To Comprehend a Nectar: a Trashcan Emily Dickenson
The life’s work of John Alden Andrews is a collection of unfinished love poems, political rants, maybe a novel, a play about a trial containing a deaf attorney, very serious essays about homosexuality in the 1970s, travel brochures, jingles, notes for musical comedies that were never completed, stream-of-consciousness, and handwritten slice-of-life snapshots.
The four volumes that I have date from 1973 to 1981, and every page is typed (on a typewriter) or handwritten. Most of the writing was done on backs of other things. Stationary from his wife’s various business ventures, fliers for a newsletter he put out in the 1970s, and records of stocks he must have been following in the ‘80s. One side of the pages tells the story of his fantasy, intellectual, creative life, and the other side tells the story of his work-a-day, practical, personal life. These lives exist side by side but rarely meet.
I’ve been living with the life’s work of John Alden Andrews for six months-it came from San Francisco in the mail unexplained, a gift from a California dumpster diver. Keeping and reading these books is uncomfortably intimate-they were never meant for me to see. I love them/I want to send them back to the dumpster/I want to track down his genealogy and present them like a treasure to his closest living relative, even though this is the person who most likely threw them away.
At the same time, I also feel like these were meant somehow for a person like me to find, read and become obsessed with. A new biography of Emily Dickenson argues that although she hated the idea of being famous, she worked very hard to make sure she was brilliant in the eyes of a few important people. Dickenson writes:
Success-is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed -
To Comprehend a Nectar -
Requires sorest need -
Not one of all the Purple Host
Who took the Flag-today -
Can tell the Definition- so clear-of Victory -
As He-defeated dying -
On whose forbidden ear -
The distant strains of Triumph
Burst-agonized-and Clear!
I like to think that my fixation on the life’s work of John Alden Andrews might be a distant strain of Triumph for him. I’m nobody important-but I am a captive audience of one.
Here you may find a few selected pages from the work of John Alden Andrews. To see the first book in its entirety visit our Flkr page.
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–> nicky