It's Always National Poetry Month. . .
Dateline: 4/14/98. . . a kind of Year-long Rap of Po World.
The end of the Beat era. . . Goodbye Allen, one year, Burroughs, Huncke, & now -- Jack Micheline, the beat Beat spirit, never accepted by Beats, pulls energy like a vacuum tube of stars. . . the ascension of David Amram, Kerouac’s musical accomplice, with open-hearted inclusive aesthetic -- a New Beat? . . propelled also by Ron Whitehead, who leads the Literary Renaissance from Lexington, KY, and whose new CD, Tapping My Own Phone, is spoken word at its purest and most fulfilling (Published in Heaven Audio). . .
Nike ads “star” Matt Cook and Emily XYZ and high school poets (sorry, missed the names -- anyone out there got them?) and ensuing debate led by Martin Espada. . . speaking of debate, Richard Howard’s PEN speech last year condemning NatPoMo because poetry will NOT be headed by temporal chronologics nor geographics was a hoot. . .
Madonna’s latest album contains a song deemed written by Magnetic Poetry, and Max Blagg “Sky Fits Heaven” -- Rolling Stone calls his poem a “Gap jeans ad” (which is where it was first seen, nationally). . . SLAM, the movie, winning at Sundance symbolizes, with last year’s love jones, how poetry’s resurgence continues to move into cultural heart, bringing all new bombs of dialectical materialism vs. verses. . . SLAM stars poets Saul Williams, Sonja Sohn, and Beau Sia, with Williams and Sohn reading their own poems. . . National Poetry Slam championship goes to the team from Mouth Almighty, a tiny record label, which also brings all manner of corporate/name/rules moral shakes. . .
Derek Walcott writes the book for Paul Simon’s Capeman, joins Reg E. Gaines and T.S. Eliot on Broadway. . . Oscar Wilde gets a ton of revivals off-Broadway. . .
Poetry Fests continue to grow in popularity. . . Taos Circus and World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout gets into the biggest controversy ever as Jimmy Santiago Baca ties Slam Champ Patricia Smith and retains his crown. . . Juliette Torrez’ Albuquerque Fest gets the nod from San Francisco’s Bay Guardian as THE festival. . . The first North American Poetry Jam in Las Vegas -- 44 perf poets take the competition out of Slam, gather to play all night a la the Cowboy Gathering in Elko, put together by LA anarcho-poet, Bowerbird Intelligentleman. . . The National Slam itself at Middletown, CT, includes such new events as Full Frontal Fire Drill and All Poets in the Pool. . . The North Carolina Poetry Alive! festival allows Beth Lisick to be seen by James Tate, who selects her for his edition of The Best American Poetry 1997 with Jeff McDaniel continuing to blast down walls between poetry camps. . . Henry Taylor, Pulitzer Prize-winning po prof at American U, comes to the National Slam as an individual competitor. . . Bob Redmond and Noel Franklin and their El(eventh) Hour Productions get the Seattle Poetry Festival off to a rousing start. . .
Ted Hughes makes the bestseller list with his poetic response to Ariel -- but Sylvia Plath clearly has the last word. . . Helen Vendler’s study of Shakespeare sonnets, including a CD of her reading her favorites, goes straight to a second printing. . . as for CD’s: Maya Angelou gets backed up by Ashford & Simpson, Kill Rock Stars releases Won’t You Dance With This Man? by poet-owner Slim Moon and Holy Kid by Edwin Torres. . . Mouth Almighty releases In With the Out Crowd by poet-partner Bob Holman (this proves the ‘How to Get a CD’ Poet’s Theorem: 1) Write poems for 20 years and 2) Start a CD label). . .
Other great poetry CD’s from the past year: The Best of William Burroughs, Closed on Account of Rabies: Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Maggie Estep’s Love Is a Dog from Hell, Allen Ginsberg’s The Lion for Real (reissue), Beyond Life With Timothy Leary, Time Has Come by The Last Poets, Blue Oneness of Dreams by Sekou Sundiata, and the skincrawlingly beautiful I Spit On Your Country by Sister Spit -- all from Mouth Almighty. . . David Thomas, mad poet of Pere Ubu, has an essential 5-CD box Monster (Cooking Vinyl/Tim Kerr). . . Righteous Babe clocks in with U. Utah Phillips’s The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere and Ani DiFranco’s own, brilliant Little Plastic Castle. . . a great cassette from Best of the San Francisco Scene. . . (I can see this should be its own feature! so let’s list ‘em: Dana Bryant, Wishing from the Top (Warner Brothers). . . Andrei Codrescu, Valley of Christmas (Gert Town Records). . . various artists, Jack Kerouac: kicks joy darkness (Ryko). . . John Sinclair, Full Circle (Alive Records). . . Vigo Mortensen, One Less Thing to Worry About (Lightning Creek). . . As for National Poetry Month itself, Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s “Favorite Poem” project, where Americans are being archived reading their favorite poems (down, down! not allowed to read your own damn poems!) got a great kickoff reading at Town Hall in New York April 1. . . and the Academy of American Poets and Washington State Apple Growers sponsor Andy Carroll’s cross-country poetry giveaway as part of his American Poetry & Literacy Project. . . Go, Andy!
After years of occasional semesters at The New School, I’ve accepted an appointment at Bard College teaching Poetry Performance. . . I’ll continue on here at The Mining Co. with Margery and Juliette, at Mouth Almighty with Bill Adler. . . and The World of Poetry, a new media anthology, received a major start-up grant from the NEA. . .
. . . and, best of all, Hal Sirowitz publishes My Therapist Said (Crown)!
--Bob Holman
