David Robert Hayward Stenton Jones

These fragments has he shored against his gender, so.
His name was David Robert

Hayward Stenton Jones. Not David Jones, too close to Davey
of the pre-fab four. He'd change it first to Tom Jones, then again

and then again. But this year he was Ziggy,
this year he played guitar.

That's him on the left. The man who'd fall to earth

There's a new magazine on the block - named Absent - and its first issue features this incredible poem by Robert Archambeau. A must read - especially if the words 'Hammersmith Odeon' mean something to you.

Another extract (I can't resist):

So New York and yet he's called "L.A."
when he fronts the Eldorados at a dance. He'd been a Jade,

be mother nature's son, but been a Jade who sang
a doo-wop plaintive "Leave Her for Me."

And she was Lisa and she'd say. And she was Stephanie
who'd also say. And she was Jane and Candy too,

or she would be. But he was Delmore Schwartz's
best student, gone to smack and speed and hell,

and he'd come back.

Pico, Pico, Pico

Pico Iyer: On Travel and Travel Writing

Two decades after boarding a plane for the trip that would yield "Video Night in Kathmandu," Pico Iyer talks to Matthew Davis about fact and fiction, books he wishes he hadn't written and his humble beginnings as a travel writer.

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Pico Iyer on Travel Writing

A while back I was in Larry Habegger's Master Class for Travel Writers, and Pico Iyer came to talk with us about travel writing. I recorded the conversation, and am publishing a small part of it here, with Larry's and Pico's permission.

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The Nowhere Man

The transcontinental tribe of wanderers is growing, global souls for whom home is everywhere and nowhere. Pico Iyer, one of the privileged homeless, considers the new kind of person being created by a new kind of life.

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[Cross-posted]