A.D. Winans is one of the few writers I have met (and I've met too God Damned many of them) who doesn't act like a writer or think of himself continually as a writer and maybe that is why he writes better than they do. I always prefer a poet I can tolerate for more than ten minutes. That's rare and so is A.D. --Charles Bukowski
A.D. Winans is a San Francisco-based writer and poet who became involved in the West Coast Beat scene in 1958. By his own account, he has lost count. But, he has been published in over 500 magazines and published over 45 books. A.D. is a small press legend and a survivor. He counted his friends as fellow poets Jack Micheline, Bob Kaufman and Charles Bukowski and misses them. At 72 years old he has a myspace page http://www.myspace.com/adwinans , with 188 friends and writes there frequently.
He doesn’t go to North Beach much anymore, says it’s not the same, but his writing is still just as real as it ever was. Nothing is really new in poetry, but A.D makes it sound fresh and original. His poems are his children. He will tell you that and poetry is his life, they are one and the same.
He once played pool with Janis Joplin and Pete Seeger who told him, “the real heroes are the men who work to bring home the bread to put on the table, and the mothers who sing their children to sleep at night.
One of his friends, the late Charles Bukowski, said of him "A.D. Winans can go ten rounds with the best of them".
I contacted him about a year ago wanting advice on how to be a poet and learned that it is not something you become—you either are or you are not. He gives advice by not giving it. Just about every silly question I asked him, I read the answer in one of his poems. Damn, but…the answer was already written. He did tell me once, “I think the best thing you can do in poetry is not get caught up in the poetry game.” My wife reminds me of that when I start to go off… Maybe Seeger had it right about the real heroes. Some of us are heroes and some are poets and a just a few every now and then are both.
Scot: Who were your early influences when you began writing poetry?
ADW: Early on I wanted to be a novelist and writers like Jack London, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck were my heroes. When I returned home from Panama in 1958, I discovered poets like Brautgan, Corso, Micheline, Kaufman, and other Beats who influenced me. But earlier than this, poets like Pound, Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Ann Sexton, Sylvia Plath and Sandburg caught my attention. Especially Sandburg who
wrote on subjects that were relevant to me and in an accessible language.
Scot: How do you think the business has changed since you first became published?
ADW: The biggest change is that corporations have taken over the literary publishing houses that once were the life blood of poets and writers. So that now it is a business. The biggest change in the small press world is there has been an increasing number of poetry "business" boys who kiss ass and trade favors to get themselves and their friends published. To some extent this has always existed, it's just become more
prevalent and less hidden than in the past.
Scot: How often do you write? Do you have a routine?
ADW: I don't have a routine. I write when the inner voices tell me to write, much like the late William Wantling. I can go months without writing a poem and then within a matters of weeks (or less) write a large number of poems. I used to try setting time aside each day to write, but it didn't work for me. It's the same way with my prose. I'm not a formula writer. I have to write the story and then try to find a market for it.
Scot: Do the inner voices give you the idea or theme or do they actually pen the words
coming out?
ADW: YOU MIGHT SAY THEY GIVE ME A KICK-ASS START. The idea may be brewing inside my head, but what shape it takes comes from out of the blue. The voices aren't necessarily
vocal voices, but visions that lead me to the typewriter. Once the first word hits the computer screen, the rest is like someone is dictating the poem to me. I don't know if this makes any sense to you.
Scot: Many say nobody reads poetry anymore—if true why is that?
ADW: It appears for the most part that the majority of people reading poetry are other poets. There are some people in the non-writing community who read poetry, but it's the responsibility of the poet to reach them by writing on subjects that are relative to their life and writing it in a clear language they can understand. Academic poets almost exclusively write for other academic poets. The language school poets don't write for the every day working man and woman. What average Joe out there would be interested in what they are writing? It's like MFA poets writing uninteresting poems for other MFA poets. The late Jack Micheline and Bob Kaufman were exceptions to the rule. The problem is getting accessible poetry to the average American. The small press has no meaningful distribution and no large publisher is going to publish this kind of poetry.
Scot: How has the small press scene changed since you in the business?
ADW: I don't know what you mean by business? The small press was never a business. There will always be a small press scene. The Mags come and go. Only the names change. I guess the biggest change is that the Internet and web now allows anyone with money to buy a software program to set up and create their own zine. There is both good and bad to that. I prefer the print venue although I don't deny you can reach a wider audience through the Internet.
Scot: What was your greatest writing accomplishment—what made it so?
