LITERATURE
St. Mark’s Helium Table, David Schoffman’s first and only book of poetry, was published amid a cloudbank of controversy. Written in the early 80’s, a period in which David was involved with an unholy host of deviants and crackpots, the book is replete with gorgeous renderings of what he called “life’s unsavories.”
The contentiousness surrounding this slim volume of verse centered around the depiction of Girat Verhoeven, known to most people as the founder and former CEO of Seattle’s Nijintech Industries. It seems that in 1979, Schoffman and Verhoeven temporarily shared the modest accommodations of eastern Turkey’s notorious Elazig Prison. In the poem “Was It Henna,” David described their cell as a “rotting, clammy cavity/ perfumed with piss camphor/ lenient with disinfectant.”
Verhoeven sued for defamation of character when in an interview published in The Acephaly Review, Schoffman identified him by name as the inspiration for book’s eponymous poem. What nettled the litigant most was the tercet, “his chived, discomforted countenance/whittled by opiates/degraded and dimmed.”
The highly publicized trial helped Schoffman sell over 10,000 copies of his book, an enormous figure for a book of poetry. Three rancorous weeks of testimony yielded nothing for Verhoeven but rendered the severe judgment of hackneyed incompetence for Schoffman’s lyric abilities.
No new volumes are forthcoming.
The contentiousness surrounding this slim volume of verse centered around the depiction of Girat Verhoeven, known to most people as the founder and former CEO of Seattle’s Nijintech Industries. It seems that in 1979, Schoffman and Verhoeven temporarily shared the modest accommodations of eastern Turkey’s notorious Elazig Prison. In the poem “Was It Henna,” David described their cell as a “rotting, clammy cavity/ perfumed with piss camphor/ lenient with disinfectant.”
Verhoeven sued for defamation of character when in an interview published in The Acephaly Review, Schoffman identified him by name as the inspiration for book’s eponymous poem. What nettled the litigant most was the tercet, “his chived, discomforted countenance/whittled by opiates/degraded and dimmed.”
The highly publicized trial helped Schoffman sell over 10,000 copies of his book, an enormous figure for a book of poetry. Three rancorous weeks of testimony yielded nothing for Verhoeven but rendered the severe judgment of hackneyed incompetence for Schoffman’s lyric abilities.
No new volumes are forthcoming.
No comments:
Post a Comment