Tim Dlugos: Things I Might Do [Terence Winch]




 [A version of this post appeared first on the Best American Poetry blog on July 28, 2008.]


The last time I saw Tim Dlugos was 30 December 1989. We met for dinner at Kramer Books & Afterwords, the first bookstore/café in the land (as far as I know). It’s one of the few independent bookstores still going strong in DC, but probably more because of the food than the books. Tim had been battling AIDS for a while, and I remember being a little apprehensive about seeing him, wondering to what extent the disease might have changed him. So his arrival came as a relief, a cause for optimism—he looked better than ever, and seemed full of energy and purpose.

Starting in the early 1970s, Tim and I were part of a group of poets who participated in an open reading every Monday night in a room over the Community Book Shop on P Street in Dupont Circle in DC. The readings, called Mass Transit, were started by Michael Lally in 1971. Mass Transit was a poetry lab, where all experiments were welcome, or at least tolerated. Many poets came up through Mass Transit, and became friends—Ed Cox, Lee Lally, Beth Joselow, Tina Darragh, Pete Inman, Liam Rector, Lynne Dreyer, Phyllis Rosenzweig, and Bernard Welt, to mention a few. We hosted a reading series at the Pyramid Gallery, bringing poets like John Ashbery to town to read with local poets. We also started a publishing venture called Some of Us Press, bringing out chapbooks by everyone from Ed Cox to Bruce Andrews. Michael left for New York in 1975, and Tim left town around the same time. Fortunately, Doug Lang appeared on the scene and, in his capacity as manager of Folio Books, also in Dupont Circle, became the same kind of catalyst as Michael Lally had been. Doug’s Folio readings featured Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Tom Raworth, Ray DiPalma, Jamie MacInnis, Barbara Guest, Maureen Owen, Susan Howe, Fielding Dawson, Ted Greenwald, and dozens of others, each usually paired with a DC poet. Doug, who started a small press called Jawbone and was part of another called Titanic Books, also hosted a number of workshops, whose participants included Diane Ward, Joan Retallack, and others. In fact, Some of Us Press published High There by Tim in 1973, which I believe was his first book, and in 1977, Jawbone brought out Tim’s chapbook For Years. 

In New York, Tim seem to flourish. He became editor of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project Newsletter for a while, his magnetism and openness as a person always drawing people to him. He also partied hard in the big city. Later, in poems like “Powerless,” he would write with great passion about getting sober.

Tim’s masterpiece is the poem “G-9,” named after the AIDS ward at Roosevelt Hospital in NYC. I’m not an expert in the literature to come out of the AIDS epidemic, but it’s hard to believe there is anything in that body of work more vivid and powerful than this poem. In November of 1989, Tim sent me a fat envelope of poems—“Here are the fruits of my hospital stay and my first week out.” I was blown away by the contents, which included “Powerless” and “G-9.” He was doing his best work in his final year of life. “G-9” was accepted by the Paris Review not long before Tim died, of complications from AIDS on December 3rd, 1990, at age 40. He never lived to see the issue (#115) come out, but he was delighted to know that it would be in the magazine.

The good news is that Tim’s friend, the poet David Trinidad, is working on the first complete poems of Tim Dlugos [ed.: the book came out in 2011.] I’ve looked at a chunk of this manuscript, and I very much believe its publication will be a landmark literary event, bringing back to public attention an amazing and important writer. Like Whitman, Tim, through his poems, seems to be with us still.


In his research, David came up with a poem by Tim that I had no memory of, but was very grateful to have. I think the poem is from 1973, when I was the poetry book buyer at a DC shop called Discount Books:


Things I Might Do

for Terry Winch

Might write a letter to Jim Carroll

this p.m., I finally found his address.

Might get an answer; probably not.

Might start crying when Joey calls

tonight. Might wonder if he slept

with Michael; probably won’t ask.

Some time might remember the name of

the star that the statue on the fountain

at the Circle resembles: not Leslie Howard,

but that’s pretty close. Might quit

work today, might dream about my job

again tonight, the 4th night in a row.

Might lose something if I keep on

working. Might forget to cash my check

again. Might go out dancing

with Billy whom I might call this afternoon,

and might go to bed with when parents split

for West Coast in just two weeks. Might

look for an apartment. Might make

a tremendous break and move to New York City.

Might do the streets. Might get crabs.

Might be missing the world’s most beautiful

boy by writing now. Might get a sunburn.

Might go bald. Might fall asleep on the bench

like some old bum. Might leave the Circle.

Might check the poems out at Discount Books,

find Joe Brainard, find Geraud. Might wave

to Terry as I just walk past, his waving back

a p.m. highlight and distinct possibility.


[ed. note: the photo above, courtesy of Michael Lally, shows Tim in the early '70s at the DC apartment of Rory McKeag, a young gay friend who worked at the Pyramid Gallery in DC. I know it's Rory's place because he gave me the antique coffee grinder you can see in the photo. It belonged to his grandmother, and I was very reluctant to accept it, but he insisted. It is now in my kitchen. Rory died in the early 2020s.] 

__________________________________________________________________________________

Dennis Cooper, Tim Dlugos, and Bob Flanagan, New York, early eighties. 


Here is another post on Tim that ran on the Best American Poetry blog on 3 December 2020:


30th Anniversary of the Death of Tim Dlugos [by Terence Winch]


It was thirty years ago today, in 1990, that Tim Dlugos died at age forty of AIDS. Tim was a poet of enormous talent and creative energy. He was beloved by many, myself included. His warmth, humor, and congeniality made him very easy to like. When his friend David Trinidad brought out Tim's collected poems (A Fast Life) in 2011, I was impressed by how much great work Tim had produced in his short life. Like so many others, I still miss him and, as the poem below demonstrates, still dream about him.


The Next Best Thing


I am having lunch in the humongous

cafeteria at my workplace. I’m not sure

what my job is, but the cafeteria is packed.

I scan the room and see that my best friend,

Michael David Lally, is sitting alone ten or so

tables across from me. So I go to join him.


But just as I start heading his way, he bolts up

from his chair and scoots off to another table

where Conway Twitty is also having lunch.

Conway is alone and looks like a successful

businessman. He has glasses and wears a suit.

I can’t imagine why he is in our cafeteria,

but he and Michael seem to be in an instant

intense conversation and I don’t feel that I should

interrupt them. Their faces are only an inch apart.


Then I am in front of the Childe Harold, a great

bar in Dupont Circle that went out of business

some time back. I’m sitting on the little brick

wall in front waiting for Tim Dlugos. We’re

having lunch together. I haven’t seen him since

he died and am hoping I won’t have trouble

recognizing him. But along he comes, looking

older but good. He has very long hair, mostly gray,

and he’s clutching a briefcase from which papers

seem to be tumbling. It’s so good to see him again.


Bernard Welt happens along. I want to invite him

to join us for lunch, but I also feel selfish about

seeing Tim. We have so much to catch up on.

So I don’t invite Bernie, and feel a little guilty about it.

I am trying to call him Bernard rather than Bernie,

just as I want people to call me Terence rather

than Terry, but I ask him if he would mind if

I started calling him “Bernardie” instead.

Tim thinks that’s funny. Then we part ways.

















©Terence Winch  
Permission required to use any of the contents of this post. 


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