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Reach for the Sun
Selected Letters 1978-1994
By Seamus Cooney Black Sparrow Books
Copyright © 1999 Seamus Cooney
All right reserved. ISBN: 1574230905
Chapter One
1978
[To William Packard]
July 16, 1978
Back from Germany. West to a racetrack there and a couple of castles. Racetrack had no toteboard. My whole method of play revolves around the toteboard. The castles were cheaper. The last issue of the NYQ was the best - #21. People are getting to write more and more like I do.
Packed them in at the hall at Hamburg, 1200 with 300 turned away. Drank 2 bottles of wine and sang it to them. My German editor told me no writer of books had drawn such a crowd since the fellow who had written the book "Mein Kamph" (spell?). Newspaper and television interviews. Saw myself as tv newscast ... American writer arrives ... I wave off questions, snarl answers, look mean and hungover, hair in eyes, looked authentic somehow.
Anyhow, I'm back here where it's quiet and Mailer and Capote and Vidol (spell?). Working on a book about the trip. Some guy took 3,000 photos. I'm not sure I can do it but have begun to beat the ribbon, first 25 pages done. May go to Paris in September for the French boys. May not. May turn into a complete shit. May not.
That's it. 96 degrees here. Sitting in my shorts. Have fixed these poems for your eyes for better or worse. 96 degrees here.
Smoking Sher Bidi's from Jabalpur, India and caressing the good German white wine, Bernkastel Reisling (spell? O, I can't), Brooks too Broad for Leaping, you know ...
Bukowski's daughter was 14 years old in 1978.
[To Marina Bukowski]
September 6, 1978
Hello Marina:
Happy birthday.
Enclosed an m.o. Get yourself something. You know best. There has been a great deal to do around here, writing and otherwise. Leaving for Europe on the 16th, will be back in 3 weeks plus. Meanwhile, I've got to learn to speak French, haha, and German, haha. Will probably not get to see you until I get back.
I hope going back to school is not too tedious for you. I never liked it.
o.k.
[To William Packard]
December 31, 1978 10 p.m.
I am sitting in this place in San Pedro, strapped with mortgage payments because my tax accountant says it's a good thing. "Look, man," I told him, "you don't understand writers. This thing is going to kill me." I've got this old desk here and I can step out on this balcony and see the harbor lights. Much trouble here - fell into the fireplace drunk the other night, really got scalded and tore a few muscle sheaths. My girlfriend put cat medicine on my side ... 2 trips to Europe this year. last one I am sitting in Paris and my French editor says, "you want to go see Sartre?" No, I tell him. I got up and got shit-ass drunk on national French tv before 50 million Frenchmen. I am having Henry Miller luck in Europe; well, not Henry Miller luck, say one-quarter Henry Miller luck ... novel, Women, finally out. trying to do a screenplay to be directed by Barber Schroeder, writing short stories for Hustler, trying to change my luck at the racetrack. I like San Pedro, the blacks, Mexicans, whites, all mix without much trouble or tension - so far. I mean, since I've been here. Europe is clean and quick and a dollar there buys about what a quarter does here. The whores of Paris lovely, lovely ... I've got to do another 15 years of good, hard writinglet's see: 58 and 15 equals ... well, best not to think about that ... Met a guy at the track the other day. "Man," he said, "we sure miss you down at the post office! you were really funny, man!" the "funny" he was talking about were those sounds I was making from the cross ... Got your card. Packard, I don't know where the fuck your love is ... O.k....
p.s. - I guess you've moved by now and this will be intercepted by a batch of Porto Rican pimps. O.k., they'll like it. I do too.
Continues...
Excerpted from Reach for the Sun by Seamus Cooney Copyright © 1999 by Seamus Cooney. Excerpted by permission.
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