bar, then is was Gene & Gabe's Cabaret) to 590 Sherwood Road, where I was waiting, expecting to trip with her as soon as she got off... but she never arrived.
There was more, with theories that everyone from the local Masonic covens to Ravenwood Church's worshipers, to a Charismatic Californis Religion group, to a white slavery ring out of Texas, CIA types, Sam Massel's real estate sharks, the "gay mafia", and other assorted Atlanta counter cultures... I was most closely aligned with the roofing, construction (Archons) and punk rockers and all these factions and more had certain sways with the eclectic variety of friends we were making, both of us being out-of-towners from down in the country.
The (to me) (and relatively) huge population of Atlanta, and my personality type (young poet looking for an audience and thrills) led to a big and eclectic friend base, most of whom are just fading memories in these modern times.
But on the Bob Dylan content...
Various songs from "Saved" rolled through my mind endlessly that night as the acid trip took on a cosmic, C.S. Lewis scope... the stone hill driveway at 590 Sherwood became a demonic face laughing at me, the long several blocks of Monroe Drive to where I thought (and think) Kathy must have been, friends including her fellow waitress Melody Hernandez, the red headed chick Lorraine, Jo Cairo (Gina) upstairs... another story for another time but none of them were willing or able to give me any information on the vanished Kathy. The horrendous and spooky walk back and forth, trying to get on a Marta Bus but having no "correct change", only a $20 bill... and not being allowed on the bus because of that...
Me with Kathy (& our son Clay) in Atlanta 1981, a few months before The Trip described above:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395383123333/
And people wonder why I don't care much for the Saved album.
Yes (spoiler alert) she did return to me, after some thrills and chills and with a cliffhanger ending (including a surprise cameo rescue by her fabulous, brave, raven haired and heroic sister Victoria, yeah, that Kinks riff cues in right now)... I just awoke here, so let me rev back up on a few coffees and maybe I can type out another chapter.
Me, Kathy, Clay (in Batman suit) and new addition Sarah in 1986:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395378115715/
So, eventually, there was a very happy ending... that lasted for a number of years.
And... to finally answer your question about Luis Bunuel, it happens that I watched his creepy and beautiful, almost made me think of a long "Twilight Zone" episode, a film called "The Exterminating Angel" just before the events described here, just down the hill in a small movie theater in Ansely Mall. Yes, I know this is probably the most obvious Bunuel film to catch, and that's probably why the old gentleman, George Ellis I think his name was, was showing it.
But I digress, and digress, digression on digression like M.C Escher... could be what they call an acid flashback?
34 years later?
============================================
Anyway, soon, in 2016, the complete "Red Zeroes" chapbook contents will be revised and posted online, including the troublesome "Jo Cairo" poem.
Red Zeroes cover art:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395381867399/
Thinking about my "Jo Cairo" poem this morning, and, indeed, writing about it, and then thinking on the poetry chapbook that poem is a part of, the 1983 "Red Zeroes" collection, which was really my first widely published work (besides the poetry I put in the Carver High School newspaper and literary zine a couple of years before, and the small press zine "Phobia" before that) that has never been reprinted, or, mostly, even put on the internet. Some rare "Will Dockery" poetry, and slightly problematic, or the "Jo Cairo" poem in particular, because, as I wrote elsewhere, earlier:
Funny thing, that words such as "f**k" (typed thus because I have become aware my grandchildren are using search engines on "Will Dockery" now, as are others who will find the actual word offensive, and I have no reason to alienate those readers)...
I can remember the exact instant I first saw the word, spray painted in the shell of a building on Morris Road at Mulberry Drive, half way to my daily walk to Edgewood Elementary each morning, starting in May, 1965, when my parents bought a house and moved into that area, and I finished my last bit of 1st Grade there, leaving my beloved Waverly Terrace and all my friends in Jordan City.
I do have a poem that appeared in my first chapbook, summer 1983, that blew it all out of the water, as the poem describes me "going down" on a girl I knew while we were riding to work one morning, and I used the word for vagina that starts with a "p" in the poem, one line in the poem states that I ate it as she drove... a very high profile poetry chapbook that had a print run of 500 copies, was basically my debut as a poet, and /everyone/ read it, friends, relatives, my Uncle John made sure he bought one of the first copies... my wife of course read it. We split up for months, but I just now had it dawn on me that it might have been this poem, "Jo Cairo", depicting an event that did not happen with us, as almost always it was me getting the head, since most of the time I was driving.
