Andrew Glaze Poetry

For Alice Esty,

In Bengal at the Spring Festival
having carved a small boat
out of the fresh wood,
they walk to the river late at night.
It looks like a vast sliding ebony sea,
and each lights a candle,
sets it at the center
of his own vessel,
and pushes it gently out into the water.

Faster and faster it’s carried away,
thousands  of lights! lights! lights!
rushing past like a field of flickering stars
drifting over the edge of the waters of the earth
into everywhere.
Something in me is about kneeling down
doing that every day.

© Andrew Glaze, 1978, from The Trash Dragon of Shensi

WNYC radio has a 1978 podcast of Glaze reading “Lights”. It is near the beginning of the broadcast:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/andrew-glaze/

In the ’70s I worked in Europe as a professional ballet dancer and my father and I exchanged letters regularly.  The summer of 1976, I came home to visit and my father showed me a page of hand written sheet music by Ned Rorem. It was a piano accompaniment to his poem “A journey”, with the words “For Alice” scrawled in a corner. He explained that a friend had shown his 1974 booklet “A Masque of Surgery” to a female friend who fell in love with the first poem in the book and commissioned Rorem to put it to music. My father played a tape of the song for me. I had no idea who the soprano was.

Not many years ago, I was looking through The Trash Dragon of Shensi when I turned to the first poem in the book (“Lights”) and noticed it was dedicated to “Alice Esty”. My father had no memory of who she was. So I looked on the internet and discovered she was a soprano who married William Esty, the founder of Esty Advertising, and became a patron of the arts. In particular, she commissioned composers to set poems to music for her to sing. Ned Rorem was a favorite. I realized that she was the “For Alice” mentioned on Rorem’s sheet music for “A Journey”, and it was her voice on the tape that I’d heard in 1976.  The logical conclusion was that when his next poetry book came out in 1978 my father decided to dedicate a poem to her as a thank you. When I jogged their memories, my father and stepmom concluded that their link to Alice Esty had been a friend named Walter Perry, from Birmingham.  Later, my stepmom remembered that Walter’s wife Julia was the daughter of Alice and William Esty.

In the 1960’s and 70’s, once a year the Perry’s would come North to Manhattan and host a formal dress party of epic proportions.  The photo below is from that era.

Walter E. Perry Jr. (left), Adriana Keathley Glaze (center), and Andrew Glaze (right), at one of Walter’s annual formal parties in Manhattan.
Photo property of Andrew Glaze Estate.

— E. Glaze

To Cesar Ortiz-Tinoco

The poet—a political animal?
Yes! Yes!
The way you said that phrase undressed me completely.
There I was naked in a painting of Orozco
holding up a torch which was my own
arm burning above the elbow.
And you yourself were Father Hidalgo
tolling the church-bell of Dolores,
pulling yourself straight up into the air
with your own emotion.
At a moment like that, who would not agree?
yes—yes—a poet is a political animal.

But he is as many other kinds of animal as possible, too.
A suffering animal—delegated
to take on the madness and feckless atrocity of us all,
and of everything.
A hungry animal.
Everything at which he looks with passion
he desires to eat.
A living animal—almost so much more alive
than he or anyone else can have the patience to endure.
A traveling animal, emitting and transmitting
A fighting animal.  He is always down
at the back fence gathering handfuls of ass-manure.
He is able to throw three hundred yards
and strike his enemy in the eye without fail.
A capricious animal.
Here he is sniffing at the holes of bad fortune
and good fortune,
he is trying to decide which will taste better
and is worth digging out of the ground.
A lustful animal.
See how everything he looks at makes him either angry
or in love?

He is always down by the docks helping Venus
out of the sea to be raped.
He is always avenging her rape in a vertigo of righteous rage.

Backs and buttocks and breasts–
he is thrown into spells of deep breathing
and scalded imagination by backs and buttocks and breasts.
By the idea of backs buttocks and breasts!
(male or female).
He falls away constantly
into snatches of mating dances and fertility incantations.

