Awake by jennie orvino (1975)

 Awake

Jennie Orvino

Milwaukee Feminist Printing Collective

Milwaukee, WI

(c) 1975

This chapbook is a collection of, as the poet stated herself, "scraps" of poetic output from 1973 - 1975. 

Work that was produced during a critical time in her life. Here shown on back cover with her "special friend", Barbara. This chapbook is dedicated to her daughter, Rachel, as well as Barbara and to her mother who she is convinced will never read this booklet. 

Fascinating time piece.  

like a tree by jennie orvino

like a tree

jennie orvino

Gunrunner Press

Milwaukee, WI

This thin sliver of nothing seems to be the next in chronologic order, an undated brief sex poem illustrated by a Jim Forest. One of 250 printed. 

one day. one long day. a child looked over all that was. & was not pleased. at all. by jim sorcic (1972)

one day. one long day. a child looked over all that was. & was not pleased. at all

Jim Orvino Sorcic

Interabang Books 

(c)1972

Published the same year as Jennie Orvino's The Fish, the Virgin, and the Lion, this handsome chapbook is dedicated to their daughter Rachel. Jim has adopted his wife's name as his middle name (akin to John Ono Lennon) but there is no additional mention of her in this collection. 

It's a pretty heavy chapbook, actually. The poem series is about George Armstrong Custer and a massacre that he is involved in, told from a child's point of view and dedicated to his newly born daughter. Heavy stuff. Beautifully created chapbook though. All the credit in the world to the publishers. The name INTERABANG lives on as a bookstore name in Dallas, Texas but I am not willing to say that the publisher in 1972 and the bookstore today are in any way connected. 

the next one in the saga was already written about

 January 14, 2019. The Fish, The Virgin, and the Lion by Jennie Orvino. Seems to have been self-published in 1972 with B&W photos by Barbara Gibson. Jennie has given birth to a daughter, Rachel, and is coming to terms with a side of herself that she had not previously felt - a lesbian nature. Barbara was more than a photographer in this scenario. As the poems in the collection reveal, and a page of photos of the two of them on a bed, innocently looking at the camera and then each other, this coming out was captured in real poetic time. 

The collection was dedicated to daughter and husband but Barbara did get a special notice. In her bio on her website, all these years later, Jennie Orvino mentions that she lived in Milwaukee for 10 years. But that's all she mentions. No husband. No daughter. No coming out. Just the time she spent in the city. Scrubbed of their importance in her live. Or why she moved to California, where she still lives. 

A Year from Yesterday by James Sorcic (1970)

A Year from Yesterday

James Sorcic

Vertigo Publications

Wales, UK

(c)1970

Following some level of a chronologic order, this would be the next. A very thin chapbook printed in Wales in 1970. The interesting thing about this one is that the back cover has a write-up BY jennie orvino.  

So, they were involved by 1970. The book is dedicated to and almost all the poems mention jennie orvino. (married? the booklet is dedicated to jennie orvino sorcic)

One of the poems contains the line "jennie give me my son". Ironically, they had a daughter. But that's a thread for another book and another posting. 

meandering

       Back in July I wrote that I would be discussing a relationship through the published works of two poets and then promptly started and meandered off topic as the Summer burned through now into the Fall. Jennie Orvino and James Sorcic. A relationship grows and collapses chronicled through a series of chapbooks. 

Jennie Orvino / James Sorcic

The next handful of posts will be dealing with the collective works of these two poets who were married and had a daughter and then separated all of which played out and was chronicled in a series of poetry chapbooks published between the late 1960s into the mid 1990s.

The Fish / The Virgin / and The Lion by Jennie Orvino (1972)

The Fish / The Virgin / and The Lion
Jennie Orvino
Milwaukee, WI
(c) 1972

IN the many years now that I have been writing about chapbooks I have never before seen on that spun on itself like a whirling top quite like this one from 1972. First of all, I never heard of the poet nor of the Press she and her husband were associated with in Milwaukee. Second of all, I never had an appreciation that Milwaukee HAD a literary community at all - let alone a small press community. Thirdly, I never held and read a book that changed as I read it in quite the same way as this before. It is a condensed history of a transformation from a heterosexual woman to a liberated gay woman - while also giving birth to a daughter and starting out as a dutiful wife. It's more like a bullet ride than a rollercoaster. The life that this condensed book covers in all likelihood doesn't do justice for what the poet was thinking/feeling for most of her life. I don't mean to read too much into her verse, but there are also 3 photographs in the book, one in the front and two at the end which emphasize the transformation that occurs through the book. It's just astounding.