The Art of Nathan's Stumbling.

Just read this, still absorbing its textures, Will, after a long workout at the gym. I´m off to a Tunisian artist´s opening at El Centro De Estudios Arabes, and then I will be back to ´taste´this Manhattan stroll of yours further, in all its colors and glories, amen. I think Nathan will be pleased with this riff off his urban apocalyptic fiction.

Really great identification with the 'lost soul,' and a poem that has its strength in its pace as the reader falls down the slim lines and looks for 'some way outta here,' and, I think, is rewarded in a stellar finish that has at its core the inexorable need to close the generation gap between god and man. And besides all of that, I just plain love the language here and the beat (I didn't say beatnik, though tempted). Have you been reading Ginsberb again?

It is amazing how you were able to add layers to Nathan's already layered work, layers of a different texture, but which echo back to his meaning and concept. I do think he will pleased!

Now, actually, I may have got my coordinates wrong (I relied on the place names Broadway and Sixteenth st. to come up with NYC, but now, reading the poem again, I think it´s DC, and there must be a Broadway and 16t there as well) so you must advise, dear Will. However, the originality in the syntax, the surprise dislocations of language---for example, ¨ kindersluts smoking, nothing/and giggling/in terror¨--and above all the individual consciousness of a displaced poet, who can see the desolation--¨ certain places/on earth amount/to forgetting/the future¨--and yet open to ¨laughter and beauty¨, ¨kissing, millions,/ friendly gold huddlings,/ and wind/ I hear¨ in spite of the dystopic conurbation, shows me this is a superb new voice piece in the William Evans IV´ouevre of pre-Simulationist writings.

The fact that THE ART OF NATHAN´S STUMBLING both appropriates and comments upon the equally scintillant writing of his pre-Sim counterpart Nathan Shauer in fictional prose, is a tribute to the success of the poet to learn from another´intertextually´without having to egomaniacally play the critic through framing the other as a mere contrail of his own authorial path, but rather, engage in creative author-to-author dialogue with the deeper transcendental ¨bitter waters´of vision de leyenda urbana that is embodied in Shauer´s probing underneath the surface of the barrio´s brain in his Art of Stumbling, a novel where everyone stumbles, but most fall prey to useless prayer.

Heaven help us from useless prayer! Hmmm...
My favorite part is the happy gold wave of morning sun and wind kissing millions and the hope of hashem...the divine stumbling into the cure.

This does grand justice to Nathan's work, Will.
Congratulations.

The separated soul walking with loneliness on a dark street, is how I read this, Will. Powerful!

Jeebs Will, Im such a loser I hadn't seen this until today. Thanks for the dedication of a fine work. You have your own tweak which I like - its a fragmented and impressionistic in ways I cant imitate. Thanks for the new point of view.