Smash hit

Whenever the question comes up – and it does nearly every term – of whether or not rock lyrics qualify as poetry, I offer my students a simple but heartless test. Ask all the musicians to please leave the stage and take their instruments with them – yes, that goes for the backup singers in the tight satin dresses, and the drummer – and then have the lead singer stand alone by the microphone and read the lyrics from that piece of paper he is holding in his hand. What you will hear can leave only one impression: the lyrics in almost every case are not poetry, they are lyrics. Some are good lyrics (A Whiter Shade of Pale), others not so good (Hats Off to Larry), but certainly lines like “Come on, baby, light my fire,” repeated many times, do not, and were never meant to, hold up on their own. Of course, then it’s time to mention the few exceptions, and the top spot on that short list is perennially reserved for Bob Dylan.

Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric is an unusual book: a series of Dylan’s poems written in the mid-Sixties in response to images of Hollywood life by photographer Barry Feinstein. The poems are the first of his to appear in print since the more rambling but often hilarious Tarantula (1971), and they provide an uncommon look at literary Dylan. The poems should sound familiar because of the ways in which they resemble his lyrics. His distinctive singing voice may even seem missing, but we gain the look of the printed words marked by Dylan’s quirky abbreviations as well as the shape of the poems, usually as skinny as a teetering column of poker chips stacked on the page in tightly sawed-off lines.

Also recognisable are Dylan’s cadence, his verbal energy, and his slangy, at times insinuating tone. The themes, too, are cousins to those of his sometimes withering lyrics (“you’re nothin but your mask/ you are actin all the time/ even when you’re playin you”). And the poems are marked by unexpected bursts of surrealism, lines that seem pulled out of a hat rather than simply written down.

Dylan knows when to coast and when to accelerate. He will run with some standard blues lines, then tighten the poem with an arresting image that takes us down the rabbit hole into another dimension where “the doorway wears long pants”. Some of the poems respond directly to the Hollywood of the black-and-white photographs with which they are partnered. One re-enacts a casting director’s inquisition of an actress by the name of “conny rainbow”; and the Oscars themselves (“i couldnt tell if it was me/ or this thing/ i was holding”) do not escape Dylan’s satiric attention.

Times Archive, 1969: Bob Dylan at the Isle of Wight Festival

'He came here to do what he had to do and he's done it, and I'm afraid that's the end'

• Dylan live at the Royal Albert Hall, 1966

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The work signals the appearance of a poetic Dylan on the page not previously witnessed, and the poems have the distinction of being resurrected from the cultural turmoil of the mid-Sixties and thus salvaged from the obliteration of time. Not that they were ever truly “lost” in the way that mittens are lost; rather, they were just set aside until the photographer came across an envelope one day, opened it up, then picked up the phone and called Bob Dylan with a good idea for a book. And a good idea for a book it was.

Billy Collins was America’s Poet Laureate, 2001-2003

Dylan on Dylan

How did you first meet Barry?
Barry and I met in my manager’s office. Barry was either courting or was already married to Mary Travers from Peter, Paul & Mary. I knew Mary, too, and she might have introduced him to me at an earlier date, but I don’t remember.

Did you like Barry’s photography?
Yeah. I liked Barry’s photos a lot. They reminded me of Robert Frank’s photos.

In what way?
Just in their stark atmosphere. Obviously the subject matter. I liked the angles Barry used in the pictures… the shadows and light, that sort of thing.

When did Barry approach you about writing the text?
I don’t think he ever approached me about writing anything. I think it was something that sort of happened spontaneously.

Do you consider these poems?
You’d probably have to ask some academician about that.

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