L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2021 www.italoamericano.org 32 L'Italo-Americano O n a S a n F r a n c i s c a n m i d s u m m e r n i g h t J a c k Hirschman, the better craftsman author of The Arcanes, an epic i n s p i r e d b y d a i l y l i f e ' s dialectics, passed away in his s l e e p . H e m o v e d i n t o a n e t e r n a l w i t h o u t s e a s o n s , w h e r e t h e u n p a r a l l e l e d g e n t l e n e s s o f h i s b o d y o f giant can sleep, dreaming f o r e v e r t h e d r e a m h e dedicated his entire life –the life of a bard – to, firmly convinced that "Everyone's A Poet – No Exceptions." His dream, up to the day he died, was to contribute with poetry to the creation of a world where people were no longer alienated and exploited by the so-called "1%;" a place where the broken, universal conscience of Humankind could rise again, healed by the thaumaturgic touch of poetry. Hirschman was born in the Bronx in 1933, a second- g e n e r a t i o n R u s s i a n J e w . W h e n H e m i n g w a y w r o t e b a c k t o h i m , p r a i s i n g h i s writing, in answer to a letter where he had asked literary advice, Letter To A Young Writer, – "I can't help you, kid. You write better than I did when I was 19. But the hell of it is, you write like me. That is no sin. But you won't g e t a n y w h e r e w i t h i t " – Hirschman sold it to buy a station wagon. With it, he drove to the Far West, to California. His first stop is the dadaist and surrealist scene in Los Angeles, spearheaded by the talent of Wallace Berman and i m b u e d w i t h k a b b a l a h mysticism. Between 1961 and 1966, he teaches at UCLA: among his students are also G a r y G a c h a n d J i m Morrison. Here, he marks all students with the highest s c o r e t o a v o i d t h e y g e t drafted for Vietnam, and, for t h i s , h e i s f i r e d . S o , h e e m i g r a t e s a n d s e t t l e s f o r good in San Francisco, the last frontier, where for half a century he – cultural agitator and tireless social activist – has made of street poetry a vital instrument for his poetic revolution. North Beach, the Italian heart of San Francisco, was his own element, not only because home to legendary City Lights Bookstore and P u b l i s h e r s , t h e " l i t e r a r y Napolitano, reading That's You: "When I think Italy, / a c e r t a i n k i n d o f w e e p i n g c o m e s t o m y e y e s , / n o t b e c a u s e I a m s a d , / b u t because I am singing. That's you." On the week he died, he was supposed to travel to Italy again, to Sardinia, for more readings and poetry- shaped dream-sharing: he always defined himself "not a poet with a capital P, but a c u l t u r a l w o r k e r f o r t h e working class." Jack Hirschman was t h e v o i c e o f a w o r l d t h a t hurts, of the outcasts and outsiders of globalization; he was the author of some 100 books, and the curator of just a s m a n y e d i t i o n s i n 9 languages (the revolutionary Italian of Rocco Scotellaro a n d P i e r P a o l o P a s o l i n i remains among his favorite idioms); he gave thousands of readings, traveling across all latitudes always sharing, with a childlike toothless s m i l e a n d e n t h u s i a s m , pamphlets and fanzines. He wrote incessantly, following the modern epic tradition of Pound's Cantos and William Carlos Williams' Paterson, birthing his opus magnum, T h e A r c a n e s , t h r o u g h 5 0 years of work. More than 4 0 0 0 p a g e s o f A r c a n e s , published for Multimedia E d i z i o n i , S a l e r n o , a n d collected in four volumes, the l a s t o f w h i c h w i l l b e published posthumously. A b o n a f i d e , P r o u s t i a n Recherche – of which Agneta Falk, painter, and wife of Hirschman's, is both witness and custodian – not only in magnitude but especially in its complex intertextuality, w h o s e i n f l u e n c e o n t h e world's political conscience will be visible only in time. "55% of America's largest c o r p o r a t i o n s p a i d z e r o federal taxes last year. I don't care about where you stand, but it seems to me it's time they start paying their share, just like anybody else. (...) The greatest irony of all is that during the recession and t h e p a n