- Sheri Martinelli
Sheri Martinelli, (
17 January ,1918 –Nov , 1996) was an American painter, muse and poet.Life
Born in
Philadelphia with the given name Shirley Burns Brennan.She began using the name Sherry by the time she was a teenager, but she was later told that her first name had the wrong numerological value, so to rectify that she modified it to Sheri.
"She was a protégée of
Anaïs Nin and is described at length in her infamous Diary; she was the basis for a major character inWilliam Gaddis ’s novelThe Recognitions [http://www.williamgaddis.org/recognitions/martinelli/index.shtml William Gaddis's Sheri Martinelli links] and then became the muse and mistress ofEzra Pound (she appears in various guises in the laterCantos );Charlie Parker and the members of theModern Jazz Quartet hung out at herGreenwich Village apartment;Marlon Brando was an admirer andRod Steiger collected her art, as didE. E. Cummings ; she knew and was admired by all the Beats - Ginsberg was an especially close friend and mentions her in one of his poems- and she was known inSan Francisco in the late 1950s as Queen of the Beats;H.D. identified with her and wrote about her in "End to Torment "; Pound wrote the introduction to a book of her paintings, and her art is now in collections throughout the world. She wrote unusual prose and poetry, much of it published in her own magazine, the "Anagogic & Paideumic Review ". She was one of the first to publish Bukowski, and her magazine was the very first to review his work.In recent years, she appeared under a pseudonym in
Anatole Broyard ’s "Kafka Was the Rage ", under her own name inDavid Markson ’s novel "Reader’s Block ", as Lady Carey inLarry McMurty 's 1995 novel "Dead Man's Walk ", and she was anthologized inRichard Peabody ’s "A Different Beat ". When younger, she even modeled for Vogue and acted in one ofMaya Deren ’s experimental films." [Beerspit Night And Cursing : The Correspondence Of Charles Bukowski And Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967 Edited By Steven Moore - Black Sparrow Press, 2001.]Bibliography
* "La Martinelli", Introduction by
Ezra Pound . Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller, 1956.* "Duties of a Lady Female." Anagogic & Paideumic Review 1.3 (1959). Rpt. in "A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation", Ed. Richard Peabody. London and New York: Serpent’s Tail/High Risk, 1997. 154-58.
* “The Tao of Canto 90”, privately printed, 1960.
* "The Beggar Girl of Queretaro", "
Anagogic & Paideumic Review " 1.4 (1960): 26-29.* "Homage to Grandpa", "Light Year", Autumn 1961. [2-page letter on
Ezra Pound as lover]* [Letter to the editor.] Paideuma 6.3 (Winter 1977): 415-16.
* "Canto CVI", unpublished poem/commentary, dated 6 December 1984.
* "For Allen." in "Best Minds: A Tribute to
Allen Ginsberg ", Ed.Bill Morgan andBob Rosenthal , New York: Lospecchio P, 1986. 190.* "A Memoir", "Paideuma" 15.2-3 (Fall-Winter 1986): 151-62.
* "Pound as Wuz", unpublished commentary on Laughlin, dated 11 April 1988.
* "Goodbye Anaïs", " Anaïs: An International Journal" 12 (1994): 77.
* "Mexico, His Thrust Renews.” [http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/gargoyle/Issues/Issue44.php Gargoyle] no. 44 (December 2001): 9-18.
References
External links
* [http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/gargoyle/Issues/scanned/issue41/modern_muse.htm gargoylemagazine.com A biography]
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