David Wade: The man, the album(s), the poetry

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Permalink Reply by Ed on June 26, 2008 at 12:08pm

I wrote a profile on him for the IU school paper years ago. If I can get my hands on it, I'll post it.

Also: Tim Noe and I once sold copies of his poetry book, Hungry Horse on a Blank Field, on the sidewalk in the East Village (St. Mark's Place) for a day or two. That was probably in the early 1990's.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Lee Canner on June 26, 2008 at 2:21pm

It looks like our hero appeared on at least one other record. "Brother Dimitrios" was also a Wade pseudonym. Although despite the name of the record the reviewer only mentions three poets:

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From "Poetry 'A Summer in the Stomach'"
by Thomas Lask
New York Times, January 1, 1967

A possible view of tomorrow can be glimpsed on Four New Poets (Satori Records Co, PO Box 801, Anderson, Indiana), one of whom died in 1965 at age 26. They are all young, including Brother Dimitrios who is listed as having been born in 1517, which makes him younger than all of us. The other two are Richard Jaworski and David Wade. As a group they are very close to the poets collected in Donald Allen's now famous book, The New American Poetry. (You might even have guessed the fact from the name of the record company.) Haiku, a touch of Imagism, the jazz effect of Ferlinghetti, some Ginsbergian fervor are among the recognizable elements. Brother Dimitrios even has the Whitmanian habit of making lists. There is, however, plenty of snap and bite, and with the help of a jazz quartet that lets go in the background, the recording will bring a little life into the living room.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Zink on June 26, 2008 at 5:30pm

Wait, there was a record outside of Four New Poets?

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Lee Canner on June 26, 2008 at 5:37pm

Yes. It was all David Wade, and also on Satori if I remember right. "The Poetry/Jazz LP" that's mentioned in the Matrix entry that Ed posted on the group page.

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Permalink Reply by Ed on June 28, 2008 at 2:08pm

As I've now added above, the '....Apocalypse!' poem may be David Wade's translation of a poem written in Portuguese by Teresinka Pereira. Or he may have written it with her. I'm going on memory here, and a little poking around.

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Permalink Reply by Ed on June 28, 2008 at 2:45pm

Stephen Lee Canner: Also—not shabby, that Four New Poets got reviewed in the New York Times! Good sleuthing.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Lee Canner on June 28, 2008 at 3:15pm

Okay, this is totally out of my frayed memories, but I remember David telling me something to the effect that Kerouac was inspired by the name of the Satori record label when creating/naming his Satori in Paris. Ginsberg was supposedly at least aware of David Wade (not sure if they actually knew each other), anyone know if Wade knew Kerouac?

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Permalink Reply by Ed on July 1, 2008 at 3:29pm

I may have that David Wade album, too—again, not anywhere I could get to it easily, unfortunately. As for the Latent Chaos song, "Scrape," that starts with David Wade's poem, "Credo," I think it's a great way of presenting the poem: it turns the apocalypse, or the end, into the beginning of the 'story'... David Wade certainly likes to throw in surprise endings himself—as the "Apocalypse!" in that poem makes clear—so the 'surprise beginning' from Latent Chaos is rather apropos (I think Jon Rans might have told me once that he played that song for David Wade, and he was very surprised to hear his words at the beginning of the song). For another David Wade surprise ending (though, if I'm mentioning it, does that ruin it?), see his poem, "Public Park of the Damned" (Flint, Michigan, 1944), from Matrix magazine 1.2 (October 1999), p. 11 (link goes to full .pdf). At any rate, those endings might provide an argument for reading them out loud instead of on the page: you can't "peek" if you're listening.

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Permalink Reply by Ed on August 1, 2008 at 6:18pm

The vita he gave me says that there's one album with two titles: Four New Poets (Tampa Bay) = The Poetry/Jazz JP of 1966.

Bill Zink said:

Wait, there was a record outside of Four New Poets?

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Lee Canner on August 3, 2008 at 3:52pm

Hmmm..the NYT review specifically mentioned several different poets (two of which were definitely Mr Wade.) I know that the 1966 Poetry/Jazz disc was 100% DW, I played it so often I had much of it memorized. Maybe it was first released under 3 pseudonyms + his own name?

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Permalink Reply by Ed on August 19, 2008 at 2:06pm

I'm pretty sure that only Brother Dimitrios is a Wade pseudonym.

By the way, I posted this idea to the MFT Record Club forum:

'OK--this idea for an LP may be a little premature, but, here it is: a re-issue of (inter alia David Wade's) "Poetry-Jazz LP of 1966" (and/or Four New Poets, if that album isn't the same one). I am in contact with David Wade and could talk to him about this if there was interest. A number of the David Wade fan club have said they'd love to be able to hear it again. And I've heard it, too, and it's a blast! I think it'd be great to see it out in the world again.'

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