Michael Silverblatt's Intro to Reissue of Kenward Elmslie's The Orchid Stories Excerpted at Paris Review Daily

Michael Silverblatt looks at Kenward Elmslie's The Orchid Stories over at Paris Review Daily. The novel has just been reissued by The Song Cave, but apparently its first chapters were published in the Summer 1967 issue of The Paris Review, who knew. Some of this lovely writing (in fact, this also serves, partly, as an introduction to the new edition) on lovely writing:

Elmslie is the nearly invisible fifth member of the quintet that includes Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch. The generations of poets they inspired sing Elmslie’s praises, but he is most brilliantly described by Ashbery, his comrade-in-arms. Elmslie’s voice, writes Ashbery, is “that of some freaked-out Levi-Strauss, a mad scientist who has swallowed the wrong potion in his lab and is desperately trying to get his calculations on paper before everything closes in.”

When not invisible, Kenward Elmslie is misnamed. In his first big book of poems, Album, there is a two-page collage by Joe Brainard, made from a sheaf of documents, including a citation for “Vagrancy by Loitering” in New Orleans, issued to one Kennard Elmslie. The other scissored clippings include an announcement of a musical comedy, a “tuner”—this must be from a showbiz paper, perhaps Variety—to be titled The Yellow Drum with book and lyrics by Kenwood Emsley. Another clip reviews a piece written by Kenneth Elmslie: “The children in the audience approved mightily.” Kenward Elmie is praised for an opera libretto based on Strindberg. Kenward Elm is praised next, followed by announcements of operas and poetry readings by Kenward Emslie, Kenwood Elmslie, Kenward Elmsee, Mr. Elnsie, and Edward Elmslie. Is it any wonder that the same book, Album, contains a play, Furtive Edna, in which the heroine sings a song called “Change Your Name”?

Hidden identities, camouflage, and transposition are the essence of the work of Kenward G. Elmslie. The narrator of The Orchid Stories remains nameless throughout, although in a love letter he uses the affectionate nickname “Gloop-silv.” Is a nameless narrator unusual in a novel? No, not necessarily. But it’s certainly unusual in a coming-of-age novel entirely about the narrator. Everything about this novel is bonkers, especially that it is called The Orchid Stories. Stories?

Read it all here!