Revisiting an old inside-baseball post on poetry.

Perhaps the one positive of the fallout over Kate Gale's unfortunate comments regarding the AWP and inclusivity (which is still being felt by Red Hen Press) is that some poets/authors are choosing to think for themselves and not merely take what they're given (if they feel what they receive from their publisher isn't sufficient) for fear of losing a Big Chance.

Here's part of a years-ago blog post I wrote, with minor changes plus updates in brackets:
1. The titans of SoCal poetry come in three flavors: a. obnoxious and egomaniacal b. seemingly friendly, but likely to say less than kind things about you behind your back as they advance socially c. genuinely friendly and helpful no matter where you are in the scheme of things.  Have known people in all three categories over the past years.

2. As I've said before, I came into a poetry scene that had a larger welcome mat than it does now.  Ironically, the first venue I read/attended workshop at (Midnight Special Bookstore) had a shakeup where certain then-elite poets stomped away--apparently because the venue was too small-d democratic for their tastes.  Today, venues either set out to pattern themselves as/change their booking preferences to the Rose Cafe's Hyperpoets reading series as it existed in the late 20th Century--making [chief ex-Hyperpoet] Richard Beban [now residing in Europe] sort of the highbrow Carl Karcher, Jr. of SoCal.

3.  A very large number of SoCal poets may claim to be fiercely liberal in the social/economic senses, but they are rather passive and pay little attention to the "poetry community" changing in ways which eventually
discourage their active participation.  They have day jobs and they have fun at the readings they attend--and they, sadly, aren't bothering to take a long-term viewpoint until it's too late.  Then, nostalgia---and silence. 

4. And, as a corollary, they tend not to want to stick their necks out for troublemakers (few Tom Joads in LA/OC poetry).  If one of their own gets in trouble with a popular poetic authority figure, that's not their problem--unless that authority figure says/does something to them personally.  And, then, they're likely to find few-if-any fellow poets willing to listen to their problems should they choose to seek counsel.  [And, if you want people in the community to listen, avoid gender-targeted remarks and "oh, you're a bad poet" retorts if you don't care for what you hear.]

5. Some veteran poets in the scene figure that, by embracing prevailing (and sometimes trendy) notions of "what's good", they can prolong their careers and eventually make some money.  The mania of getting an MFA degree to get the Right people to take one's poetry seriously still prevails.  However, I worry that, given the "we will anoint you as a Real Poet when we see fit--it may take years or decades" thinking here, an MFA may not change certain tastemakers' attitudes that easily [though, over time, some readings may drop a crumb or two resulting in momentary profile-raising].

COMMUNITY and poetry communities.

Below, I've included a small portion of Todd VanDerWerff's AV CLUB review of the latest COMMUNITY episode titled "App Development and Condiments."  The episode focuses on social media (with a side order of futuristic dystopia parody--including a gag referencing Sean Connery's costume in John Boorman's ZARDOZ).

[The episode is] also, belatedly, about the idea that revolutionaries almost inevitably replace the system they long to overthrow with something that can be just as—if not more so—oppressive, because people are people and have a tendency to overcorrect for past errors (and become corrupted by power).

In Southern California (at least), the "revolutionaries" of poetry overthrew a system which (they believed) brought too many "bad" poets/comics/storytellers to the table in order to create a franchise of readings which mostly pay homage to the defunct Hyperpoets reading at Venice CA's Rose Café.  So, fewer readings, fewer poets--but "better" ones, as the Cultural Commandos see it.

Here's a link to the complete VanDerWerff review:
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/community-app-development-and-condiments-201914

More ancient history of SoCal poetry explained for you.

Richard Beban (ex-L.A., currently France) takes the floor, in comments excerpted from a 2003 post to the CobaltPoets Yahoogroups listserve:

When I first came to poetry, nine years ago, I began attending the

Midnight Special workshop, then was asked, with Jeanette Clough, to help

run it and the readings. After a couple of years, and after publishing a

successful anthology, FORESHOCK, we had a falling out with the head of the

series, and we moved on. Five of us from that workshop began the Rose

series, first at Hyperdisc, after Ross Cantalupo ended his series.



I bring this up because, when we left the Midnight Special, I wrote a long

e-mail describing what had happened, and addressed it to the "poetry

community." The best advice I got in response to that e-mail was from

[James] Boomer Maverick, who wrote back and gently chided me, saying that the

Midnight Special reading was one very small twinkling star in the greater

constellation of LA poetry, as I would learn when I looked further.



It was great advice, for which I still thank Boomer. He was right. When

I got beyond my own limited perspective, I saw the multitude of scenes, of

possibilities, of readings, which stretch from San Luis Obispo to San

Diego, from Redondo to Riverside. And we tailored the Hyperdisc/Rose

readings to what we were learning, and to include all those "scenes."



