Lamantia’s first published poem [update 3/21, thanks to commenter Steven Fama: were five poems published in View in 1943: "I'm Coming," Apparition of Charles Baudelaire," "The Ruins," "By The Curtain of Architecture," and "There Are Many Pathways to the Garden." He then sent some work to Breton, which was published in VVV. Among these] was “Touch of the Marvelous”—the name already Fortean (or Ripleyan, if that neologism is acceptable). The first lines are
“The mermaids have come to the desert They are setting up a boudoir next to the camel Who lies at their feet of roses.”
These, too, have a Fortean ring. But, capturing what Fort mean to Lamantia is not so easy. The Fortean overtones in his other poems are less obvious; more to the point: as far as I know, he never wrote about Fort. It’s possible to offer a plausible reconstruction, though.
I suspect that there is less to this story than meets the eye. Nonetheless, it is tres amusant:
Somewhat recently there were multiple mermaid sightings off the coast of Kiryat Yam (near Haifa in Northern Israel) which prompted the town to offer up a $1 million reward for anyone who could prove the mythical creature exists. Once this news traveled all the way to New York, the Brooklyn-based Mermaid Medical Association got involved.
[T]hey're actually suing the town for defamation, because they exist in order to defend the rights of mermaids worldwide.
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