" Did I mention that Mr. Slavitt is also a pornographer?" Alex Beam on David Slavitt.


In today's Alex Beam column in the Boston Globe Beam writes about Slavitt's many literary accomplishments. Now, you remember Slavitt( the gentleman) who read a poem about how much he dislikes the poet Robert Lowell at the Somerville News Writers Festival, and was trounced by Tim Toomey in an election for state rep. He also has a book out "Blue State Blues" about his campaign against Toomey. Now it seems that Slavitt has had a great career in another genre: Porn, according to Beam:

"Writing as "Henry Sutton" Slavitt grabbed the brass ring with his 1967 soft-porn bestseller "The Exhibitionist." which sold 4 million copies. "It's every English majors dream...I put my children through college and continue to write poems and translate Ausonius, whom nobody has ever heard of." Slavitt said. Beam writes " During his campaign against Toomey, Slavitt worried that his other works might come to light...his 1987 work "The-Book: A Child's First Book of Pornography." which he calls "my fist porn version of Dr. Seuss's "One Fish, Two Fish."

On Slavitt's hometown Cambridge, Mass: He asked his son Evan ( a lawyer) how he should handle any questions regarding his alternative literary history during his campaign against Toomey. His son, evidently a chip off the old block, replied:

"In Cambridge? There are no community standards."