Jeffrey Morgan's Media Blackout Archive presents the following historical excerpt from a marathon rap session that took place in 1976 at a Trader Vic's in Toronto.
Jeffrey Morgan: I hope you don't expect me to tell you how great Rock And Roll Heart is, 'cause I haven't got a copy.
Lou Reed: You know I couldn't expect anyone to compliment me. You know how disappointed I'd be.
Morgan: Well, any man who can write a line like "I see my life before me like a seamstress sees her pins" has to have something.
Reed: Now where did you ever get to see that? How did you get to see that?
Morgan: "We Are the People."
Reed: How did you get to see that?
Morgan: "A Very Pure and Old-Fashioned Christmas."
Reed: How in hell's name did you ever get to see any of those?
Morgan: Are there any copies of "We Are the People" around?
Reed: It's gone. I don't have a copy. Like, I was gonna have a book published and I was looking around for that poem and I couldn't find it. That's when Bob Summers had Fusion. That was a great poem. That was terrific. But I don't have a copy of it. Oh, that poem "We Are the People," that's such a great poem. Y'know, I can't remember it all.
Morgan: There's a lot of Walt Whitman in it.
Reed: I'm honestly not that familiar with Walt Whitman.
Morgan: The two styles are very similar. They're the kind of poems that need to be read out loud.
Reed: Oh, like see, I do that all the time with Anne Waldman, y'know. The St. Lawrence Church on the Bowery. Anne had a thing called Another World. She used to edit it. She's had books of poetry and single-handedly created that whole thing. Y'know, poetry workshops. That wasn't always there. And every year there's a reading. The last one was like, last January. I was there and John was there. I mean, everybody was there. We were doing that with Anne before anybody was anybody. If Anne hadn't gotten in touch with me to be in it, I'd've been really hurt.
Next week: MB111
Jeffrey Morgan is a freelance writer. Send comments to [email protected]