When Kaaren and I set out with three other poet friends, Jeanette Clough,

Jim Natal and Jan Wesley, to create a Los Angeles poetry reading series in

March of 1997, we were seeking answers to a few elusive questions: What

is community? And how does one contribute to it?



The five of us, united only by our love of poetry, which we were all just

beginning to approach as craft, rather than pastime; by age (within five

years of each other, and of 50); and by conspicuous heterosexual

whiteness, wanted to create a reading series that would enhance and

contribute to an explosively heterogeneous poetry community. Los Angeles

was (and remains) home to some of the country's most accomplished writers,

as well as to black-clad poseurs who write their work on cocktail napkins

while waiting for the open mike to free up; to septuagenarians who'd

helped build the scene since The Beats, as well as to talented

high-schoolers; and to poets of enough races, colors, creeds and

persuasions to give Jesse Helms permanent night sweats.



A random sampling of local poets' names read like mail call for a

Hollywood-produced World War II platoon: Albertano, Arroyo, Barresi,

Ben-Hur, Bogen, Byrne, Campos, Cantalupo, Coleman, Cohee, Constantine,

Lafontaine, Lem, Lummis, Lupert, Mullen, Muske, O'Melveny, Quickley, St.

John, Tezcatlipoca, Tran, Uyematsu, Villamil, Weinberger, Woloch, Yamada

and Yates.



And their styles and personae were as different as their names. Gathering

even ten percent of this agglomeration into a coherent reading series

would be like attempting a hummingbird roundup with goldfish nets, but we

five were crazed enough about poetry to hear the potential of all those

wings thrumming in one venue.



We already had a hint of what we didn't want. We had all met in a

workshop and reading series sponsored by a local "leftist" bookstore,

that, despite its egalitarian marketing pose, was really just a fiefdom

for one man who was threatened by sharing power, and whose series rewarded

with featured readings primarily those poets who simply showed up week

after week.



While the workshop environment nurtured some excellent local poets, his

attitudes, selection process, and constant embrace of the new "voices from

the street," regardless of quality, guaranteed that the reading series

would never rise above a certain level of competence, and that the truly

excellent published poets of regional and national stature, whom he

dismissed anyway as elitist "page poets," would never grace the bookstore

during his reign.



Radical as some of our own political leanings might be, we approached

community with a conservative attitude compared to many of our peers: we

respected tradition. We recognized that the rich culture we found in Los

Angeles' poetry Petri dish had not been created parthenogenetically the

week before last, but had been nurtured over the years by hundreds of

diverse practitioners in and out of academia, from Ann Stanford to Charles

Bukowski, from Wanda Coleman to David St. John, from Exene to Stephen

Yenser. We wanted to create a series that would honor, and feature, as

many of the pioneers from the preceding generations as were willing to

read for us, as well as our peers and the best poets we could find of the

upcoming generation.



We wanted a structured open mike that would allow fledgling poets to

discover their voices, and to feel welcome, and would complement the

featured readers, who were the major guests for the evening, and who were

performing, despite their reputations and achievements, always for

audience donations, and whatever they made on book sales (handled for us

by the local independent, Small World Books, or by the poets themselves).



We also hoped to draw touring poets of national reputation, but without a

budget, we didn't hold out much hope of rivaling the reputation of the

now-departed Lannan Foundation reading series, or the Poetry Society of

America's Hollywood/poetry fusion jams at the Chateau Marmont.



All of our ambitions for community found a home at Hyperdisc, a tiny CD

store on Santa Monica's Main Street that had a small stage well away from

the traffic noise, a good p.a., and baristas willing to keep the

cappuccino machine quiet during the featured readers.



In keeping with our notion of hosting without ego-inflation, we five (who

rotated hosting chores each week) began our then-nameless program by

reading a piece by another poet (Jack Gilbert, at our inauguration) whose

work had moved the host, only reading our own work once a year in a joint

featured reading.



Los Angeles native and diva Laurel Ann Bogen, a generous teacher,

organizer and a well-respected poet for over twenty years, headlined our

first reading, our signal that we were honoring those poets who came

before us; but also celebrating that one could have years of chops honed

in books and still remain as kick-ass fresh as the performance poets being

spawned in the streets each day.



Laurel Ann's gracious willingness to headline at our pass-the-hat venue

helped us draw the attention of her working poet peers, and in subsequent

weeks we presented John Harris, whose Papa Bach bookstore had been the

Westside's poetry mecca in the seventies; Michael C. Ford, scuffling buddy

of the seminal LA rock band, The Doors; Holly Prado, Harry Northup and

Cecilia Woloch, part of the influential five-poet LA publishing

collective, Cahuenga Press; Harryette Mullen, UCLA's wordplay poet

extraordinaire; legendary (despite their youth) local teachers Dorothy

Baressi and Eloise Klein Healy; ex-Karma Bum Doug Knott, a Beat-influenced

father of performance poetry, as well as up-and-comers Esteban

Torres-Guzman, Jerry Quickley, Gabe Cousins, Brendan Constantine and Liz

Gonzalez, and poet-publishers Amelie Frank, Matthew Niblock, Marcia Cohee

and Mifanwy Kaiser.