What was I thinking?
I honestly don't know... arrogance of youth, I reckon.
The poem was good, told (I thought) a good, interesting story... but it sure could have been, should have been, handled, or rather /written/ differently.
My first son, Clay, was only five years old in 1983, but of course he would soon read my poetry book, and wonder "Did dad eat a cat?"
:)
I still have yet to rewrite or post that poem to the internet, but the time is way past due, and 33 years later I still am not sure how to approach that one.
And so it goes.
I know now that really the events chronicled in the poetry of "Red Zeroes", with the poems there-in such as "Jo Cairo", "Chessmen & Dominoes", "Green Ringlets" and so on, is that there are plenty of details that could be expanded on, such as the prose piece I write last year shows:
====================================
I did but the most memorable LSD trip with Bob Dylan would have to be called a bad trip... in late fall of 1981 I did two hits of blotter and suddenly my life, mostly by coincidence, hit a major crisis (one I have yet to fully recover from, or even really write about in detail) unexpectedly and /right then/... there was quite a bit of terror and desperation in the trip, which I enjoyed completely on my own.
The details will wait for another year or two, maybe longer, but the Dylan portion is that as I ran around late night East Atlanta frantically searching for Kathy, who had simply vanished from the less than a block walk from her job at Old Hickory House BBQ on Piedmont Road (building is still there, now a steak house, next door to what is now Smith's Olde Bar, then is was Gene & Gabe's Cabaret) to 590 Sherwood Road, where I was waiting, expecting to trip with her as soon as she got off... but she never arrived.
There was more, with theories that everyone from the local Masonic covens to Ravenwood Church's worshipers, to a Charismatic Californis Religion group, to a white slavery ring out of Texas, CIA types, Sam Massel's real estate sharks, the "gay mafia", and other assorted Atlanta counter cultures... I was most closely aligned with the roofing, construction (Archons) and punk rockers and all these factions and more had certain sways with the eclectic variety of friends we were making, both of us being out-of-towners from down in the country.
The (to me) (and relatively) huge population of Atlanta, and my personality type (young poet looking for an audience and thrills) led to a big and eclectic friend base, most of whom are just fading memories in these modern times.
But on the Bob Dylan content...
Various songs from "Saved" rolled through my mind endlessly that night as the acid trip took on a cosmic, C.S. Lewis scope... the stone hill driveway at 590 Sherwood became a demonic face laughing at me, the long several blocks of Monroe Drive to where I thought (and think) Kathy must have been, friends including her fellow waitress Melody Hernandez, the red headed chick Lorraine, Jo Cairo (Gina) upstairs... another story for another time but none of them were willing or able to give me any information on the vanished Kathy. The horrendous and spooky walk back and forth, trying to get on a Marta Bus but having no "correct change", only a $20 bill... and not being allowed on the bus because of that...
Me with Kathy (& our son Clay) in Atlanta 1981, a few months before The Trip described above:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395383123333/
And people wonder why I don't care much for the Saved album.
Yes (spoiler alert) she did return to me, after some thrills and chills and with a cliffhanger ending (including a surprise cameo rescue by her fabulous, brave, raven haired and heroic sister Victoria, yeah, that Kinks riff cues in right now)... I just awoke here, so let me rev back up on a few coffees and maybe I can type out another chapter.
Me, Kathy, Clay (in Batman suit) and new addition Sarah in 1986:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395378115715/
So, eventually, there was a very happy ending... that lasted for a number of years.
And... to finally answer your question about Luis Bunuel, it happens that I watched his creepy and beautiful, almost made me think of a long "Twilight Zone" episode, a film called "The Exterminating Angel" just before the events described here, just down the hill in a small movie theater in Ansely Mall. Yes, I know this is probably the most obvious Bunuel film to catch, and that's probably why the old gentleman, George Ellis I think his name was, was showing it.
But I digress, and digress, digression on digression like M.C Escher... could be what they call an acid flashback?
34 years later?
============================================
Anyway, soon, in 2016, the complete "Red Zeroes" chapbook contents will be revised and posted online, including the troublesome "Jo Cairo" poem.
Red Zeroes cover art:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395381867399/
