Harry Kondoleon wrote poetry from an early age. He had poems published in various literary magazines while in college, and later he had poems published in Christopher Street and other publications.
In 1987 Caliban Press (Montclair, NJ) published The Death of Understanding in an edition of 100 signed copies. According to the publisher, “The Death of Understanding is a collection of “11 love poems” in the symbolist tradition of A Season in Hell. At first appearing feverish and highly personal, these poems open like little illuminated paintings revealing larger landscapes inhabited by such dissimilar images as flowers that speak, valentines that burst into flames and lover raised by bats. These are certainly erotic poems but strangely it seems that the erotic image ultimately turns out to be God, or at the very least a savage, lovely, “other.” Printed on dampened Rives papers with Janson types, hand sew into a white wrapper by the printer.” The contents include:
- Soup With You Stirring
- You Confess Everything
- You Pass
- You Deliver Me
- The Excavation of Eden
- Collecting the Faggots
- The Execution of You
- You Don’t Call
- The Passage of Beauty
- Soul Kiss Trance
- Plaything
Other published poems include:
- The Exquisite Knife and the Filthy Dead Thing
- Jazz
- After So Many Years of Not Speaking German
- The Shameless Question
Toward the end of his life, he concentrated again on writing poetry, most notably the multi-part “My New Existence” and, his final work, “Eleven Actresses.”
