Tim Dlugos: 30 Years After

December 3rd marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of poet Tim Dlugos, who lived A Fast Life (as the title of his collected poems attests) that was unfairly cut short by AIDS at the age of 40. Dlugos is justifiably celebrated for his bravery and candor in documenting his deteriorating health in iconic poems like "G-9" — named for Roosevelt Hospital's AIDS ward, where he'd been an inpatient on several occasions— from which Dlugos read excerpts on ABC's Good Morning America just weeks before his final admission. Nevertheless, this is but one facet of Dlugos' poetics, where we also find charming pop sensibilities, tender expressions of love, unflinching dispatches from queer culture, an eye for formal experimentations, and a wicked sense of humor.

We've already marked one milestone for Dlugos in 2020 — on what would have been his 70th birthday in August — and after writing that post, I found myself lamenting that we didn't have a lot of recordings to be able to share. Soon thereafter, I reached out to Christopher Wiss and David Trinidad and was ecstatic when David was able to send three recordings our way. While we hope to be able to announce even more additions to our Tim Dlugos author page in time, we will celebrate him today with these three terrific readings.

The earliest of these recordings is a 1974 from Mass Transit Bookstore in Washington, D.C., where he read alongside John Ashbery (Trinidad notes that you can hear Ashbery in the background reacting to Dlugos' poems). Dlugos notes that he's only going to read one poem "from the book" (High There, his debut chapbook published by Some of Us Press in 1973) in this nearly forty-minute set, which includes a number of early favorites like "American Baseball" and "Gilligan's Island," along with "Great Art," "So Far," "Flaming Angel," "Poem for Jeanne," "Dream Series," "President Truman," and "As It Is." This recording also includes a number of unpublished early poems ("Sexual Postures," "Gypsy," and "The Eyes of Our Hearts") as well as a shorter draft version of "Stanzas for Martina" (written for Tina Darragh) than what was eventually published.

An undated home recording made by Dlugos in D.C. appears to be from not long thereafter. Running twenty-six minutes, this set begins with a bold proclamation, "from high above DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C. to your machines, this is Tim Dlugos . . . and this is 'John Tongue,'" before launching into the poem of the same name. He also reads "Poppers," "Great Books of the 1950s," and "Some," along with some titles from the previous recording ("As It Is," "American Baseball," "Stanzas for Martina"). This tape also includes a few unpublished pieces: "Dream With You In It," excerpts from a January 1975 dream journal similar to "Dream Series," and a piece from the series Music (for Maurice Sendak) based on Rachmaninoff's second symphony.

Last, but certainly not least, we have Dlugos' 1984 reading with Dennis Cooper at Venice, CA's beloved Beyond Baroque. This forty-minute set consists of ten poems in total, starting with "Pretty Convincing," and moving on to "Close," "Sonnet ["Stevie Nicks walks into the Parisian weather"]," "The Nineteenth Century is 183 Years Old," "Octavian," "Not Stravinsky," "Green Acres," "Summer, South Brooklyn," and "The Morning," before concluding with the long poem "Cape and Islands." When sending the recordings along, Trinidad reminisced, "I was there; it was a spectacular reading," and I agree with him wholeheartedly. You will too.

These three recordings join those already in the PennSound archives, including his 1977 appearance on Public Access Poetry and a segmented 1978 Segue Series reading from the Ear Inn where Dlugos reads "Sonnet for Eileen Myles," "Je Suis Ein Americano," and "A Day for Don and Vladimir," along with several of the perennial favorites listed above.  

Once more, we thank Christopher Wiss for his kindness in letting us share these recordings, and David Trinidad for sharing them with us. Dlugos' New York Diary — like the indispensable A Fast Life (Nightboat Books), edited by Trinidad — will be released next month by Sibling Rivalry Press. You can listen to the aforementioned recordings by clicking here.