Day 21: "The Shooting of John Dillinger..." by David Wagoner

For Day 21 of 30 Days of The Five-Two, David Wagoner's 1966 poem "The Shooting of John Dillinger...".

Clearly about crime, it inspired Sharon Israel's November 30, 2015 Five-Two poem, "Melodrama at the Biograph".

—Gerald So

Sharon Israel

MELODRAMA AT THE BIOGRAPH

after David Wagoner

Dillinger, stifled by brothel-hideout
July heat
went to refrigerate
in the Biograph.

Cold in his seat
he talked back to the screen -
"You're a jerk, Blackie.
You let 'em take you."

Dillinger watched Gable fry
stood up
smoothed his jacket
checked his gun
made his exit
got shot fast on the street.

No applause for the real thing.


Sharon reads "Melodrama at the Biograph":



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Sharon confesses: "July 22, 1934 – Dillinger's death day, beautifully recalled in a radio piece (“Flashlight” www.kentgarrettproductions.com), inspired me to read Wagoner’s poem 'The Shooting of John Dillinger...' and see Manhattan Melodrama, the film playing that day at the Biograph. Here's my own 'bang bang' take on it all."

SHARON ISRAEL hosts the radio program, Planet Poet the Writer's Voice, on WIOX FM, in Roxbury, New York. As a poet and soprano, Sharon collaborates with composer Robert Cucinotta on works for voice, live instruments, and electronics and has premiered several of his works in New York. She was an early recipient of Brooklyn College's Leonard Hecht Poetry Explication Award, and her work most recently appeared in Per Contra and SPANK the CARP.