Dadaoism (An Anthology)

by Oliver, Reggie

  The article turned out to be well written and well received. It spawned other articles, other interviews. Obern began getting invitations to read and speak at universities and literary hang-outs. This notoriety and praise meant a lot to him. For one thing, it made it easier to pick up girls. It also led to adventures he had not previously anticipated.

  After giving a speech at one university, Paul was approached by a young man, fairly handsome, with an athletic build, but not overly so. This man seemed to be well versed in Obern’s writings and to have read all the articles written about him. The young man asked the question, coyly at first, as to whether he had ever considered writing a poem on a man. The young man unbuttoned his shirt to show him how fine and parchment-like his skin was. Paul declined at first, but the idea stuck with him. He contemplated the subject. Paul wondered whether he owed it to his art to expand the range of his subject matter, and should attempt to work in other forms.

  Obern received similar offers as he traveled the country on a reading spree. Eventually, he decided that he did owe it to his art to try. Paul tried writing a few times with male canvases, but was never quite satisfied with the outcome. One of those poems has since made it into the canon, but, in the variorum edition of Obern’s collected poems, it is shown that this work is really a reworking of an earlier piece, which first appeared on a Ms. Emily Pierce, formerly of Nassau, Long Island.

  As he was completing work on his third collection, Paul began dating the well-known photographer, Conchita Bradley, best known for her photo collections of street children in Lima, Peru, and retired clowns in Sarasota, Florida (not the same volume). Obern was thirty-seven and Bradley was thirty at the time. Their relationship was a short one, but it did lead to a brilliant period of collaboration. It was Bradley who first suggested that a photographic collection of Obern’s best works be put together. Paul was easily sold on the idea. Together they searched out and photographed an impressive series of poems.

  In her photographs, Bradley revealed her firm grasp of nuance and texture in Obern’s art. Her photographs, both those in black and white and those in color, revealed his mastery of poetry as a visual, oral, and tactile art form. Through her use of shadow and light, filters, props, and setting, Bradley succeeded in raising Obern’s art to a higher plateau, as well as making it available to a wider audience in a more enriching form.

  Interviewed years after the publication of Images in the Flesh, Diane Aquino, one of the poem canvases, recalled those photo sessions. Aquino states that Bradley and Obern fought over every detail. The famous photo of Aquino framed by a bamboo screen set against a brick wall was the end product of a three-day shoot.

  The book solidified Bradley’s reputation, but it did much more for Obern. His reputation had first been established on the basis of the written and spoken word, through books, cassettes, CDs, and public readings. Images in the Flesh exposed the visual quality of what had been, at first, a very private act of creation. Paul gained the attention of Art News, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Playboy Magazine, as well as many famous visual artists, such as the French post-Dada, deconstructive-expressionist painter, Jean-Jacque Lecarre.

  After the publication of Images in the Flesh, Paul received invitations to have his living works appear in galleries and some museums for limited exhibitions. Obern contacted some of his more memorable poems, and some appearances were arranged. Prior to this, individual works had been displayed before select audiences, but there had been no opportunity for the general public to be exposed to his art. The strain of organizing the exhibits put extra stress on his relationship with Bradley. They parted as friends who respected each other’s work and aesthetics, but had come to the realization that they could not stand each other on a daily basis. Bradley later admitted, although she considered herself broad-minded, Obern’s method of writing, particularly his constant need for new models, had put too much of an emotional strain on her. Paul simply felt that Bradley was too possessive and domineering. He is quoted as saying, “I had to choose between her and poetry. I decided to stick with my first love.”

  Bradley had helped to make Obern an internationally known literary figure. After the publication of Images in the Flesh, Obern was mentioned from time to time as under consideration for major awards, including the Nobel Prize. But this was not to be. Obern’s work was too controversial within his own lifetime for high status accolades. He had to content himself with a slew of tiny awards from microscopic presses and art centers.

  Bradley left the relationship with two important additions to her life, beyond her enhanced reputation as a photographer. She gave birth to a daughter by Obern, one of only three children, by various women, of whom his siring was proven or acknowledged. Bradley also gained a short series of linked haiku, tattooed on her left shoulder, which she sometimes displayed at the beach or when wearing an evening gown.

  Obern was disappointed by the failure of his relationship with Bradley. He wished he had more time to spend with his daughter and his other children. But, Obern knew life was short and he needed to make choices. Paul felt God had put him on earth for some purpose. That purpose was, as he had discovered, the development of a new art form: body poetry.

  There were several other successful exhibits of Obern’s creations, most notably the one at the Metropolitan during his lifetime, but his work led to controversy in some parts of the country. An exhibit in Cincinnati was closed after local ministers protested. The ministers had demanded that only the poems should be exposed, preferably with the skins separated from their owners, or not at all. As no one was willing to part with their flesh at that time, and as Obern thought the integrity of his work would be violated if only a portion of the women were displayed, there was no room for compromise.