Well then, of course–
when he has been all these kinds of animal,
what you say, too.
Certainly he is in love with the idea of kings and queens,
also presidents, secretaries, first commissar’s
leaders of communes, oligarchists and prime ministers.
He does not disdain dictators.
He has been one, he expects to be one again,
at the first overturn of the state.
Do you see that creature crawling below
about the ballot boxes, snuffling?
It is he.
Also that one standing on the balcony
eating up the cheers.
If there is anyone who loves justice he is there
if there is anyone who loves injustice,
he is there also.
He is in whatever place anyone lives or no-one.
Whatever gave you the idea he was any person in particular?
He was intended to be you.

© Andrew Glaze, from A Masque of Surgery, 1974

Cesar Ortiz Tinoco was a Mexican diplomat who worked at the United Nations in Manhattan. He was the husband of Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz, a poet, writer of cookbooks and other things, and regular contributor to Gourmet Magazine. He was short and compact, while Elizabeth was tall, large boned, full figured, and English. Together, they made one of the most entertaining couples I have ever met. They also greatly enjoyed their cocktails, and came to every house party we had.  Elizabeth consistently wore an attractive cluster of chunky Mexican silver jewelry and they suited her large frame.  Cesar’s position as a diplomat once brought them an invitation to a party at the Irish Embassy.  They laughed as they told us it had been addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Cesar O’rtiz, thereby proving that everyone really is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.

According to a 1985 interview, my father said that Oscar Williams introduced him to Elizabeth.  All I know is that a photo of my father with Elizabeth was taken on the same day as a photo of my father with Oscar.  My stepmom says that she remembers that poet Hy sobiloff contacted my father to ask him for tutoring on poetry, and help with his own writing.  According to her, the photos of Oscar, my father, and Elizabeth were taken when Sobiloff flew them all out for a weekend at his summer retreat on Long Island (possibly Montauk). She believes that this is when my father first met Elizabeth.

Elizabeth and Cesar hosted one legendary dinner party in 1967, to celebrate her newest effort, The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking.  Elizabeth had spent at least two years testing and perfecting the recipes for the book.  Misguidedly, someone left Craig Claiborne, the food critic for the New York Times, in charge of mixing the margaritas. I think I remember hearing about his “special recipe” during the aftermath.  Everyone had a great time and got up to leave. One guest immediately slid down the stairs on the way out. A second was so dazed she left her glasses in a taxi. A third tripped over on the walk home. Basically everybody in attendance had some sort of accident on their way home other than my parents. My parents made it home safely, and at about 2 AM my father got up to get a glass of water in the kitchen and promptly passed out. The following day was spent trading stories of post-party mishaps.

Elizabeth’s Mexican cookbook contained a recipe for Mexican Wedding Cookies. She’d enjoyed that particular cookie at my parent’s annual Christmas party for years, but still did a taste test of over 10 alternate recipes for comparison. In the end she said, “None of them are as good as yours!”. To this day Elizabeth’s book is still available and page 286 says, “This recipe was given to me by my friend Adriana Keathley Glaze, the dancer and actress”.

For more detail about Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz you can read this link:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/nov/27/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries

Andrew Glaze with Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz, photo by Oscar Williams, June, 1964.

Oscar Williams with  Andrew Glaze, June 1964.

Photo by Adriana Glaze. Property of the Andrew Glaze Estate.

Rear Right, in profile is Cesar Ortiz Tinoco wearing glasses.  Center, is Writer Norman Rosten wearing a beige jacket. Front, is his daughter Patty in floral dark blue.

— E. Glaze

                 In memory of Norman Rosten, 1914-1995

It’s been only five days now, but reliable
as Mozart, he’s already following me around
like a clumsy phantom of winds, reeds,
flies and brown bears. Doppelganger
with the sardonic smile, he took such long pains
to construct himself—a sort of small-sized, shaggy
aircraft-carrier, emitting flights—
now he can laugh, hide behind doors,
make great fun of going where he’s already gone.
What they call Death is ordinary,
respectable and rude. He doesn’t fit.
How can he be giving me prods
and showers of hilarious meaningless threats?
He makes a terrible spook, an incompetent vampire
who’s donated all his blood to poems.

