Kenward Elmslie
Poet, editor, and performer Kenward Elmslie was born in New York City and raised in Colorado Springs and Washington, DC. His father was a British businessman, and his mother was the daughter of newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer. Elmslie earned a BA at Harvard University before moving back to New York City, where he became a central figure in the New York School. As the editor of Z Magazine, Elmslie promoted the work of fellow New York School poets John Ashbery, Joe Brainard, Anne Waldman, James Schuyler, and others.
CPC Readings
Friday, November 13, 1981
The School of the Art Institute
Poetry by Kenward Elmslie
On the blackboard there comes the couple
Trudging along rusty railroad tracks in sneakers
On their way to the annual money crop square dance.
To the left, technicolor weather-red sky, white fields.
Summer is a rumor. Where are the seasons? Who knows?
Suddenly whiskies explode on the shelves of the drygoods store.
Careening cars, screams and violence, the Saturday violence
formula.
To the right, state troopers feign sleep. It is night in Alabama.
How to tell fringe people from yourself, himself, us, you, her?
They hunt for clean central beds full of lovers to deceive.
When they enter rooms, the most valuable still-life shatters.
They scream “Trap!”, deliberately trip (won’t get up, ever leave).