Gerard Malanga

Gerard Malanga Poems

Gerard Malanga Biography

Gerard Joseph Malanga is an American poet, photographer, filmmaker, curator and archivist. Early Life Born in the Bronx, New York, Malanga graduated from the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan and attended Wagner College on Staten Island. At Wagner, he befriended one of his English professors, Willard Maas and his wife, Marie Menken. Andy Warhol and The Factory Gerard Malanga was Warhol's assistant from 1963 to 1970 and as an actor, had lead parts in many of his early films. He danced with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Warhol's multimedia presentation of the Velvet Underground. Malanga claims to have created some of the works attributed to Warhol. In 1970, Malanga left Warhol's studio to work on his own. Creative practice Malanga is also known for his photography of 60's celebrities, including poets, rock stars, and actors. His poetry has been published in The New Yorker, Poetry, and Unmuzzled OX. Malanga created a series of deeply romantic films of his own, in which Malanga’s on-screen persona of "the young poet" is foregrounded in each frame. Other early Malanga films also put the performer center stage within the filmmaker's lens. Mary for Mary (1966) is a portrait of the actor Mary Woronov. Donovan Meets Gerard (1966) documents a meeting between Malanga and the folk singer Donovan at Warhol’s studio. Pre-Raphaelite Dream (1968), documents the filmmaker’s friends and extended family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In The Recording Zone Operator (1968), shot on location in Rome in 35 mm Techniscope/Technicolor, Malanga worked with Tony Kinna, Anita Pallenberg and members of the Living Theatre. In 1981, Malanga photographed the last farmer on Staten Island, Herbert Gericke. Malanga maintains an archive of his still- and motion-picture records of life at Warhol's Factory, and continues his work as a poet. He is the author of some twenty volumes of poetry, including the collection This Will Kill That, and a collaboration with Andy Warhol, Screen Tests: A Diary.)

The Best Poem Of Gerard Malanga

Days Of Rome

Days of nothingness
Days of clear skies the temperature descending
Days of no telephone calls or all the wrong ones
Days of complete boredom and nothing
is happening
Days of 1967 coming to a close in the frigid condition of chest
cold and cough
drops
Days of afternoons in the life of a young girl
not being on time
Days of daydreams exploding
Days of utter frustration
Days of my film being cursed and myself
with the curse never lifting
Days of closed windows to keep the cold
out the livingroom warm
Days of avoiding lunch for a phone-call
with change of plans for the day
Days of posting letters
Days of no mail today
Days of fatigue and amphetamine highs
Days of Charles Edward Ives
Days of the 4:00 pm doldrums
Days of wonder drugs to challenge the common cold
Days of utter frustration
Days of forgetting

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