Erik Donald France to Wallace Fowlie, October 24, 1987 (Part I)

[Though earlier I'd donated to Duke letters from Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) to me, more recently, in sorting through my files, I came across photocopies of at least some of the letters I wrote to him. Here's another one of them (typed), from when I lived just off Little River Church Road in Hurdle Mills, North Carolina. He was residing at 17D Valley Terrace Apartments, 2836 Chapel Hill Road, Durham, North Carolina. Ellipses indicate slight editing (deletion of a few personal details). For his other letters, please see Wallace Fowlie Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Here's a link to the collection guide.]

                                                October 24th 1987
                                                Little River Church Rd.

Dear Professor Fowlie,

After hearing you speak about the artworks from your collection in the North Gallery, and particularly after chatting with you briefly a few days later at the Durham County Library with Judy Hogan, I felt compelled to communicate with you on a more personal level. Since I work during the day in Public Documents and have no opportunity to sit in on your Dante class, I thought the next best thing would be to write you a letter.

The influence of Rimbaud on rock music provides a fascinating and well-grounded thesis which I urge you to expand upon. In the Rimbaud lecture you mentioned an interview of Bob Dylan by Allan Ginsberg; so I though you might also be interested in a song by the now-defunct musical group "The Clash," which actually includes recitation of poetry by Ginsberg. 

At the risk of saying things you already know, a couple of prefatory sentences are in order. The Clash, an English group, released their first album at the height of the Punk Rock movement in Britain (1977), made a total of six albums (The Clash, Give 'Em Enough Rope, London Calling, Sandinista!, Combat Rock and Cut the Crap) before disintegrating about a year ago. They were considered by many rock critics an important voice of "youth in rebellion." 

The song "Ghetto Defendant" is on side two of Combat Rock (1982). Joe Strummer and Mick Jones sing one part of the song while Ginsberg speaks the other, to music. Ginsberg opens with: [quoted lyrics follow in the original.]

Can it be that "graphed in a jiffy" refers to the Picasso sketch on the cover of your Rimbaud: Complete Works?

What is unclear is how much influence Ginsberg himself had on the lyrics to "Ghetto Defendant." The exclusive credits are given to The Clash on the record sleeve. As you mentioned in the lecture, Ginsberg is an admirer of Rimbaud. (As was his friend Jack Kerouac, whose 1960 poem "Rimbaud" I discovered in Scattered Poems about five years ago -- I had never seen it before). Perhaps this may be of some use to you.  

[End Part I. Continued in next post.]

[Judy Hogan (1937-) = founder of Carolina Wren Press. If I recall correctly, she gave writing/poetry workshops at the Public Library.

Public Documents = one of my places of employment, situated in the basement of Perkins Library, Duke University West Campus. I was a library clerk, library assistant and professional intern there before moving on. One of my last projects was overseeing the preservation of League of Nations documents and making a display on the Great War and the 1920s.]