The Mad Poets Blog

On Thursday night, Skin Radio had a poetry (and music) slam at the Manayunk Brewery that several members of this blog were part of. It is perhaps only appropriate that I write the report on this event; not only was I the only member of this blog in attendance that wasn’t reading, but it was also an opportunity for me to genuinely exorcise this blog from the cynicism of my last post. (And having a digital camera in tow didn’t hurt either, though it didn’t exactly help, as you can see from the mediocre results.) See, somehow this event was all the reassurance I needed, beyond words, that poetry is alive and well. For, after all, it seemed to me that it doesn’t matter much who cares about poetry, poetry does pretty well by itself. I got the kind of reassurance that statistics can’t provide, the kind that you can only get after a couple of beers, with the big hall emptying of people, but the words still hanging in the air, pregnant and heavy, and somehow self-sufficing. No wonder it was difficult to wipe that huge grin plastered on my face.

First, however, allow me to say that more poetry events should be held at more adult venues, where not only is alcohol flowing, but more importantly where poets feel more at ease to speak like adults, to adults. Perhaps it’s because it doesn’t happen that often, given that our more traditional habitats tend to be bookstores and cafes, many of the readers pounced on the chance to read their more risqué poems: from Autumn Kanopka’s dirty, dirty ponies and Anna Evan’s meticulously metered expletives, to Arlene Bernstein’s freewheeling ride through Jersey and Eileen d’Angelo’s delicate sensuality, to Mike Cohen’s food fetish and Rachel Bunting’s explosive ending. There was enough skin in the poetry to justify the name of the radio station (not that that’s the intention of the station’s name). And even though the event was recorded and parts of it will be broadcast later, if you missed it live unfortunately you won’t be able to hear those naughty bits on air.

But it’s not just the rare naughty bits, or the venue, that made the event the pleasure that it was. The music was a good mix (especially the second act, by the Matt Gauss Band); though I could certainly have used less music and much more poetry. I am sure the fact that I knew most of the readers didn’t hurt either, but there was a certain feeling of glee in the air, not exactly justified by the attendance (which dwindled remarkably towards the end, thanks perhaps to the late start and the lengthy music segments). Still, there was something undeniably vivacious about the round-up. Perhaps it was the variety of it—which is one of the stated goals of the radio station—as there was truly something for everybody.

Women certainly dominated the scene, as you’ve probably already figured out by now, with Mike Cohen being the only male poet hanging on till the end. But hang on he did, making up for the under-representation with a bubbly liveliness and exuberance that was nothing less than contagious. Still, the women stole the night. Being a minority in color, Lynn Blue tackled the subject head on in her poetry. Aided by a voice velvety enough to get away with murder, Lynn delivered the most direct and refreshingly upfront thoughts about race without being in the least bit jarring or clichéd, renouncing the insincere “color blindness” for a more genuine “color acknowledgment”.

Anna Evans was perhaps a minority in accent (okay, so maybe I’m pushing this whole minority theme a bit further than it can reasonably go). Even though disguised by a new hairdo, there was no mistaking that lush British accent. Few guilty pleasures are as enjoyable as hearing the F word in that accent, and there was quite a number of occasions to do so in her second poem, “The F*** You Triolet”. Opening with “Mothers Boys“, a poem about ex-mothers-in-law, Anna (like Mike) made me think of metered and rhymed poetry as hip again, but perhaps more importantly as relevant still. Her closing down-to-earth sonnet, titled cheekily enough “Not a Sonnet“, is all a sonnet needs to be in the twenty-first century: cynical, self-effacing, highly aware of its artifice, which makes it all the more immediate.

My good friend Arlene Bernstein opened her act with a trip going on the platform, and it made me think of what I love about her poetry: it is consistently adorably off. There is something simply rebellious about it (and her). You are immediately aware of Arlene’s great command (and appreciation) of the language, as only a stolid long-time teacher of it has. You can tell she savor’s the words as she says them, ever so gingerly. But it is that facility with the words that enables her to juggle them playfully, push them to their limits, because she know very well when they break. It is like a roller-coaster, thrilling but trustful.

There is a certain delicacy about Eileen d’Angelo’s poetry that I don’t realize how much I’ve missed until I hear her again. It is perhaps because she never shies away from showing her fragility, her humanity in it. But it is a tender humanity, not in-your-face. I am always reminded of the feeling of a light fabric fluttering against the skin in the breeze: sometimes it takes only the lightest touch to remind us how lucky we are to live through another spring.

I always think of Eileen and Autumn Kanopka as counterparts; not only because I always tend to see them together, nor because they are diametrically opposite. But perhaps it is because I think of Autumn’s poetry as savage—in the most impassioned sense of the word—as Eileen’s is delicate. Not opposites, but sides of the same fragility, same humanity. There is something incredibly powerful about the awareness born of our close encounters with our breakability. And that is that “hush” in Autumn’s poetry: furious, overpowering, but also amazingly mature (like the most beautiful of sadness) and empowering.

It is that same breakability that overwhelmed me in Rachel Bunting’s closing poem. I had been acquainted with the earthy humanity of the mundane, the everyday in her work (as in her opening poem, “Finding the Root in San Francisco”), always with an undertone of that frailty that surfaces only in the company of our selves. But I was happy to witness that amplified into a scream, if not a howl, in her second poem, “Acceptance”, the anger turned almost sadistic in the acuity of its insight. It is that sense of profound hurt, coupled with the awareness of the poignant absences we leave behind, that is perhaps the biggest demonstration of the potency of poetry, and of us, poets.

But it wasn’t that heady realization that I enjoyed most. It was, as clichéd as it may seem, the company of such kindred spirits, laughing, acting, and sharing such good poetry. Who cares then if anybody cares?