By the time we hit the August heat, with our mid-month double-bill of

Momentum Press founder and Beyond Baroque workshop leader Bill Mohr,

paired with Ellen Sander, the seminal rock journalist and poet, our

series, then in its twenty-fifth week, was gathering steam and renown.

We'd given a podium to more than two hundred open mike poets already, and

were about to showcase our first East Coast headliner, Boston's Jack

McCarthy, an award-winning slam poet whose long, lyric works were also

being published in respected journals.



To wrap up a long story, Hyperdisc went belly up and we continued the

series, as the Hyperpoets, at Venice's Rose Café (which had much better

food and an art gallery) for the next 2 ½ years, realizing all of our

dreams of enriching the local community and its reputation, until we all

decided to call it quits so we could get back to writing.



But in our time we presented hundreds of poets, had publication parties

for Spillway, Rattle, Solo Magazine, Sacred Beverage Press, Cahuenga

Press, The Valley Contemporary Poets, Erica Erdman, Matt Niblock, The

Santa Clarita Valley Poets, David St. John; a benefit readings for Habitat

for Humanity, and raised over $700 one night to try to keep Sisterhood

Bookstore alive.



When Hyperpoets ended, we gave the $1100 or so left over in our kitty (our

small percentage of Small World Book's sales, plus donations we ourselves

had made to Hyperpoets) to an inner-city kids literacy program at which

Jan Wesley taught.



And all we were, Terry, were five poets with a sense of what we'd like

community to look like. So we created it. We DID something.

Seven more thoughts as I leave the SoCal poetry building.

1. The titans of SoCal poetry come in three flavors: a. obnoxious and egomaniacal b. seemingly friendly, but likely to say less than kind things about you behind your back as they advance socially c. genuinely friendly and helpful no matter where you are in the scheme of things.  Have known people in all three categories over the past thirteen years.

2. As I've said before, I came into a poetry scene that had a larger welcome mat than it does now.  Ironically, the first venue I read/attended workshop at (Midnight Special Bookstore) had a shakeup where certain then-elite poets (Richard Beban and at least one of his fellow Hyperpoets) stomped away--apparently because the venue was too small-d democratic for their tastes.  Today, venues either set out to pattern themselves as/change their booking preferences to the Rose Cafe's Hyperpoets reading series as it existed in the late 20th Century--making Beban sort of the highbrow Carl Karcher, Jr. of SoCal.

3.  A very large number of SoCal poets may claim to be fiercely liberal in the social/economic senses, but they are rather passive and pay little attention to the "poetry community" changing in ways which eventually
discourage their active participation.  They have day jobs and they have fun at the readings they attend--and they, sadly, aren't bothering to take a long-term viewpoint until it's too late.  Then, nostalgia---and silence. 

4. And, as a corollary, they tend not to want to stick their necks out for troublemakers (few Tom Joads in LA/OC poetry).  If one of their own gets in trouble with a popular poetic authority figure, that's not their problem--unless that authority figure says/does something to them personally.  And, then, they're likely to find few-if-any fellow poets willing to listen to their problems should they choose to seek counsel.

5. Some veteran poets in the scene figure that, by embracing prevailing (and sometimes trendy) notions of "what's good", they can prolong their careers and eventually make some money.  The mania of getting an MFA degree to get the Right people to take one's poetry seriously still prevails.  However, I worry that, given the "we will anoint you as a Real Poet when we see fit--it may take years or decades" thinking here, an MFA may not change certain tastemakers' attitudes that easily.

6. Take self-appointed leaders with a grain of sea salt.  G. Murray Thomas knows a few things, but his blow-with-the-prevailing-winds pronouncements/reviews shouldn't make you feel like writing poetry you're uncomfortable with for "career" reasons/wasting money on an MFA if you don't agree with him.
7.  If you choose to remain in the arena, don't hesitate to spawn readings from your home--or even (gasp!) a coffeehouse.  I did both over the last few years--and am happy to have made a positive effort.

Now, it's your turn to pick up a banner and keep Southern California poetry from losing its regional flavor/diversity/idiosyncrasy entirely.

Some day--or some year--I hope to join you again.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES POETRY AS I KNEW IT

New poem: A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES POETRY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES POETRY AS I KNEW IT


When there was an El Nino storm,




people still went out to poetry readings.



That was 1998.



NEXT magazine was the beacon



telling you where to find the word banquets.







And the first place I went



was the Midnight Special Bookstore



on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade



because it was listed in NEXT.







Politics in the air at Poetic License.