Yet no mistaking who’s slamming the doors,
creaking on the stairs, fluttering in the glass
with the orange juice. Each wandering electricity
is followed by the smell of its own ozone.
You may throw iron filings in the air, as you will,
he’s free of exact diagrams. And honored
as I am to be haunted so, I remember there are—
how shall I say, ever so many others’—
he’ll want to frequent, to honor with his wraithly
touch, that it’s pure luck—pure luck!—
every one of us—to be dogged by the spirit
of such a generous poltergeist, whatever
side of the door the gift is coming from,
whether going out or coming in.

© Andrew Glaze, 2002, from Remembering Thunder

Norman Rosten, was the Poet Laureate of Brooklyn, and became my father’s best friend. Their story began in 1964, when Oscar Williams suddenly died.  Oscar was a poetry anthologist with several highly successful volumes that were standard at US high schools and colleges. Someone introduced them, they became friendly and eventually Oscar asked why my father never showed him any of his poems. When my father obliged, Oscar shared them with his poet friend Elizabeth Lambert and reported back that they were “Impressed”.  In a 1985 interview with Steven Ford Brown, my father said that it was Williams who’d nagged him to put a manuscript for a book together.  I remember that my father said Oscar was planning to include his work in the next anthology.  I met Williams when he came to dinner at our apartment one evening.  But most importantly, he personally took the manuscript of my father’s poems to Trident Press at Simon & Schuster and told them to publish it. Trident was the publisher of his own books, and he was an advisor/editor there.  Oscar began overseeing the editing of the book and my father was blissfully happy. And then, just as suddenly as the burgeoning friendship began, Oscar was gone.  My father was in shock.  Then a miracle happened. Trident Press had another poet advisor by the name of Norman Rosten. They turned to him for advice and he said, “Publish it!”  He was also impressed.

Norman was a special person, warm, gregarious, and with a sense of humor that matched my fathers. He lived in a huge rent controlled apartment in a Brooklyn brownstone building that he shared with his wife Hedda and daughter Patricia. It was in fact such a great apartment that later in life when he was an aging widower, his young landlord, who longed to live there himself, offered a trade to him. In exchange for Norman giving up his rent controlled lease, he would receive the gift of ownership of a nearby studio condo apartment. Norman took him up on the offer.

Norman was full of surprises. Besides doing screenplays, stage plays, poems, and a children’s book, in 1973 he came out with the book Marilyn; an Untold Story, revealing his families close friendship with Marilyn Monroe. In fact, Norman was the last person Marilyn spoke to on the night she died.  In 1993, he wrote the libretto for an opera titled “Marilyn” which was premiered by the City Opera at Lincoln Center. But his real specialty was sending postcards to friends with humorous cartoon balloon captions drawn above postage stamps of past presidents.

In 1979 Norman published a poem about my father in his book Norman Rosten Selected Poems.  It was titled  “The Split Bicycle”.  Apparently Norman was amused by the fact that my father’s latest purchase was a bike for city residents who wanted to easily store their bike in their workplace or apartment.  The wheels were on the small side, it quickly dismantled into two halves, and it was easy to carry. At that point in time a lot of people in NYC were riding them.  The poem is posted under the “Friends” Menu on the Home Page.

One winter in the 1990’s, when he was recovering from heart problems, he flew to Miami to stay with my father and stepmom for a while.  When I was there at Christmas my father told me about the visit and said, “We have to do whatever we can to keep Norman healthy. The world is a better place with him in it”. He mentioned that Norman had looked frail when he arrived, but enjoyed going to the beach, relaxing, and looked a bit better when he left.

When Norman died in 1995, I can truly say that my father was heartbroken.  Yet, what came out in the poem was his fondness for Norman, the shared sense of humor, and the twinkling eyed personality of his late friend.

Visiting Norman and Hedda Rosten.  On the playful photo of Glaze with his wife Hedda, Rosten wrote, “Stop it you two!” on the front and “Sag Harbor Lovers, July 1975” on the back.  Photos by Norman and Hedda Rosten. Property of the estate of Andrew Glaze.
The postcard below was sent to me by Norman, in 1969.
“I hear Betsy’s going to England.”
“I hope she remembers we won our independence.”

