I wrote poetry for
seven years to learn
how to write a sentence because
I really wanted to write novels.
Richard Brautigan
Etwa 1955/56 zieht Richard Brautigan nach San Francisco.
Sein Ziel: Schriftsteller werden. Sein Mittel: Die eigene Phantasie. Er
mischt sich unter die Beat-Szene,
doch in der Geschichte der Beat-Generation ist er bestenfalls eine Randfigur.
Das Schublädchen, in das er gesteckt wird, öffnet sich erst
Ende der 60er.
Sein erstes Lebenszeichen in der Literaturwelt gibt Richard
Brautigan im Winter 1956 ab. In der vierteljährlich erscheinenden Lyrikzeitschrift
Epos wird das Gedicht »The Second Kingdom« veröffentlicht.
In der Sommerausgabe 1957 von Epos erscheint ein weiteres Gedicht.
A young poet
No forms have I to bring except
handkerchiefs wet with neon tears,
and pumpkin pictures of the country
where a man is closer
to the dirt of his seed.
No forms have I to bring except
spidery old people
living in webby houses
and waiting to die.
No forms have I to bring except
the wild birds of heaven
in all their glory.
No forms have I to bring except
misanthropic merry-go-rounds,
and haunted toilets
and cups that breathe the eyes
of contended lovers.
No forms have I to bring except
the colours of the soul
painted on the world.
Quelle: Claudia Großmann,
Richard Brautigan: pounding at the gates of american literature, S.
25f
Im Laufe der 50er Jahre veröffentlicht Richard
Brautigan neben Einzel-Gedichten auch zwei kleine Gedichtbände:
»Lay the Marble Tea« und »The Octopus Frontier«.
Viele dieser Gedichte werden in die 1968er Sammlung »The
Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Desaster«aufgenommen.
Die deutsche Ausgabe der »Pille« enthält jedoch
nur den Galiläa-Tramper, ein mehrteiliges Gedicht, das 1958
mit der gigantischen Auflage von 200 Stück erscheint.
Erst mit Beginn der 60er Jahre trout Richard Brautigan
sich an Prosa heran. Sein Arbeitsstil bleibt aber der eines Dichters.
I write quickly, but think about things for
about 20 years. I get it down as fast as possible, ...and
on an electric typewriter, 100 words per minute. I can't spend
time on character delineation and situation, I just let it come
out. And when it doesn't want to come, I don't sit around and
stare at the typewriter or anything, I just go down and see about
two or three movies - the worse they are the better. And for some
reason that loosens me up and gets things going again. That's
what I do when I'm stuck.
Zitiert nach: Claudia Großmann,
Richard Brautigan: pounding at the gates of american literature,
S. 33f
Wenn der erste Entwurf durch ist, beginnt die Feinarbeit,
und zwar Satz für Satz, bis es - was immer dieses es auch
ist - stimmt. Diese exzessive Arbeitsmethode ist nicht nur für Richard
Brautigan sehr aufreibend.
He would often call me up during these editing
sprees, sometimes late at night, and read me a sentence. His idiosyncratic
tic was to read only one.
»What do you think of this?« he'd
say, and read it again. »What do you think?«
The sentence was invariably straightforward
and without many complications. I never knew what he thought was
wrong with it. I can't remember when I was of any use to him on
a particular sentence. I'd ask him to read the other sentences
before or after the one that bothered him, but he never would.
He'd obsessivly reread the same sentence over and over, never
able to articulate what it was that was bothering him.
Finally I'd say that I thought it was fine.
He'd agree, but dubiously, and hang up. Perhaps an hour later,
he'd call back and read another sentence and ask me if that sounded
right. This could go on for a few days, and then he would call
up, apologize profusely for troubling me, and invite me out to
dinner as payment.
Keith Abbott, Downstream from trout fishing
in America, S. 45f
Also lesen kann er, schreiben geht inzwischen auch, doch eins
fehlt ihm noch zum Schriftsteller ...
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