Message from a Lost Uncle

Message From a Lost Uncle????

I never met my uncle Henry Falk. I’m told he was a skinny high school kid with Coke bottle glasses and a monster rebellious streak, but he wrote as if possessed. It was a distinctive style for 1940: Jazz-driven prose and breath-oriented poetry that the Beats were just beginning to explore in writing cliques at Greenwich Village cafes. Henry’s older brother Paul, a college student in the thick of this bohemian circle, proposed inviting his 15-year-old sibling into these selective groups. “He’s just a child,” objected the other writers. Then they saw his work, and young Henry was embraced.

?????Henry’s tenure on the alt literary scene was short. At 17, underage and myopic, he signed up to fight in World War II. He was killed at Anzio in 1944: 19 years old.

?????In our family, the loss was so great that Henry was akin to a ghost: His name was rarely spoken and I first heard these stories just a few years ago. Combing through my late Uncle Paul’s files I found two pieces of Henry’s work from his high school literary magazine. Now the Internet can give this long-silenced talent a voice.