In memory of Vic Selinksy

Donald Sidney-Fryer

Poets last weekend (4/22 - 4/23)

This weekend last was chock-full of poetry goodness. Saturday (4/22) saw the return from Southern California of poet/artist/publisher S.A. Griffin, who brought with him Ellyn Maybe, Scott Wannberg and Cleveland poet John Dorsey to read at The Book Collector. They were joined by Lob and Robert Roden (who hosted) -- two poets from So Cal that now call Sacramento home. This was a return for Griffin, co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, who brought his New Word Order Tour here last April during National Poetry month.

So, yes. Outlaw poets. You wouldn't know by looking at some of them. John Dorsey is shy and soft spoken. Ellyn Maybe giggles. A lot. But it's all about what they do when they're in front of an audience. And it's there, facing out, behind the lecturn -- the poet's pulpit -- that poets like John, Scott and Ellyn unleash.

I was pleased to publish Ellyn Maybe's untitled poem in a Poems-For-All booklet, but what one sees there, in print, is nothing compared to it's live delivery.

Do you fear me cause I wear a purple friendship bracelet?
Do you fear having me as a friend?
Are you afraid to introduce me to your grandparents?
The only perfect thing about me is my perfect lack of confidence
does that freak you out?
I'm fat. How does that sit with you?
I wear political pins does that bother you?
I'm a bookworm. Does that depress you?
Are you terrified cause i've been bas mitzvahed
Are you scared cause i think spiders are sacred?
I'm left handed, ooooooooooooo No comment.
Do you worry about me cause i'm a virgin?
Cause i'm loud and sometimes embarrassing
are you wary of spending time with me?
I know where the feminist bookstores are in a whole bunch of states
Does that make you tremble?
People think i'm younger and older than i am
Does that reflect badly on you somehow?
I don't always comb my hair
can you hear it coming?
Is it my ugliness or beauty that frightens you the most?
Are you afraid of me cause i'm human?

Even the mood and banter of the So Cal scene was transported up for the occasion. One audience member, a lawyer who used to frequent the scene down south, has since moved to Sacramento and was present to playfully heckle. It was part of the phenomenon I first noticed when S.A., John and Scott were here last year: that desire to engage the audience, tap into its energy. Verbal back-and- forths encouraged and essential to the mood.


Jane Blue

Sunday (4/23) found Jane Blue in the same bookstore for a Sunday Afternoon Poems-For-All reading. Like Victoria Dalkey, who read last Thursday (4/20) as part of the Urban Voices Reading Series, I enjoyed how Jane folded art references into her work. When Victoria, wife to artist Fred Dalkey, was asked about this at her reading, she replied than rather than writing ephraksis poems (poems about a work of art) she was more inclined to "have the art come into the poem through the back door." So too with Jane.

There are different schools of thought on just how much exposition a reader should deliver between poems. Douglas Blazek, reading at HQ (3/11), for example, preferred to let his poems speak (mostly) for themselves. I rather like it when a poet sets up a poem; clueing us into special meanings or guest appearances of unique words, persons or historical references. Like ligaments between each poem, Jane Blue's narrative was as interesting as the poems to which it connected. The details behind her poem about the Ottoman Empire come to mind. Not the Ottoman Empire she explains. Rather, the poem is inspired by her husband Peter's reference to the Ottoman stacked with books in her workspace at home: "your Ottoman Empire." A rich, interesting story. A fine poem.



Billy Childish

I'm always curious about what kind of audience any particular poet is going to draw. Especially so with the Billy Childish reading this last Sunday (4/23) at Old Ironsides. I mean, "Old I" is a place I'm used to standing around to watch garage-band acts like The Losin' Streaks, standing, beer in hand (Guiness, please) pressed in close to the miniature stage with all the other folks. So there I was listening to poetry, beer in hand, and its packed. At least a hundred souls on hand. For a poetry reading. The kind of numbers I could only dream of at one of my readings at the bookstore (even if we could only fit in a third of them in the sardine-sized space I call a reading venue.) Interesting thing is, I didn't recognize anyone else from "the poetry scene" save for Lob. So where the hell were you? (If you were among us and I missed you, let me know.) This was an evening of Poetry and Blues. Childish is a poet, yes, but has a larger following as a musician and artist. (Perhaps it were these fans that filled the place?)

The Guardian wrote this about Childish: The truth is that Billy Childish, 44-year-old writer, painter and founding member of the Buff Medways isn't much bothered by what people think of him or his work. A singular individual, he has lived life, as he puts it, 'on the wrong end of the seesaw'.

He read from just one book, scraps of catalogue paper marking the pages he wanted to read. It was too dark to make out the title and by the time I made my way to the front when it was all over, all available copies had sold out. His poems have titles like you'd find in 17th and 18th century books; long titles that give up some of what's to happen (instead of being clever or cryptic.) He rolled a lozenge in his cheek between poems, wore a felt hat stylish perhaps three score years ago. His mustache was like a handlebar.

He read: The Billy Childish Poem ("Writer of poems to lick the thighs of the dead"); sang The Bitter Cup ("None speaks the truth like the drunk"); A sad donkey and a Fat Man smiling ("speaking as an artist of dubious merit"); Failure; Only Poets Piss in Sinks (Poets, Childish noted, "The only profession where you get applauded for unsanitary behavior"); I am a stranger hero of hunger ("I am Arturo Bandini/ I am Ishmael/Knocker off of tall hats."); Tai Chi; The man who never thought he'd be a father is a father; It is the Poets Job (which resonates much like Kenneth Patchen's The Artist's Duty as a manifesto of how the artist must engage the world); The Shed; Tattoo; The First Green Horse That God has ever made; We have War because we love War; Huddie's Poem (the "blood heavy towels" as they took his wife to intensive care leaving him alone with his newborn son. "I no longer love poisonous women, Huddie"); At Midnight I will say I love you; I speak to Lonely Artists.