  Paul quickly became disillusioned with galleries and museums. For one thing, curators seemed interested mainly in seeing the women who featured his best known works. The problem with this for Obern was time. People age; their bodies change. Take the case of Agnes Simms. When Obern wrote “A Breast, Live as a Volcano,” Ms. Simms was age twenty and in top condition. By the time she appeared in the Metropolitan exhibit, she had borne two children and gained forty-three pounds. Obern felt the changes gave his creation, which he considered a serious, if not tragic, work, an unwanted comic effect. Paul began to envision having his own gallery, where recent works, while still in prime form, could be displayed. This led to his renting an empty piece of real estate on the same street as a tattoo parlor and a body-piercing salon on Race Street in Philadelphia. Obern transformed this space into the Body Poem Gallery.

  One of the things Obern hoped to accomplish by starting his own gallery was to allow the public an opportunity to directly experience the tactile quality of his work. Visitors to the Body Poem Gallery were encouraged to feel the work for themselves, to trace each letter with their hands. This freedom had not been available in museums, and had only been allowed in one or two Soho galleries.

  At first, the Body Poem Gallery did well. It drew large crowds. Visitors were required to pay a fifty-dollar entrance fee. The fee was large because the works, unlike dead paintings and sculptures, had to eat, pay condo fees, and afford clothing for when they were not on display. As time progressed, the Body Poem Gallery began to have brushes with the law. The gallery’s legal problems escalated after Paul made the decision to construct private viewing booths, where, for an additional fee, visitors could more fully explore individual works. Although his lawyers argued that this move was intended to aid serious scholars, and was the equivalent of sequestered rooms for study in libraries, less art-minded persons accused Obern of promoting prostitution.

  Art and literature aficionados had long been asking Obern about the purchase prices for his works. Paul explained to all who inquired, whether rich or poor, that his works were not his to sell. If his works chose to sell themselves, that was their business. As for himself, Obern had an emotional, and in some cases physical, attachment to his works and wanted what was
in the poems’ best interest. Obern considered the rental or leasing of his art to appear in mansions or galleries was preferable to their outright sale. Despite this, it is understood that some works did decide to sell themselves, and some even agreed to marriage. This, in part, explains why some of Obern’s better known works, although now much older, are in private collections throughout the world. The Sultan of Bungee, an oil-rich nation in the Indian Ocean, was said to have collected over fifty of Obern’s works while they were still in their prime.

  It was at this stage that Obern invited my later stepmother, Randi (known to art historians as Randi “Patrice” Lee-Smythe), to manage the gallery. Randi was an excellent choice because of her long friendship with the artist, as well as her knowledge and appreciation of his work. Randi proved to be an excellent manager and curator. In later years, after retuning to college, she made a name for herself as a scholar and critic. Her area of expertise, of course, was the art and writing that she knew so well.

  Because of their long friendship, Randi was able to assist Paul in one of his most ambitious projects. Most of the canvases on whom Obern had worked in the past had limited themselves to one, maybe two poems, not exceeding forty lines. Those who agreed to more than two poems usually did so if the poems were short, haiku-like, and did not cover more than a portion of a back, chest, or leg. Obern had been able to write only a few poems of any great length, none exceeding one hundred and twenty lines. Obern’s work had evolved to the stage where he wanted to write a long poem. He first envisioned this as a poem of several hundred lines, but, as he thought about it more, he realized it might be thousands of lines long. He had been contemplating the subject for some time, and had made a lot of preliminary notes. Obern did some mathematical calculations in advance and determined that, for the type of work he envisioned, he would need to utilize the complete surface area of a model.

  After the publication of Images in the Flesh, Obern had discussed his idea with dozens of potential candidates, all of whom had rejected the idea as too painful or too humiliating. It took the person of Randi Lee to make Obern’s dream come to life. Randi was, at that time, in her early forties, and putting two children through private school as a single mother. As a friend and critic, Randi understood and supported Paul’s needs as an artist. Obern had originally sought a younger canvas, but, after discussing his difficulties with Randi, who was still managing the Body Poem Gallery at the time, he became convinced of her suitability.

  When Paul broached the subject, Randi was receptive. Fees were negotiated, and the writing of the work began. One of the contractual obligations required Randi to work out at least an hour each day, more so as she got older, to keep the canvas in shape. Even so, Obern acknowledged from the start that his creation would only exist as he envisioned it for a few brief years.

  Early in the project, which would take more than a year to complete, Obern encountered an unexpected problem, one that nearly ended the collaboration. He discovered a tattoo of a rose on Randi’s left buttock. The rose had not been there when he had known Randi as a teenager, and he did not recall seeing it on later encounters. Randi insisted it had been there for years, and questioned Paul’s attentiveness to detail. Obern had not planned on weaving any images of flowers into the work. Also, the tattoo eliminated sections of skin that he had felt were vital to the completion of the poem. As it was, the sheer length of the poem required him to write as small as possible. Even today, when scholars examine the preserved corpse of my stepmother, a magnifying glass is required. Fortunately, Obern was able to find an ingenious way to work around the problem.

