MEMORIES
Images still flickering, from the first letters and short prose pieces that fell onto the mat in a damp basement room in East London, 1961... I used to know Delma Ciminello and Movietone by heart, having set the type by hand…through my very first trip to the US and reading in New York, 1970, and Fee in the audience, for no reason other than friendship through letters, taking me on to the Cedar Bar, talking there to Elaine deKooning, eating slices of pizza thickly sprinkled with hot pepper flakes on the way… up to Buffalo, in the Daley's sunlit wooden house, leaning against the kitchen doorway, and odd bright moments in California, it seems…a clip of him playing poker with Ed, Jenny and Val, laughing.
And our last brief correspondence—his enthusiasm about his work in the prisons.
Remember those bib overalls and the gallon jug of vodka?
(T.R., Cambridge UK)
No one can forget the Popov, I think. The overalls somehow weren't coming to mind.
The Gauloises might be the third item.
He was different in that he came across as happy a lot of the time, notwithstanding all
kinds of things. I think of a guy with a big smile saying THAT'S TERRIFIC with stress on both
words, and doing that twitchy thing with his eyes.
(later)
Those antan neiges... There was so much nostalgia in Fielding's work for
that matter. "Hattie brought out the tomato juice and the aspic and I liked aspic like I liked okra, which I hated…" Later, they get the dog to show up under the table and give him the liver. At home: "Ahhh Fee, you shouldn't have…"
The overalls — sure, I remember them now. He had them on a lot in the
'70s, I don't remember them during that SF visit in 1976. I believe a brand
new, crisp pair, the kind that would make noise when you walked, in a
photograph at Dave Southern's house, FD, me (black hair), and a couple of
cats.
(Steve Emerson, Oakland, California)
I'm very sad about Fielding Dawson. Always loved his work, and he was an extraordinary man. Had breakfast (bacon, eggs, and vodka) with him at my old 18th St apt. the morning after he read at Folio in 77. Spent the day with him. Jelly Roll Morton singing Buddy Bolden's Blues as I write. Cold, drizzle.
(Doug Lang, Washington, D.C.)
I had been thinking about him lately and had considered getting back in touch after seven years. There hadn't been any falling-out—just a bi-product of loonier days and sad associations. The last batch of prison writings he had sent (figuring I was still printing and could easily produce them) was stolen by Genevieve's boyfriend of the time.
Once, when we (you with my family) motored up to Asheville maybe ten or more years ago, we drove with the Patersons to the site of Black Mountain College. You may recall a group of rustic buildings like camp cottages, and the Walter Gropius designed Studies Building across the lake. A pair of fat bulldogs waddled out to greet us. I didn't realize at the time that we were in front of the fabled dining hall, the steps where that photo was snapped of Ed with Dan Rice and Joan Heller. A hand-drawn map in the reprint of Fielding's Black Mountain Book made it all clear. He and I had talked of driving up there; he had been back once since the '50s, maybe with Jonathan.
In the mid-'80s Duke University Press did his memoir of childhood days, Tiger Lilies. Out of a staff of nearly 100, there was only one person from that time to give the news today.
(David Southern, Durham, North Carolina)
Very sad about Fee. He was a part of many of our lives, his writing certainly. I fought with him so often and made up as often it seems more as if a relative has died. His recent letters were content in way he rarely had been. Proud of his new work, tender about Susan, warm. It was nice to share those with her.
(Lucia Berlin, Los Angeles, California)
Remember first week or so in Bolinas in summer 73, sitting in then Lewis
and Phoebe's house, now Shao's, woman came through the door and said to me,
You're Fielding Dawson, aren't you, I love your work... don't remember her
name, except it was one of the bird names many women from New York took
when they migrated out here.
I am sorry to hear he is kaput. Live specimens are not so plentiful as had
once been so.
