Schizophrenic Scribblings

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Russ Getelman's

Schizophrenic Scribblings
reviewed by Pat Hartman

I found a rare book, one so scarce there's no mention of another copy in the online places where I look for that sort of thing. It's an indie publication from 1968, and it's pretty amazing.

Russ Getelman doesn't seem to have made any mark on Google, so it's probable that he never published anything else. Who this writer was or is, I don't know. But Schizophrenic Scribblings is a highly representative yet totally individual and very powerfully affecting relic of the Sixties.

There's some good stuff in here. One piece is titled "A Dylan Dream." Another is the jovially macabre, pun-based "The Christmas Rush (for all you freaks)." The guy is a decent poet. Not that I set myself up as a connoisseur of poetry, lard knows. But when I'm moved to copy out a line here, a couple of lines there, from the poet's oeuvre, that's a good sign. In here I found wonderful lines to quote, on all the topics I'd be doing theme issues on, if I were still publishing Salon: A Journal of Aesthetics.

Sex:

When I seek shade and she seeks light
She must not with her lips invite
My lust to heed her tender sighs,
For in the shade my freedom lies.

Religion:

I just can't believe in God.
I can't even believe in myself.

Suicide:

And now comes the meeting of razor and wrist.
Which is more degrading - the bleeding or crying?

Love:

"Within her head," I thought, "what dread
Consumes her day and night?"
And so I stole into her soul,
And Jesus, what a sight!

Dope:

We sit and talk of right and wrong.
I am the truth. I am the song.

And oh, the giant world outside
Is live! Is live! Is bright and wide.

These lines have the ring of primo psychedelic experience - I don't think Getelman is kidding about any of this. Elsewhere we find opiate references, with a long poem titled "The Addict" and frequent references to "death through the needle," and psychedelic references including an entire work called "A Post-Acid Classroom Daydream."

Amongst the 56 pages from the mind of Russ Getelman, this might be my favorite bit:

Someday,
I'm going to write you a poem you'll like.
I'm in training for it already.

Pixiedust drawing: Dr. Agon