(Most Of) The Truth Will Set You Free

Although there are short periods when I’m not writing much poetry, I don’t think it’s because of a lack of topics. For example, the other night I was up at 2am, not common for me but an occasional thing. I ended up writing a poem about Fred Allen, a humorist from the mid-20^th Century who’s been all but forgotten in this digital age. If it weren’t for the reruns of What’s My Line on Youtube, via the Game Show Network, I’m never would have had the pleasure of seeing Fred’s spontaneous quips. He was a favorite pen pal of Groucho Marx, and for a time one of the biggest stars on radio. You might have trouble finding people under 40 who remember Groucho, much less Fred.

The poem, however, is a thinly veiled political dig. Hopefully that comes through. I’ve never labeled myself as a political poet, but in recent times, it has become a means by which I can express my concerns and suggestions in a creative manner. I try to get to the demonstrations when I can, but in the meantime, I still work my 35 hours a week. I still try to keep my home in decent shape. I get tired. But poems burst out here and there that I’d like to think contribute to the cause.

There are certainly still subjects I try to steer away from, much as I am an adamant advocate for the truth. Poetry in particular seems to be held to the highest standards, even when the story is clearly altered for the sake of telling a good story. Poetry of all the arts seems to be most often taken at face value. I even try to change the facts, if a poem is inspired by real life, in order to shape the rhythm and effect, but I am not very good at it. Perhaps that’s why I’ve finally been drawn to memoir in prose form these past few years. The poems are always rooted in fact, but with memoir, there’s no doubt.

It’s taken me thirty years to begin to tell the story of my early and ill-fated marriage, but there are still parts I’ll leave out. Truthful as I’d like to be, there are still those who don’t deserve to be involved, even as peripheral characters. Memoir is also terribly subjective. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to pin down dates, creating a firm timeline to organize my episodes to. But to others who were there, it might not look like anything they saw. So, unless someone is crucial to the plot (because, after all, what good’s a memoir unless you’re telling it in the form of a ripping good yarn), they won’t be included.

Poems happen, and can be shared with particular audiences I can predict will be most receptive. I was surprised by the very positive reception the Fred Allen piece got this past weekend at a gathering in Arkville. But the memoir is a bigger project, intended for a broader audience (fingers crossed). The themes, plain and subtle, should be universal in appeal and timeless.

How I Learned to Love (and Loath) Open Mics

     
     Second to mailing (and now emailing) your poems out to an invisible editor or editors, the best way to share your work with others is to read at an open mic. I cannot remember the first one I went to. I have written poems since elementary school, but I was slow in assuming the persona of a "poet." In high school I was on the staff of our fine literary magazine, Pegasus, and wasn't shy about expressing my misgivings about submitted work. When it came time to present something of my own, though, I always had a friend read it aloud for me. Poetry was too sacred, too personal an exposure for me to offer up without fear.

    When I went away to college, I continued to write, and for a short time even joined the literary magazine staff there, which had a tendency to dissolve and reconfigure itself semester after semester. I  was becoming more comfortable, more confident about my poems, and began to value them as my chosen mode of artistic expression as well as cheap therapy. I wrote my way through a difficult marriage and divorce, all the way to independence and sanity of a kind.

    After college, I saw an ad in the Shadwrapper (the local newspaper) for a poetry group that met twice a month at the nearby Stone Ridge Library. The Stone Ridge Poetry Society, founded by Shirley Powell, was my first adventure in poetry outside of academia. I made friends that are still friends thirty years later. Meetings combined workshopping poems with one or two featured readers. It was probably here, in the cozy living room-like space where the group met, that I had my first feature.

    Woodstock, the REAL Woodstock, New York had always been a welcoming place for artists of all levels of accomplishment. The open mic at the Tinker Street Cafe', hosted by Dean Schambach, was a challenging atmosphere for a twenty-something female, let alone a poet. There was alcohol, there were sometime fisticuffs. Dean was and is a contentious character with both champions and enemies. I myself had nothing but the most genial interactions with "Gungha Dean," as he is sometimes known by the locals because of his stirring rendition of Kipling's classic poem. Hecklers at the bar were something else again, but I still consider it a personal accomplishment to have survived the readings at the Tinker Street Cafe' relatively unscathed.

    One of the highlights of living in Albany was the longtime open mic hosted by Tom Natell at the legendary QE2, now both departed. I sometimes think I should have spent more of my student loan there instead of on tuition, but what's done is done. Since then, I have spent a lot of time commuting back and forth between The Emerald City and the Hudson Valley for readings there. There is an attitude of respect that rarely wavers-- for the audience, for one's own work-- that I find to be rarely matched. Readers don't often take advantage of the mic, or apologize in advance for the work they're about to impose on you. Time limits are clear and rarely violated.

    When my Roommate and I connected, I was running from one open mic to another almost every night of the week, and hosting an annual event called The Sylvia Plath Bake-Off, which at its height attracted 50 or more attendees in a single evening. Since that time, I have become more particular about which readings I attend. If a reading is poorly managed, if egos are allowed to run amok and hog the mic, if the open mic list is either endless or absurdly restricted, I will probably not be back soon. And I may or may not be missed. I'm OK with that.

    Unlike other artists, poets can be reasonably certain that there is no "Big Time" level of achievement for them to aspire to. It's one of the things I like about being a poet. It's a sort of exclusive club that, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, few would want to be a member of. But when all have gathered to share work, philosophies, secret details they may never tell their partners or families, and when they are sincere, I feel privileged to be in their presence. The Internet can at times echo some of that intimacy, but it's not there yet. The Open Mic, at its best, has yet to be equaled in the age of chat rooms and e-zines.

*HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GROUCHO!*

Life At the Speed of Groucho

It took you eighty years, more,

to live it, and the facts

are sketchy, clipped as they are

from the script of your life.

I wonder about the texture

of your bald head, the smell

of your greasepaint moustache.

It took me a couple of weeks

between calls at work, a

page or two in the evening,

to run thru the stats,

get the wives, daughters,

mother straight, but Groucho,

Julius, twenty years after you

wheezed your last crack,

(a nurse looking for your

temperature was teased with,

"Don't be silly; everybody

has a temperature...") your true

walk will never be clear, how

your black eyes rolled over

this same white way at the

start of the last hundred block,

A doctor?

Minnie knew better. Your meds

wouldn't fit in a bottle,

ills of the world better served

by a Hackenbush, a Spaulding,

a Groucho ready to spring,

ducked into low crouch out

of Establishment's way,

clawhammer coat prying the dust

from Edwardian minds,

Groucho at the mic,

and the secret word is

CAR 8/5/01