(Duncan McNaughton, San Francisco, California)
Fee was actually the one who got me thinking about starting a reading series
up in Buffalo. He was in the backseat of the car when John and I headed out
to the train station in New York to ship our books up there. It must
have been about 1973 and John and I had decided to leave Brooklyn. Fee leans
his head between the front seats of the car to talk to John, who was
driving, and says—Get me a reading in Buffalo, will you?—and John just
points to me and says—ask her. Baby Sabina was on my lap at the time, and
I didn't have a clue how that might happen. Fee was the first writer I
invited to read for just buffalo after I put it all together. Years later,
mid-1980's, he was up for a 3-day writers-in-residence gig and I
told him I was sending him to Attica maximum "correctional" facility to
teach a writing workshop. He was horrified. Questioned my sanity. I let him
know that the writers doing time at Attica were focused, the class
established, and that he'd be safe. Reassured, he came back charged,
politicized, and he continued to teach in prisons from that time until he
passed. I remember Fee in oxford shirts, pink, with button-down collars. His
eyes tracking mine to lock as he spoke. You betcha!
(Debora Ott, Atlanta, Georgia)
The last time I heard Fielding laugh was over a correction sent in by a
reader which I had spotted in a recent London Review of Books. I knew Fielding
was a big fan of Neville Mariner, even going by to the green room after
concert performances, so he was mighty taken when I reported the
correspondent's chiding a published citation which had misidentified the
maestro with the Orchestra of St Martin in the Fields as "Neville
Chamberlain". Fee's laugh was longer than I would have expected; it was
slow, luxuriant laughter as if to underscore the error so he would
remember it. Now I have.
(Vyt Bakaitis, New York City)
Susan called the night he died and we talked about how it happened. I asked for the details and she told me. I met him in 1969, when I worked briefly at the furniture store on Fifth Ave where Fielding (I never called him Fee, not caring for diminutives, which I think was one reason we stayed close friends for the rest of his life) was the Complaints Department manager / that silver tongued devil! I had just been married.
We were close friends from the start, although I could not understand a thing about him for the first couple of years; in fact we were complete opposites in many ways: I know he never understood my disinterest in publishing my writings, and in fact persuaded me to publish the couple of things that I did.
After my wife and daughter and I left New York, Fielding and I visited each other often. For a number of years I co-edited a literary magazine
(The Falcon) and arranged for him to come out to the mountains of Pennsylvania to give readings as often as possible, and he even persuaded me to read here and there in New York. I saw him last a year ago October, when my wife had a showing of her paintings at The Pen and Brush Gallery. We spent time together and he and Susan were excited about visiting us at my old family farm which I have taken over here in north Florida (near Tallahassee).
I guess I am trying to talk about the sense of loss I feel, which cannot be encompassed here.
(Terry Porter, Florida)
Fielding was real, real important to me. Surrogate father of sorts, and I
get the sense that he wanted that in the way Olson and Kline were to him. Or
maybe I'm reading that in. In '85 I sent him a short prose piece. A little
vignette that revolved around Stan Musial and a fight with my girlfriend over
her writing in one of his books. It was homage and imitative. I didn't know
Fee, just sent it to Black Sparrow. (Maybe there was a poem or two in there
as well: no other note or introduction). Eventually I got a postcard back. He
LOVED it! Susan too. He published it as “Fan Letter” in Will She Understand?
Wonderful really, in that I never told him the story came and was sent after
literally tossing about 5 banal “you're the greatest” truly typical fan
letters. He chose the title. We met several years later at Naropa. And then
over the years in Boulder and New York, and he and Susan even visited here
in Costa Rica. We'd drink Nicaraguan rum sitting on the stools at that high
kitchen island. Boy this is FANTASTIC! And I'd be allergic to Diz and the
rest. Or we'd head out into NY. A restaurant or bar. Fat Tuesdays nearby. I
remember walking through a big de Kooning retrospective with him. Priceless.
He loved to talk. And could be SO enthusiastic. He never got to meet Ana.
One more huge regret. We were hoping they'd be here for the wedding.
February 17. I'll miss him, as I'm sure so will many others, and like the
song goes always thought I'd see him one more time again…
Fare thee well, friend.
(Eliot Greenspan, Costa Rica)
… also remember a Fielding Dawson reading at the old
Intersection on Union St, over 15 years ago, and him
crying as he read a story about a character in the
schoolyard named Popeye, tears flowing down his cheeks.
(Sarah Menefee, San Francisco)
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