I feel the need to convey this rather obvious truth since AI did not - could not - distinguish between the two with the limited about of information they provided which led me to purchasing a small lot of tiny chapbooks by David Hiatt, but the description of the lot was faulty and in fact 2 of the 3 items were by Ben Hiatt.
I want to thank those of you who have faithfully remained connected to my 'adventures in poetry chapbooks'. By now you know that I have focused on the unknown or under appreciated poets and small presses that have existed (and disappeared like summer incests after the first frost). But what you didn't know and what I didn't realize until recently was that I was unconsciously gathering pieces for a book about poetry chapbooks and have now begun fleshing it out.
It will be both different and in a way a follow up to the landmark A Secret Location on the Lower East Side by Steven Clay and Rodney Phillips. That well known book focuses on the years 1960-1980 and it was published in 1998. My interest is both earlier than 1960 and as recently as the next chapbook published anywhere in America. As any of you, observer/witnesses already know, I am interested in the small presses in places other than New York and San Francisco because those places, literally EVERY place is a place where someone could and often did start a small press and "publish" something, be it as tiny as a 4 page booklet slightly larger than a stamp or a tall thin book, hand-sewn, with some manner of incredibly detailed images. Those objects were not destined to be recalled or remembered, but I find them the most interesting and in some cases the first publications of authors who went on to become well known and established writers, some even "household names". Because the truth is, everybody starts somewhere. And those "somewheres" are places as diverse as the Pacific Northwest and West Texas grasslands. Wherever creative people live and could conceive of a way to print, they did.
One thing I learned from William S Burroughs was the difference from making a statement THE (whatever) or A (whatever). THE subjects definitive, absolute or complete. A does not subject anything like that, so what I am working on is A history of poetry chapbooks in the United States, not THE. For the practical reality that no sooner would such a book get printed than dozens of new possible additions would arise. New presses appear with great regularity, printing fresh new books all the time. So, I will be writing what I have and know and get it into print so it's real and available. A moment captured. Not a finality. full-stop done.
The book will not be written or augmented by AI. The technology is not precise, it's still a dumb machine. The beginning example of BEN, not DAVID Hiatt is testimony to that. Some human posted something that was not factually accurate and because AI had no reference of the people involved, it simply stated the inaccuracies as facts. Can't rely on AI yet, maybe ever, but certainly when it comes to Hiatt /Hiatt.
