Andy Livingston on Lew Welch

Apr 27

MeredithPoetry, Reading, Writing Comments Off

Note: I’m so excited to kick off a week (almost) of guest bloggers. It feels like the best way to round out the month. Today Andy Livingston, a friend of mine, does the honors as he shares the poetry of Lew Welch.

Lew Welch had no luck. Roommates with Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen. Championed by William Carlos Williams, he failed to catch any serious attention.

After a nervous breakdown, he moved to Chicago where he wrote ad copy. He was there in Chicago at the night of the famous poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco.

Although active in the Beat scene, he missed the first wave but tackled the life of a working poet in San Francisco. On May 23, 1971, he walked out of Gary Snyder’s house in the mountains of California. His body was never found.

The Basic Con

Those who can’t find anything to live for
always invent something to die for

Then they want the rest of us to
die for it, too.

These, and an elite army of thousands,
who do nobody any good at all, but do
great harm to some
have always collected vast sums from all.

Finally, all this machinery
tries to kill us,

because we don’t die for it, too.

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