The Orchid Stories, Kenward Elmslie, Pilot Press, 2025, PB, 261 pages , ISBN: 9781068758614
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with an afterword by Robert Glück
A little-known classic of twentieth century queer literature and a masterpiece of eccentric detail, poet Kenward Elmslie’s only novel The Orchid Stories presents us with interwoven stories as delicate and exquisite as the flowers for which they are named, conveying a dreamlike, otherworldly beauty.
“A masterpiece of astounding and steadfast invention.” — Robert Glück
“Kenward Elmslie's insouciance, inventiveness and fearlessness suffuse The Orchid Stories. No one writes like him, no one. His mind travels in language and through sentences that jolt a reader out of settled linguistic paths. His writing marks the road less taken, his stories excursions without plans or plots. Instead, "Nirvana juice [is] for sale," heavenly pleasures the goal.” — Lynne Tillman
“A sweetly bizarre fiction that might be a secret autobiography. You tumble ahead and keep reading, led on by the metrics, though it's mostly prose. You just keep reading. The book contains no "official" emotions—ones you're supposed to have—but they feel exactly right. This book, first published in 1973, is still way ahead of the times.” — Alice Notley
“Kenward Elmslie is one of the unforgettable writers of our time. It is as though Burroughs’ permanent apocalypse were being observed by someone else: not a closet Savonarola, but someone motivated by the humor, sensuality, and joie de vivre of an O’Hara. . . The world may be an industrial swamp, but Elmslie’s dazzling one-step ahead induction of it is a cause for rejoicing and even joy.” — John Ashbery
Kenward Elmslie (1929–2022) was a radical poet, artist, performer and librettist. An important figure of the New York School of poets and artists, he was the author of numerous books of poetry in his lifetime, as well as plays, opera librettos, and his only novel, The Orchid Stories. The latter was first serialised by The Paris Review in the late 1960s and published together as a novel in 1973, remaining out of print for decades. Alongside his own work, he also edited Z Press and Z Magazine, promoting the work of fellow poets, including John Wieners, Bernadette Mayer, John Ashbery and Anne Waldman. From 1963, he was the life partner of the poet and artist Joe Brainard, living and working closely alongside one another until the latter’s death from AIDS in 1994.
Robert Glück is a poet, fiction writer, editor and potter. In the late 1970s, he and Bruce Boone founded New Narrative, a literary movement of self-reflexive storytelling that combines essay, lyric and autobiography in one work. Glück is the author of the story collections, Elements and Denny Smith; the novels, Jack the Modernist, Margery Kempe and About Ed; and a volume of collected essays Communal Nude. His books of poetry include La Fontaine with Bruce Boone, Reader, In Commemoration of the Visit with Kathleen Fraser, and I, Boombox. He lives in San Francisco.
