real people

[RICHARD ROMEO]

TCeasar writes:   What to make, I wondered, of so many recent works of 
fiction where real

people appear. Not as characters. (C.f. Ford or Houdini in Doctorow's 
Ragtime.)

Merely as themselves, or registers of themselves, of their actual 
existence--

as in Ann Beattie's story, "A Vintage Thunderbird," where a couple meet a

cabbie who brags that the other day he's just had Al Pacino."



Why not?  When these "real people" are only real in the sense that 
they're not-we know more about them than about our neighbor or close 
relative (in my case).  Since they dominate our lives in a certain way, 
why not put them in fiction or in my case again, in my poetry.  How can 
anyone write anything about somebody they don't even know exists.  In 
some way I am not happy I know more about Joyce or Lowry than I do about 
others in the flesh who are in front of my face.  (I give TRP credit in 
this day and age for not spilling his beans if I may use such spurious 
language). 



I have written an epic poem e.g., about all my favorite writers in one 
bar at one time, listening to rock n roll, getting high, singing along 
(even Dante and Milton-so this idea applies to even those figures we know 
thru words not images and such), having a pretty horrid happy time.  So I 
say again why not?  I have just recently thrown my TV out the window so 
maybe I will begin to know who my neighbor is...



Rich

NYC