d e m i c ( . . . ) , w h e n m o s t A m e r i c a n s w e r e struggling to stay afloat, the number of billionaires in the country actually grew. This year only, the stock exchange smashed 40 records. (...) But a firefighter shouldn't pay more taxes than a whole tech c o m p a n y a n d a t e a c h e r shouldn't pay more taxes than an oil company." These a r e n ' t J a c k H i r s c h m a n ' s words of poetic battle, but p o l i t i c a l s t a t e m e n t s t h e meeting place" of the city, a n d t h e e p i c e n t e r o f t h e Beats' underground poetry, but because the Belpaese, its people, and the exceptional Italian-American community of San Francisco offered to Hirschman, a true citizen of the world, a rich cultural s u b s t r a t u m a n d s i n c e r e friendship like no other. Hirschman's relationship with Italy starts at the end of the 1950s. The title poem of h i s f i r s t b o o k , A C o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f Americans, was published in t h e R o m a n m a g a z i n e Botteghe Oscure in 1958, two years earlier than in the US. In 1980, he is in Sicily for the bilingual publication of his translation of Yossyph S h y r y n , b y S i c i l i a n p o e t Santo Calì. In the last 40 years, he keeps traveling back and forth between the New and the Old World, in name of his connection with Italy, i t s p o e t s , a n d i t s c o u n t e r c u l t u r e . I n 2 0 1 5 M a u r o B a t t o c c h i , t h e n C o n s u l o f I t a l y i n S a n Francisco, asked me to invite J a c k H i r s c h m a n t o t h e I t a l i a n R e p u b l i c D a y celebrations. It was a joy to be with him on that occasion and to listen to him, while s t a n d i n g n e x t t o J a n e t P r e s i d e n t o f t h e U n i t e d States, Joe Biden, shared with the public in the past few days. Hirschman didn't live to hear it, but its Arcanes a r e l i k e l y t o s u p p o r t t h e raising, perhaps earlier than w e e x p e c t , o f a c o m m o n c o n s c i e n c e f o r t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f a m o r e impartial society, and of an ecology of the human soul. On the 22nd of July, at the m e m o r i a l o r g a n i z e d i n B o l i n a s f o r h i s f r i e n d Lawrence Ferlinghetti, H i r s c h m a n – w h o w a s d e c l a r e d S a n F r a n c i s c o ' s f o u r t h e m e r i t u s p o e t i n 2006, by then-mayor Gavin Newsom (today governor of C a l i f o r n i a ) – o p e n e d t h e commemoration by reading in front of a dozen friends and family members, just b e s i d e a s t r e a m a n d a r e e d b e d , h i s T h e E l e g y A r c a n e , d e d i c a t e d t o t h e e t e r n a l f o r c e s o f p o e t r y a g a i n s t d e a t h . E x a c t l y a month later, on the 22nd of A u g u s t , t h a t v e r y e l e g y e m e r g e d a g a i n f r o m m y heart, the most perfect mise e n a b y m e t o " a r c a n i z e " Hirschman's tireless political and lyrical activism, stopped at nearly 88 years of age by C o v i d , w h i c h h e h a d p r o p h e t i c a l l y c a l l e d a "holocaustic pandemic." For Hirschman, writing every day was life, it was the a l p h a a n d o m e g a o f h i s powerful and enviable voice. I n b e t w e e n , a h a n d f u l o f verbs to pay the bills of life's nights: painting, singing, s i t t i n g , r e a d i n g , d y i n g , loving, only to return once more, just like the sun that returns every day, to writing, encore, an anaphora that molds glorious, highly lyrical verses – and therefore even more political – worthy of t h e b e s t M a j a k o w s k i a n d Pasolini put together: "One day I'm gonna give up writing and just paint. / I'm gonna give up painting and just sing. / I'm gonna give up singing and just sit. / I'm gonna give up sitting and just read. / I'm gonna give up reading and just die. / I'm gonna give up dying and just love. / I'm gonna g i v e u p l o v i n g a n d j u s t write." Jack Hirschman passed away last August, aged 88 (Photo courtesy of Mauro Aprile Zanetti) SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY J a c k H i r s c h m a n — T h e A r c a n e Voice of the Wounded World MAURO APRILE ZANETTI

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