Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners

Under the Influence

37 Chip Li­ ving­ ston I’ve come to con­ sider my­ self a ­ fifth-generation ­ off-shoot of the New York ­ School poets, and I count a ­ couple of gay writ­ ers from ear­ lier gen­ er­ a­ tions of that “school” among my pri­ mary in­ flu­ ences and en­ cour­ ag­ ers. It’s im­ pos­ sible to even ­ broach the sub­ ject with­ out be­ gin­ ning with Ken­ ward Elm­ slie, since he was my intro­ duc­ tion to ­ Poetry with a cap­ i­ tal let­ ter, and he was my intro­ duc­ tion to be­ com­ ing a New ­ Yorker. I moved to New York City in early 2003 to work as ­ Kenward’s per­ sonal as­ sist­ ant. Prior to meet­ ing him, there were very few poets of the New York ­ School that I was even aware of ( John Ash­ bery, cer­ tainly; and the names Frank ­ O’Hara and James ­ Schuyler, but not their work). To be fair to my­ self, I ­ didn’t even con­ sider my­ self a poet yet, but I knew tak­ ing the job with Ken­ ward was to be part of my ed­ u­ ca­ tion. I’d been a fic­ tion ­ writer up to that point, but I dab­ bled in and pub­ lished some nar­ ra­ tive ­ poetry. One of my fic­ tion pro­ fes­ sors, Lucia Ber­ lin, was ­ Kenward’s good ­ friend, and she had given me two of his books dur­ ing my ­ master’s pro­ gram at the Uni­ ver­ sity of Col­ o­ rado. Lucia had said then that my writ­ ing, much of it fo­ cused on the re­ cent loss of my boy­ friend to AIDS, re­ minded her of ­ Kenward’s on los­ ing his part­ ner Joe, and she ­ loaned me his book, Bare Bones, a re­ mem­ brance of his life with the art­ ist and ­ writer Joe Brai­ nard. The sub­ ject of ­ Kenward’s book Under the In­ flu­ ence Chip Livingston 38 and the way he ex­ pressed his grief res­ o­ nated with me. So when I re­ turned to Col­ o­ rado after three years of teach­ ing in the Vir­ gin Is­ lands, and Lucia­ called me to ask what was I doing for work—and would I con­ sider mov­ ing to Man­ hat­ tan to work as ­ Kenward’s as­ sist­ ant?—I ­ jumped on this ­ chance to ex­ pe­ ri­ ence a dif­ fer­ ent world of art and ­ poetry. I tried to read ­ Kenward’s “new and se­ lected” poems in Rou­ tine Dis­ rup­ tions be­ fore fly­ ing to New York for my live inter­ view with him in late 2002. The lan­ guage in his verse ­ seemed so “out there” from my per­ spec­ tive, dis­ lo­ cated from any kind of nar­ ra­ tive, al­ most as in­ ac­ cess­ ible for me as ­ Ashbery’s had ­ proven to be (al­ though I found ­ Kenward’s­ quicker, wit­ tier, and not ­ nearly so dense), and I wor­ ried that my fail­ ure to carry “poetry talk” with the ­ seventy-four-year-old ­ writer would blow the op­ por­ tu­ nity for me. I tried read­ ing his book again on the plane. As play­ ful and ir­ rev­ er­ ent as the ­ poetry was, it also ­ seemed some­ how high­ brow. I ­ didn’t think I’d be smart ­ enough to be his as­ sist­ ant. I ­ didn’t think I was ­ worldly ­ enough. Or I ­ thought that his priv­ i­ lege and Har­ vard ed­ u­ ca­ tion might have made Ken­ ward ar­ ro­ gant and he would look down on me; maybe he’d think I had no place in his world, no place in­ poetry.­ Within fif­ teen min­ utes of ar­ riv­ ing at his West Vil­ lage town­ house, I was com­ pletely at ease. There were no ex­ pec­ ta­ tions that I was a fan—he­ seemed gen­ u­ inely de­ lighted that I’d even read any of his books. He’d­ greeted me at the door in a polo shirt, gray sweat­ pants, and white ­ leather ten­ nis shoes. He was a big man, ­ soft-spoken but clear, and his home had a quiet feel­ ing, ­ lived-in, not pre­ ten­ tious al­ though def­i­ nitely grand. He sat ­ across from me at the ma­ hog­ any din...