In The Enemy Camp. Selected Poems 1964-74 By William Wantling

I used to read William Wantling in the special collections section at Pitt when I was 21 and 22 years old, waiting for a librarian to bring out the chapbooks which were held in special plastic wrappers. You couldn't just track down out-of-print chapbooks in 1993, not without money, so I spent one Friday a month reading small press literature in a tiny room on the 5th floor of the library. So it's wonderful that Tangerine Press pulled so many of these poems from obscurity and published them in an absolutely gorgeous edition.

Wantling's legend never reached the status of da levy, who either shot himself or was killed by the Cleveland cops, and Wantling certainly never crossed over into beatdom popularity, but his poems were wonderful, still the best I've read about the Korean war and some of the most honest work ever put down about the allure of heroin. Someone with more time than me should write a long essay on Wantling and Etheridge Knight as lost kin writing the same battles.

So many of the poets I love that started around the same time as Wantling--Larry Levis, Phil Levine, Jim Harrison--had years to grow as artists and expand their visions. It's such a shame that Wantling's addictions took him down so young, because he was already better than everyone else. This book is a reminder of that. William Wantling A pretty awesome collection of poems. 0957338570 “Sentences flow over lines and across stanzas, raising questions while dragging you ever onward through squalid yet stunning tales; always with rhythm, rarely rhyme. For many who approach this outstanding collection, the brew may prove too strong.”
â€" Alan Bett, The Skinny

“…a brilliant gathering of poems. It deserves a wide audience.”
â€" Ian Seed, Stride

“There are poems here that read like Denis Johnson, poems full of beauty, poems full of sass and wisdom, poems that examine shortcomings as well as any poem Ray Carver ever wrote, poems about Korea, jail, drugs, love, the universe, poems that are reflective, keen, poems that turn a stern eye on themselves.”
â€" Bookmunch

“Wantling’s casual mastery of technique hoodwinks the reader. Many of the poems employ rhyme and half-rhyme but Wantling’s attention to form is hidden in the dark intimacy of his verse.”
â€" The Manchester Review 0957338570 I don't know, 10, 12 years ago I got it in my head that I wanted white chocolate. I couldn't find vegan white chocolate easily so it became a kind of low-key obsession; I wasn't always thinking about it, but when I found myself in a place that could possibly have it, I would look. It was a couple years before I found a vegan white chocolate bar, and when I finally did, it was underwhelming - not terrible, but not as good as the dark chocolates I had been eating.

It's kind of the same thing with William Wantling: I've been low-key looking for his poetry for years, and when I finally found it (in the library of the Poetry Foundation here in Chicago), it was just ok. Sort of in the vein of Bukowski, poetry for MEN!, but with less sexism and more drugs. Not terrible, but the best part is I found him and can put the search to rest. In The Enemy Camp. Selected Poems 1964-74

William Wantling (1933-74) was a veteran of the Korean War and a heroin addict who spent five years in San Quentin Prison, where he first taught himself to write. Despite being a convicted felon, he qualified for the G.I. Bill on his release in 1963 and went on to obtain a BA and MA in English from Illinois State University. He was a contemporary of Charles Bukowski with whom he had an unusual and ultimately destructive friendship. This selection brings together the best of Wantling's prolific output, including many poems dealing with Korea, heroin addiction and prison. In The Enemy Camp. Selected Poems 1964-74