For Christmas of 1974, Norman gave my father a copy of the Cloisters Museum book The Belles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry,  with the inscription:
“To Adrianna and Andy,
Best Wishes for ’95
(more like plate 17, not 18!)
…and love besides,
Xmas ’74          Hedda and Norman

Number 17                                         Number 18
         
(from the book published by Georges Braziller in 1974)

Norman Rosten and Andrew  Glaze in a backyard in the 1970’s.
Photo by Adriana Glaze, property of the Andrew Glaze Estate.

1970’s photo of Norman Rosten, by Adriana Glaze.  Property of the Andrew Glaze Estate.

— E. Glaze

I come in late.  My daughter has gone to sleep.
There is an army of old shoes scattered,
they seemed like verve this morning,
tonight they have suddenly grown old.
There is a cold air from the window over her head,
she likes being friendly with the outside,
she is not so lonesome sleeping in my bed,
often she lies awake in the back
where her mother made her the princess bed with curtains
and stars, listening to the people next door
cursing each other.  She says her mother told her
people’s religion keeps them together
all life long, shouting at each other.
I get lonesome back there with strangers,” she says,
she misses her little brother complaining in the night.
She likes to see her mother twice a week
and has a witch who lives under her bed with a buzz saw.
She has to twist and turn to protect her feet.
I wish I had a witch under my bed with a buzz saw
who’d cut me clean in half while I was asleep.

Andrew Glaze, 1965, from DAMNED UGLY CHILDREN

My father wrote this poem during the separation and divorce from my mother.  It’s very visceral, and at the same time very literal.  That first year was extremely hard and my father and I kept each other going.  

I was 11 and my primary residence was with my father, while my 3 year old brother stayed with our mother. We still lived in the same Greenwich Village apartment at 173 Bleecker Street, with living room windows that looked out on the street below. When you first entered the apartment it was into the kitchen. There was a make shift closet in the opposite corner with a curtain across it. Shoes were always spilling out at the bottom.

My parents had given me the only bedroom in the apartment and one summer, while I was visiting Birmingham, my mother removed the long sliding doors from the closet and placed my twin sized bed inside it.  Using gold paint she drew interlocking circles on the wall at the back (“stars”), and draped diaphanous curtains across one end. It was undeniably my Princess Bed. I was almost 8, and quite in awe. I did silently wonder what I would do for a closet, but then she showed me the free standing wardrobe she’d built for me.

When my brother was born we became roommates. I had the far end and he had the end closest to the rest of the apartment. A partition divided us, but I could hear every sound he made. When he was a newborn, it was easier for me to hear him than it was for my parents and I was often the one who had to tell them he was crying. Sometimes it was easier to change his diaper myself just to speed up the process. Despite it all, when my mother and brother were no longer with us, I missed them.  Occasionally, when I was feeling down, I would ask to cuddle up to my dad on the fold out bed in the living room.

My father grew up in a family that was very gung ho on fresh air, and he carried on the custom. There was a window near the head of my bed, Manhattan apartments are notoriously overheated, and my window was always open at night. There was only one problem with this, which was that the window opened onto an “Air Shaft”. In Manhattan, this is a legally required open gap area between two buildings that would otherwise be completely butted up alongside each other. An air shaft provides fresh air, some degree of light, and a reverberation of noise that would make a movie sound engineer proud. Add a married couple who have screaming arguments with each other at night to this equation and they might as well be standing in the room with you.  My father was accurate in his account of what my mother told me when I asked why our neighbors stayed together when they clearly hated each other.

Other than nail biting, the one expression of anxiety I had was a witch living under my bed. She’d been there for several years. She did indeed have a buzz saw and I had to keep changing my position to prevent being dismembered, at least until I fell asleep. Whenever I had to go to the bathroom at night, I would also cleverly avoid having my feet cut off at the ankles by taking a flying leap off of and then back onto my bed.

I remember finally telling my father about my witch. Fortunately, she stayed behind when my father married my stepmother and we moved out of the apartment.

— E. Glaze

173 Bleecker Street, between Sullivan and MacDougal Streets.
The store downstairs was a launderette when we lived there. We were on the 4th level if you count the ground level. Our two windows were the left side of the fire escape.