PRIVATE AGENDA by LEWIS WARSH

26. PRIVATE AGENDA. Atlanta, GA: Hornswoggle Press, 1996. 6x9" 48 pages. (P)

Offset, smyth-sewn paperback. Black-and-white cover and drawings by Pamela Lawton. 500 paperback copies with 26 lettered and signed by the author and artist. 

“A long poem, nineteen sections, interspersed with drawings by Pamela Lawton. I’d met Pamela in the early nineties when she was living with Elio Schneeman. I like the semi-abstract, semi-realistic texture of the drawings, with mysterious figures appearing at the end of bridges, and the motifs of water (softness) mixed with images of wrought-iron gates and staircases, with their intricate designs (hardness). Part six is a short take on the life of Montgomery Clift, and his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, which I was going to explore years later in the novel, A Place in the Sun. So whatever I was thinking about then got its start here. References to incarceration and arrest (‘We agree to give Miranda warnings to people arrested for drunk driving’) begin to appear more frequently, a continuation of the noirish-thread that started with A Free Man, the private life coming up against the public, in this case the police. There’s a lot of tension in the book, between the sections themselves, and then how they relate to Pamela’s drawings. The book was published by Hornswoggle Press in Atlanta, brainchild of Eric Malone and Eric Phelps Marschalk.” (LW)