Carolyn Cassady: Request & Response

Van Gogh’s Ear is open to ALL styles of poetry. Our goal is not to limit anyone in any way whatsoever. We believe that by limiting others, we’d be limiting ourselves. We equally embrace work that shows mastery of versification alongside wild work inspired by Rimbaud’s “derangement of all the senses”. We not only encourage the exploration of every possible approach to poetry, but going beyond anything yet imagined.

It was in this freedom spirit of never clipping the wings of those who can soar that we eagerly métroed through Paris’s winding catacombs to Shakespeare & Company’s amazing June 2003 Literary Festival (a week-long celebration, thanks to Sylvia Whitman’s inspired vision, of great writers and poets) for Carolyn Cassady’s reading from her provocative book Off the Road (Penguin, 1991). Not only did we come enthusiastic to learn more about her life married to the late Neal Cassady—who, less than ten years after their marriage, had become a living legend, his wild spirit immortalized in the character of Dean Moriarty, the heroic traveller in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road—but we came with a letter inviting Carolyn Cassady to contribute a poem. Along with a complimentary copy of our first issue, the letter was put in a large envelope with her name on it and placed, before she arrived, on the onstage podium: where a bottle of mineral water and a drinking glass were ready to welcome her before the large audience crowding the tent.

Carolyn Cassady’s eventual response {click here} to our hopes that she’d contribute a poem for, this, our third issue of Van Gogh’s Ear, caused us to question our beliefs. She’s made some very good points. Perhaps there is “no freedom without fences”. Hence, we’d be more than pleased to receive letters from our readers letting us know what they think of her response. The most insightful of these letters will be published in our upcoming fourth issue and, of course, a free contributor’s copy of the issue will go to each of those whose letter appears. Please send letters to: French Connection Press, 12 rue Lamartine, 75009 Paris, France. The deadline will be: July 4, 2004.