Resident in all of his poems is a broken past; an abusive father, hard drinking, a fractured life in general all figure into the poems. Not as in poems tinged with regret but, instead, with a kind of sober (intended) matter-of-factness. Childish even finds occasion to laugh at his father's dysfunctional comings and goings. Gone sometimes months at a time, Childish noted, he always seemed to come back "Appearing like some ghost" at just some moment when Childish was doing something that could get him into trouble. Like the moment he and his young friends in a fledgling punk band began to practice "my generation;" the Patti Smith version of the song which begins: "I don't need your fuckin' shit..." just as his weeks-absent father returns home.

I had the honor of publishing and distributing a little Poems-For-All chaplette of Childish's poem authenticity over originality (PFA #595) thanks to Tim Foster who knows Childish's wife Julie (who is from California.)

- - -
Full disclosure: I am the owner of The Book Collector, bookstore mentioned in the review.

D.R. Wagner

John Dorsey | Ellyn Maybe | S.A. Griffin | Robert Roden | Lob | Scott Wannberg

Kabinet | Buster Keaton

Kabinet | Sam Peckinpah

Kabinet | Two Lane Blacktop

An Evening with Billy Childish | Sunday, April 23rd | 8pm

Legendary DIY artist Billy Childish makes his first-ever Sacramento appearance! Best known as the 'godfather of garage rock', Childish defined the sound and attitude of the lo-fi movement with his bands the Milkshakes, thee Mighty Caesars and thee Headcoats. In addition to releasing over one hundred albums of music, Childish is also a prolific painter, printmaker, author and poet.

The subject of the recent documentary, Billy Childish is Dead, Childish has been a strong influence on artists as diverse as Kurt Cobain, the Mummies, the White Stripes and YBA Tracey Emin. A truly eccentric and original artist, Childish has never lost the defiant punk spirit that has marked his work for thirty years.

Billy Childish will perform two hours of his poetry and blues at Old Ironsides (10th & S, Sacramento) on April 23. Doors open at7pm, show starts at 8pm. $7. Advanced tickets available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th Street, Sacramento (No fee.)

TBC newsletter No. 1

exhibition finale highlights (personal)

1. Having Robert Roden's newborn Nova as part of the audience.

2. Seeing Annie Menebroker laugh

3. Being overcome with emotion when J. Greenberg performed his beautiful guitar-only version of George Harrison's Here Come's the Sun. (That song is my anthem for when we clear ourselves of the darkness set upon us by this present administration and the conservative dystopia that presently dominates the nation.)

4. Watching Michael Pulley acidentally spill red wine over his copy of the Jack Micheline poem The Drunkard before getting up to read it.

5. The obvious enthuiasm with which Michael shared his stories about getting to know Micheline, about bringing him out to Sacramento to do readings. Telling us how Jack wanted to move here to Sacramento, "to get some work done," how he called the Weatherstone coffee shop anything but its actual name. WeatherSpout.

6. Not being the one responsible for spilling the red wine (this time.)

7. Seeing Gene Bloom be Gene Bloom.

8. Having J. Greenberg's musical set be the centerpost of the event. Four great songs. My dream set. Hooking the audience with the Gene Bloom homage Buttload of Blues, closing with Spanish Armada (Another misguided and doomed military exercise...)

9. A surprise performance from local singer/songwriter Michelle Avdienko.

10. Becca Costello's Cuppa Joe and Burning Momment were funnier than ever. And the audience was enthusiastic.

11. Watching Manny Gale laugh.

12. Robert Roden's reading of Charles Bukowski's Roll the Dice.

13. The Audio recording worked! The batteries didn't run out! Every moment captured! (Thanks, Robert!)

14. Gene Bloom reading William Wantling's Sick Fly HAiku.

15. So many new faces in the audience. And the familiar ones too.

16. Being scolded by Manny Gale until we did a better job with the audience participation part of Joe Hill's The Preacher and the Slave.

continues

exhibition postscript (1)

As the rain hit the metallic roof of the gallery on Sunday afternoon, I slowly moved along the walls taking down the Poems-For-All exhibition. I had mixed feelings. Elation (It's over!) Sadness (It's over?) Earlier that day I was at a brunch to celebrate Ann Menebroker's 70th birthday. (Happy Birthday Annie!) It felt in some ways like a continuation of the energy that had enveloped and elevated the closing proceedings of the exhibition on Friday. Brunch hosts Mary Zeppa and Manny Gale had performed on Friday, Annie had been there, and we all talked about how much fun we'd all had listening to others on the bill, J. Greenberg's great muscial set (accompanied by the vocally gifted Michelle Avdienko during a cover of The eagle and the owl) . Becca Costello's hilarious set still had people laughing at the brunch, visions of a mythical lesbian coffeehouse encounter retold between mouthfuls of quiche. Friday evening closed with Manny Gale leading a sing along of Wobbly labor leader Joe Hill's The Preacher and the Slave. There'll be pie in the sky when you die (That's a lie!)

The little covers peeled easily from the wall, the double stick tape yielding with the firm pressure of a thumb tip, rolling off the rough white surface of the wall and falling into the garbage basket. Once an orderly column that would have made a Napoleanic Field Marshall proud, the covers sit on the table in lost stacks, the corners slightly bent from the effort to take them out of the formation they held for a month.

Even in it's aftermath there is a lot to process. I took a lot of pictures. And so did others. There's audio of some of the readings. And both J. Greenberg and Bob Moricz used their video skills to archive aspects of the exhibition. And there are so many people to thank. So while the walls are blank at the gallery, look for elements of it to return here as archived bits, photo collages and appreciations.