  It is at this point that the saga of Paul Obern begins to take a tragic twist. At age forty-four, having completed his epic poem, “The Rose of Heaven,” his fortunes began to decline. For most of his career as a poet and visual artist, Obern had subsidized his work from his own personal fortune. All of the money that he made from publications, readings, and speaking engagements was swallowed by the cost of finding, wining and dining, or renting potential forms upon which he could express himself. While the Body Poem Gallery made brisk business in the five years that it was open, Paul had seen to it that most of the profits had gone to the works themselves. Most of what Obern received in terms of remuneration from the gallery wound up paying the increasing legal costs associated with running it.

  During the last year that the gallery was in operation, it was raided several times by police and closed for weeks at a time. During that same year, Paul himself was arrested and charged with pandering. Obern never fully recovered from, or forgave, the slight from the District Attorney’s office, particularly as he had contributed heavily to both the District Attorney’s and the Mayor’s election campaigns. The negative publicity from raids and arrests affected attendance drastically. The legal headaches preoccupied Obern so much, that only a half-a-dozen poems were written by him during the final year that the Body Poem Gallery was open.

  The value of Obern’s stock and the size of his quarterly dividends had been declining for several years. Obern had made some small attempts to diversify, but the majority of his holdings remained in the family company. It was one of Obern’s tragic flaws that he held onto these stocks longer than any reasonable investor would have, perhaps out of loyalty to his dead father. (See Dr. Lee-Smythe’s essay on the subject.)

  Within six months of the final court order to close the Body Poem Gallery, Ob-Tech Pharmaceutical, the firm founded by Obern’s father, filed for bankruptcy. Paul Obern exhausted most of his remaining capital on failed appeals against the closing of his gallery.

  Paul Obern found himself for the first time faced with the prospect of supporting himself solely through his art, or by getting a job—something he was totally unsuited to. Paul had started a publishing house at the Body Poem Gallery to print and sell his work, imitating the method developed by Conchita Bradley. However, the photographers Obern used for the four volumes he produced were not as successful as Bradley in capturing the spirit of the living art. Obern sought help from major publishing firms, but because of his legal problems, and since he wrote poetry, not prose, none of the New York firms would touch him. Obern found himself dealing with a small outfit in Tucson, which could only pay him in copies, or a ten per cent royalty after costs had been recovered. This was not enough to pay the models.

  Paul was first, and foremost, an artist. He needed to write as much as he needed to breathe. He needed women to work with, women who could inspire him. This was becoming harder without money. Despite his fame, Obern found fewer women willing to aid him in his work. He was forced to sell first his cabin in the mountains, then his house at the shore, and finally his townhouse.

  Obern moved in, for a time, with Randi, who was then working on her doctorate. This was, of course, before she met my father. Paul traveled around the country, and made visits to Europe and Japan, living as best he could off fees he received for readings. He attempted living in Thailand, and later in Paraguay, in hopes that the exchange rate would allow him to write more. In both cases, he ran afoul of local governments, and fled from accusations of sexual assault and torture. Obern did a chapbook of truck-stop waitresses. The slide seemed as if it would never end. Interest in Obern’s work was declining as, after having shown the way, he was eclipsed by younger, bolder artists. Paul tried teaching, but lost one university position after another because of sexual harassment lawsuits filed by students and faculty members. By the time Obern was forty-seven, no college would hire him, or even risk having him read.

  There were few people he could fall back on for help during this period. Randi had married my father and was teaching in Arizona. Other former models and works were occupied, either professionally or with families. Conchita Bradley was living in India. Other acquaintances, who might have helped, were used to asking Obern for money and could not fathom lending financial assistance. For a time, he was forced to make a living through guest appearances on talk shows and celebrity game shows. It was one humiliation after
another for this proud and accomplished artist. Obern suffered in the press because of his legal troubles. Remaindered copies of his books were burned by feminists, arsonists, and members of the religious right. Comedians derided him in their monologues. The jibes went straight to his art. Paul was not highly productive as a writer after the closing of his gallery. None of his later works could compete with his earlier successes. He continued to create individual pieces, but these were getting fewer and farther between. Obern would see only two more books published in his lifetime, his collection of essays The Body as Poetry and his Autobiography.

  In the title essay of The Body as Poetry, and in subsequent interviews, Paul lamented that he had never been able to write a poem that “sufficiently gave justice to the human form.” Obern felt that if he had only had more time, if only the money had not run out, he might have succeeded. We can only imagine what work he might have created had he had the resources.

  For a time, Paul found work in a tattoo parlor, writing doggerel on the backs of tourists at five dollars a line. He tried living in a monastery, and in a commune, but found life in both to be tedious. When he was forty-nine, Obern was invited to live at a nudist colony in Canada. He went, but returned to the United States the following year. Constant sun poisoning had made his life there nothing but misery. In Canada, there were forms available for Obern to work on, but few were the types of canvases he preferred. Even so, Obern had been in too much pain, or too disoriented, to write in Canada, except during the winter months, when the nudists moved indoors.