Our San Francisco Poet–Edward Mycue (Ghana 1961-63)

Feb 20 2013

[San Francisco has produced many fine poets over the years. I, for one, grew up reading the Beats: Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane di Prima, Neal Cassady, Anne Waldman and Michael McClure. The list goes on and on. They were the poets of the ’50s and early ’60s, and then in 1970 Edward Mycue came to town.

Edward Mycue (Ghana 1961-63) had ETed from the Peace Corps because of family needs at home and he returned to the U.S. to work for HEW in Dallas before arriving in San Francisco on June 1, 1970. He joined the new Gay Liberation Movement, began to work for Margrit Roma and Clarence Ricklets’ The New Shakespeare Company, and started publishing his poems.

Since 1970 his poetry, criticism, essays and stories have appeared in over 2000 journals, magazines, on the Internet and everywhere literature is read. He is called by many, “one of the best living poets in San Francisco.” He lives, eats, and breathes San Francisco. So, it was only a matter of time before he would publish a collection of poems on the City by the Bay. Entitled Song of Francisco this collection of 10 poems is now available and Ed has been nice enough to allow me to publish one of his poems from this new collection.]

Memory Tongue

San Francisco, you

blind, handsome city,

your harbor has a stone

in its mouth. You

get washed in our

histories you write

in our lymph once

calf-white like your

promise now memory-

tongued, eggshell-

thin, raving for

healing this

desperte geography.

Ed Mycue

From Song of San Franciso published by Spectacular Diseases (c/o Paul Green, 83 (b) London Road, Peterborough, Cambs.
PE2 9BS UK $10

LIQUID WORD INSTITUTIONAL MANIFESTATIONS
Kept me from getting to sleep last night.
I was riding the tiger.
If the prunes is not sealed they’re going to dry out.
The east and the west are mine.
America doesn’t exist for corporations’ interest.
I was told I was an anchor baby because my mom and dad over near Toronto driving around were plowed-into by one of those Ontario 16year-olds and a passing baseball pal of my dad Jack saw them on the side of the road and my mom Ruth due (WITH ME!) on that Easter Sunday 1937 GOT MOM into his car and drove her south across the border to Niagara Falls, NY to her grandmother Rebecca Taylor’s.
I was born the new day in the USA ON Palm Sunday THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING UNDER THE NEW MOON.
My snarky pals who chaffed me didn’t know that both my mom and dad were Americans and A N D they themselves were born in Niagara Falls, NY.
But I, I always felt, missing the beat, I would have like to be a Canadian. My grandfather William Oliver Mycue’s people were from NEW FRANCE from the early 17th century coming over with other Protestant followers of HENRI IV of Navarre who became King of France when he married that Medici woman as a Roman catholic (because Paris was worth a mass he is said to have said), these followers who he was saving by sending them to NEW FRANCE. Those fellows married native AMERIcan Indians ensuring that I am a NATIVE AMERICAN who welcomed immigrants. And as well I am a child of generations of immigrants. I am also the grandson of one grandmother MARGARET POWERS who married William Oliver Mycue AND SHE CAME FROM DUBLIN (where she bragged they speak the best ENGLISH in the world). My grandad told me so many stories probably mostly made-up about our Amerindian ANCESTORS until we when I was eleven in 1948 moved southwest to Dallas, Texas. I always thought I’d look like great Heros that included Geronimo and Cochise that I saw acted in the movies by Jeff Chandler and looked so noble. But I ended a teardrop visage pretty much following my lovely dad Jack. Now I think that I am lucky I have stories and that Jack (John Powers Mycue) was my dad.
But I have to say that I was told by my mom Ruth Taylor Delehant Mycue THAT being ‘stage Irish’ was an abomination. My father’s mom also would have cottoned-to the ‘stage-Irish’ AT ALL. But I must say that the stories of immigrant Irish WERE thrilling to me and that I love William Butler Yeats and his poetry and pretty much of what he attempted and accomplished also.
Richard Steger and I went to Ireland in 1985 and loved it. One of his grandmothers was Sophie Neely from Chicago and was both Scots and Irish who married his Steger grandfather, the railroad man. Richard’s dad Daniel Steger married Irene Perrou who had parents from Italy way up there in the hills near Torino and were of the Waldensian people (Protestants who Martin Luther referred to as the FIRST CHRISTIANS).
© Copyright Edward Mycue 13 January 2017

One Comment

Edward Mycue says:

September 16, 2017 at 5:30 pm

LIQUID WORD INSTITUTIONAL MANIFESTATIONS
Kept me from getting to sleep last night.
I was riding the tiger.
If the prunes is not sealed they’re going to dry out.
The east and the west are mine.
America doesn’t exist for corporations’ interest.
I was told I was an anchor baby because my mom and dad over near Toronto driving around were plowed-into by one of those Ontario 16year-olds and a passing baseball pal of my dad Jack saw them on the side of the road and my mom Ruth due (WITH ME!) on that Easter Sunday 1937 GOT MOM into his car and drove her south across the border to Niagara Falls, NY to her grandmother Rebecca Taylor’s.
I was born the new day in the USA ON Palm Sunday THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING UNDER THE NEW MOON.
My snarky pals who chaffed me didn’t know that both my mom and dad were Americans and A N D they themselves were born in Niagara Falls, NY.
But I, I always felt, missing the beat, I would have like to be a Canadian. My grandfather William Oliver Mycue’s people were from NEW FRANCE from the early 17th century coming over with other Protestant followers of HENRI IV of Navarre who became King of France when he married that Medici woman as a Roman catholic (because Paris was worth a mass he is said to have said), these followers who he was saving by sending them to NEW FRANCE. Those fellows married native AMERIcan Indians ensuring that I am a NATIVE AMERICAN who welcomed immigrants. And as well I am a child of generations of immigrants. I am also the grandson of one grandmother MARGARET POWERS who married William Oliver Mycue AND SHE CAME FROM DUBLIN (where she bragged they speak the best ENGLISH in the world). My grandad told me so many stories probably mostly made-up about our Amerindian ANCESTORS until we when I was eleven in 1948 moved southwest to Dallas, Texas. I always thought I’d look like great Heros that included Geronimo and Cochise that I saw acted in the movies by Jeff Chandler and looked so noble. But I ended a teardrop visage pretty much following my lovely dad Jack. Now I think that I am lucky I have stories and that Jack (John Powers Mycue) was my dad.
But I have to say that I was told by my mom Ruth Taylor Delehant Mycue THAT being ‘stage Irish’ was an abomination. My father’s mom also would have cottoned-to the ‘stage-Irish’ AT ALL. But I must say that the stories of immigrant Irish WERE thrilling to me and that I love William Butler Yeats and his poetry and pretty much of what he attempted and accomplished also.
Richard Steger and I went to Ireland in 1985 and loved it. One of his grandmothers was Sophie Neely from Chicago and was both Scots and Irish who married his Steger grandfather, the railroad man. Richard’s dad Daniel Steger married Irene Perrou who had parents from Italy way up there in the hills near Torino and were of the Waldensian people (Protestants who Martin Luther referred to as the FIRST CHRISTIANS).
© Copyright Edward Mycue 13 January 2017

One Comment

Cancel Reply