ADW: I don't know if I can name any one accomplishment that stands out. I had a poem of mine set to music and performed at Tully Hall (NYC), which I guess might be my l5 minutes of fame. Publishing a literary magazine for l7 years certainly ranks near the top. Winning a 2006 PEN Josephine Miles Literary Excellence Award was an honor. A press is currently working on releasing a boxed set of six Cd's of mine (from past readings), which I am quite excited about. All my accomplishments (if you can call them that) are like the children I never had. Those children are and will be part of my archives at Brown University.
Scot: How did your archives end up at Brown?
ADW: Back in the eighties they approached me about buying the Second Coming Archives. I liked the tone of their letter. I wrote back and included a short biography, and told them I’d be willing to sell them the S.C. archives if the purchase included my own archives. They wrote back and said, "We know who you are, and you didn’t need to tell us." That sealed the deal for me. I gave them a reasonable price and they accepted
it.
Scot: What advice would you give a young poet?
ADW: Just to be yourself. Don't be afraid to take risks. Never sell out. You can't put a price on integrity.
Scot: If you were left with one book of poems—what would it be?
ADW: I don't think I can name just one. It would do injustice to all the others that would deserve mentioning.
Scot: If you could change something in your professional life, what would it be?
ADW: I don't consider my writing a profession. I consider it a necessity. So there is nothing I would change since my life and my poetry are one and the same.
Scot: Are there any new poets out there that will change the way we look at poetry?
ADW: That's not for me to say. I could give you a list of several poets I see as having this potential but whether they will change how we look at poetry is another matter. I don't see any Micheline or Kaufman's out there. You have to live poetry and
not just write it. You need to become involved in the community you live in. You need to give something of yourself that goes beyond putting a pen to a piece of paper.
Scot: So then is there a leader, or someone who stands out in poetry today? Was there before? I guess I am trying to ask if a revival is possible or was it tied to a movement, the times back in the 60's?
ADW: You can't go back in time. The sixties was the post-Beat era. From this came the Hippies, but they were not by and large literary orientated, but more into expanding the mind through drugs and music. To me there will never be a time like the fifties
and the early sixties when the Beat philosophy was at its highest peak.
Scot: You have written about Ferlinghetti, have your feelings changed?
ADW: Nothing has changed. I've said all I have to say about him, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Scot: What is one thing about A.D. that we don't know but need to know?
ADW: That I am not the tough, hard-nosed poet that some people see me as. I have a soft side that only my true friends know.
Scot: What does it mean to be a poet?
ADW: I think if you asked this question to a hundred poets you'd get a hundred different responses. I have said over and over again that my life and poetry are one and the same, so the question has no relevance to me. I do know what poetry is not. Poetry is not "Holy." Poetry is only holy when it loses its holiness. I wish those poets who walk around with an invisible Capital "P" on their foreheads would understand this.
Scot: You have written about and actively promoted the beats especially Jack and Bob, what is next?
ADW: I just take it a day at a time. I want to get back to photography. I've become more or less a recluse. I'm not a hermit, just a recluse. There is a difference, you know. I wouldn't say it's accurate to say I have promoted the Beats. I've just written about them, although in the strict sense of the word I guess you could say I have promoted the memory of Jack Micheline and Bob Kaufman. I continue to promote the work of
Jack. At a recent Beat Book Fair in Mexico, I was surprised that one of the panel members, who is supposed to be a Beat Historian, had never heard of either Micheline or Kaufman I read Jack's poem (Jenny Lee) and it blew him away. This is what pisses me off. If you’re going to call yourself a Beat historian, you should know more than just the work of Ferlinghetti, Corso, Mc Clure, Gisnberg, Burroughs and, Di Prima.
Scot: So Al, at age 72 any regrets?
ADW: If I could go back in time, I don't think I would have done anything differently. Perhaps, I'd have drunk less and traveled more, but overall I am satisfied with my life and the way I have lived it.
Scot: If you had the opportunity to talk to Jack Micheline or Bob Kaufman one more time, what would you tell them?
ADW: I'd tell them that I love them. I'd ask them how it is out there in the void? I'd tell them I'm still trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'd tell them they haven't been forgotten. And I'd tell Kaufman, can you believe that this country has come so far as to elect a Black man for President of the U.S. I'm sure Micheline would be singing to the stars over this news.
In another life Scot Young used to be a construction worker but for the last 19 years he has been paid to hang out with kids. He started writing poems again after a 30 year absence and has published one or two. He may be the only school principal in America to have all of Christopher Robin's books and he occasionally teaches a poetry class to the Breakfast Club. He once sang with Kenny Loggins and wrestler Dirty Dick Murdoch, but mainly he just puts bread on the table.
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