MY WORLD

 
I got a poem published in The World. The problem was my then-girlfriend, Nora, didn’t know what the The World was. Probably four people in all of Ann Arbor knew what The World was. It was a poetry magazine from the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, New York City. My poem was alongside  poems by Peter Orlovsky, Ed Sanders, Frank O’Hara, Ted Berrigan.

Nora knew Ed Sanders from The Fugs, and I reminded her Orlovsky was Ginsberg’s boyfriend. Also, she knew about Berrigan because I talked about him so much. He had taught at Michigan three years earlier, and I’d taken his course.

Now, 1972, Berrigan passed through Ann Arbor again, and he gave me the news I was in The World. Berrigan was at the U. for a poetry reading (better, “to read poems”) in the Multipurpose Room at the UGLI (Undergraduate Library). After his reading, I asked Ted if he remembered me from 1969, and he said yes, and he said, “I see you’re in the latest World. Me and you both!” He pulled out a copy. I flipped.

Later I celebrated with Nora at Gino’s, a fast-food hamburger joint on North State Street. (Gino’s was founded by Gino Marchetti of the Baltimore Colts). At Gino’s, in walked Steve Rosen. He had been in Donald Hall’s creative writing class with me. “Hey, Rosen, I got in The World!”

Steve flipped. Steve knew the names of almost all the small lit mags in the country, and he’d sent out poems to some crazy places, like to Stevens College in Columbia, Missouri. Steve pointed out to Nora that I was now in the majors. Thank you, Steve.

Still, I didn’t have a copy of the mag. Berrigan had possibly the only copy of The World in the Midwest. Berrigan said he’d meet me after the poetry reading to go drinking. He would meet up with me and a handful of other Berrigan acolytes. The meet-up didn’t happen. Berrigan went off to Detroit, I think. I spent the evening calling a somewhat-random number and asking, “Is Ted Berrigan there?”

The World was on sale at New Morning Books, St. Mark’s Bookshop and Gotham Book Mart in New York City. The World wasn’t in the real world, but it was my world.

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