Introduction to Messages: New and Selected Poems, 1969–1989
Mailer's introduction to the 1989 poetry collection Messages by his friend Luke Breit (son of Harvey Breit), praising Breit as 'in the act of becoming one of the best romantic poets we've got' and 'Doctor Breit, Traffic Consultant for locked-up synapses.'
Mailer’s introduction to Messages: New and Selected Poems, 1969–1989 by his friend Luke Breit (Fort Bragg, CA: Q.E.D. Press, 1989, 5–8). Written in Brooklyn in July 1989, after months of hard work on Harlot’s Ghost left him in “gridlock,” it records how reading Breit’s poems set “my inner traffic” moving again — “Luke Breit is Doctor Breit, Traffic Consultant for locked-up synapses and totally fucked-up grace.” Mailer quotes several poems and judges Breit “in the act of becoming one of the best romantic poets we’ve got,” closing: “If I could be a poet, I wouldn’t mind at all being as good as Luke Breit.”
A full transcription is at full text.