Around the time Narcissus Resists was released poet Andrew Demcak wrote his five-part poem sequence Pink Narcissus in response to the 1971 James Bidgood film, which I also reference in the “Celluloid” section of Narcissus Resists. Andrew was kind enough to dedicate his poem to me in celebration of the release of Narcissus Resists (very sweet Andrew, thank you!).
You can read Andrew’s mini e-chap HERE. (Yes, that’s me on the cover, a painting courtesy of the very talented Didi Menendez who published both our projects).
Grady Harp was also kind enough to review Andrew’s project:
Demcak has approached Hittinger’s superb work much the way music composers pay homage to colleagues, e.g. Brahms’ ‘Variations on a Theme by Haydn’, Rachmaninov’s ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’, among others. In doing so he enriches our experience with Hittinger’s work while continuing to prove his own important standing as a poet unafraid to explore shrouded psyches. An excellent accomplishment and an exciting poetic response to a current colleague! And it is stunningly set off by the art of Didi Menendez who also published this fine work.
Click HERE to read the whole review.
As for more about Pink Narcissus, it was shot on 8mm film and takes you through a surreal sequence of erotic fantasies. Here’s a still from the film:
