Wolgamot & Me: In Memoriam Keith Waldrop

Keith Waldrop discovered John Barton Wolgamot’s 1944 poem, IN SARA, MENCKEN, CHRIST AND BEETHOVEN THERE WERE MEN AND WOMEN while browsing in a bookshop, as he recounts here. The poem was to remain a touchstone for him both its poetic power but also as a icon of how quixotic our poetic achievement are. Waldrop showed the poem to Robert Ashley, who created recited it, in a stunningly beautiful, breathless version, with music by Paul DeMarinis, in work created in 1974 and is available on-line. “The poem has 128 stanzas; each stanza is made up of the same phrase, into which are introduced four variables, three are names or groups of names or constructions of names, and the fourth variable is formed by the adverb of the active verb.”

At a conference/seánce at Royaumont, in France, in the 1990s, Keith told what sounded like tall talk of meeting Wolgamot, who worked as a manager of the Little Carnegie movie theater in New York. While his stories sounded fantastical, they appear to have been true. For the memorial for Keith at Brown a year ago, I decided to give a voice and breathed reading of Wolgamot’s poem (given the time limit for my presentation), without music. It would be impossible to compete with Ashley’s sublime performance. I also wove myself into the Waldrop-Ashley-Wolgamot story, so that the improbable could become truly fantastical. And I ended my Halloween talk with a dream I had the night before --

I dreamed I saw Keith Waldrop last night
At the bar of the  Russian Tearoom
(just down the block from the little Carnegie) …
Waldrop and Walgamot talking there …
I walked over to Keith and said —
But Keith you’re some months dead
“I never died," says he
"I never died," says he 

Here is a video of my performance at “Light While There Is Light,” the Brown memorial for Keith, Oct. 31, 2023.

 

 

The full set of videos for the Waldrop memorial is here.
Go to Waldrop's PennSound page for new readings and movies.