You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read?

Hi, this is Michael Silverblad, and this is Bookworm. Today, my first

guest is John Gware, with whom I'll be speaking about Don Powell. There was a sort of literary

flurry early in the year. There was a long essay by Gorvidal about a writer named Don

Powell who'd been neglected, and then more

recently, an essay by Jim Wolcott. But I thought these were, you know, typical shakings of the

literary tree. The Vidal essay was to accompany a republishing of some of her books.

The Wolcott, well, he's a Vidal fan and writes in Vanity Fair,

but when I saw that a brand new press, the Yarrow Press,

was publishing another of Dawn Powell's books,

The Locusts Have No King,

with an introduction by one of my favorite dramatists, John Gware, the author of The House of Blue Leaves and Buzoms and Neglect, Marco Polo sings a solo, and the film

Atlantic City. She became someone I immediately wanted to track down, primarily because I can think of no one

who's more peculiarly funny than John Gware, you know, a funniness that bookworms like. In fact,

in his play, bosoms and neglect, he talks a bit about neglected writers as well as neglected people.

John Gware, how did you come across, Don Powell?

Well, it's a great New York story.

I mean, it's why we live in New York in Greenwich Village.

I got a call one day from Mike the butcher at Jefferson Market. And he was

...