Poems with "Free Mumia" messages.



Lots of fingersnaps for a line or even a word.



People filled with strong notions



of what was right and wrong.







Just about every reading



was filled to capacity.



And it was easy



to find readings



every night of the week.



It was also possible



to make acquaintances



and real friends.







In those days,



people weren't always worried



about being Published.



You could go to Kinkos



and print your own DIY chapbook--



breaking even by selling it to other poets



at readings.







Went to the Rose Cafe



and was exposed to poetry as Disciplined Art.



Long introductions for features



and open readers told to return



next week when time ran out.



(Eventually, the Rose Cafe



became the template



for most readings in Los Angeles and Orange County today.)







Those were the days



before venues and readings closed,



gasoline prices climbed,



popular poets and hosts moved out of state



or left the Earth entirely,



remaining poets began feuding



and a quiet movement began



to encourage uniform standards of quality.



raise the bar for booking features



and discourage the kind of open mikes



that attracted musicians and comics.



For some, this was a great notion







Oracles said that it was good for poetry.



I heard phrases like "layers of meaning"



used ad nauseum.







And other poets said not to complain



about changes in the scene--



or other poets themselves.



For it was perceived as



causing the entire scene



to suffer grievously



from intemperate words.







And today, there are fewer venues.



And just a few poets with power--



some of them use it more generously



than others.







Recently, there was a rainstorm



in Santa Monica.



It wasn't as strong as an El Nino.



And people did come to the reading--



but not nearly as many



as on a torrential night



thirteen years before.

Guess it's useless to argue with poetry elitist absolutism.

The latest exchange with the Important poet brought out his tired old canard that I'm advocating features for poets regardless of ability--i.e. if they're terrible but they are venue regulars, ergo
they get rewarded for merely showing up.

My response is: Yes, I understand that poets must clear a bar to receive a chance to feature for 20-30 minutes by a poetry host/hosts. But the bar is set perhaps a bit too high.

And the Important poet goes on about the variance in poetry hosts' tastes. Yes, there still exists some variance. But not as much as there used to be. Certain venues which used to be egalitarian now remind me of Keir Dullea's hotel room at the end of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

But "egalitarian" is an obscenity to some. And I guess I'm still stupid enough to not comprehend that people are drawn to poetry because it gives them a chance to crow about their intellect and ability to "craft" works that sometimes read like Sudoku word puzzles.

And, when all else was exhausted, the Important poet also said, "Start your own festival" as he stomped away in frustration at my apparent denseness.

I'd be a millionaire if I had $100 for every time a poet wanted to stop discussions/arguments with me by using variations of the phrase "Start your own reading/festival."
[And lest anyone forget, I did host two reading series in the past decade. And I booked
the Important poet for the first series.l

Southern California poetry is rather a microcosm of the current epidemic of legislative gridlock in state and federal governments--no one in power wants to compromise on anything because they hate the notion of having to give something up.

That's how it rolls in literary poetry L.A.

I'm going to run through a few red lights with this post. Here goes.....

Earlier tonight, I sat through a featured reading by an overly pretentious, forgettable literary poet (who, to be fair, had one tolerable poem referencing Edward Hopper paintings) at a L.A.-area venue. The literary poet has some cachet in this region because he edits a literary magazine (or should I say, "journal") and has a new book published by an L.A.-based prestige small press named after a barnyard animal.

The reading itself, like about three other readings in the LA/OC area, is now modeled after a long-dead but still influential poetry series that was named after a certain kind of flower.

What can I say about literary poetry when it exists more to ooh-ah-awe and attract looking-for-Pushcart-Prize-consideration players in the "community" than to edify or satisfy poets/civilians who may not be breathlessly fascinated by the poet's self-proclaimed academic brilliance and/or his publication/website?

[Sidebar: An article by Brendan Bernhard about poetry in L.A. in the LA WEEKLY a decade ago--besides offending certain community majordomos upset about not being Recognized by Bernhard--had a priceless quote from someone (perhaps a bookseller) that described literary poets as "people in academia writing for each other."]

At this point, I realize I'm going to attract potential criticism for criticizing a poet (something I'd be tut-tutted about--and then forbidden to do--on at least one local poetry listserve) after having been chastised recently for not being "ambitious" enough.

Sorry, but there's also a danger to the health of poetry as a whole when poets and hosts bend over backwards to fawn over too-self-satisfied, please-my-professor-at-university, deadly-dull-but-au-courant verse that's drier than the deodorizer I put inside my cats' litter boxes three times a week.

I'll end this with a cautionary anecdote: Emily Dickinson showed her work to a Major Publisher of her day. She was considered "not good enough" and her poetry didn't really surface en masse until after her death.

It's safe to say Emily Dickinson will be read for a few centuries more than the Influential Poet/Editor I was bored, irritated and deeply depressed by tonight.