A poetry Rorschach test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test
http://www.redfez.net/poetry/1723

You have the opportunity to read the poem in the second link above and decipher it as you may--regardless of whether or not you know the two poets referenced in it.

To me, it's nakedly honest about how certain tribes of Long Beach/Orange County poets and their moved-to-other-parts-of-America friends/acolytes see themselves and their art.

Mindy Nettifee shares her GLITTER IN THE BLOOD with other poets.

Somehow, in spite of a distinguished career as a page-and-stage dynamo, former LBC/OC powerhouse Mindy Nettifee is still referred to as a "rising" poet--such are the ways of modern poetry communities.

For those who may be interested, Mindy has a writing-poetry-better-tips book (from Write Bloody) called GLITTER IN THE BLOOD.

Here's the purchase link: http://www.amazon.com/Glitter-Blood-Manifesto-Better-Writing/dp/1938912012/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354777282&sr=1-2&keywords=mindy+nettifee

Here's the blurb from Amazon.com:

You do not want to write good poems. You want to write great poems. You want to write poems that challenge, inspire and awe. You want to write poems that forever alter your audience, that forever alter yourself. Those poems take guts. Glitter in the Blood: A Poet's Manifesto to Better, Braver Writing will put you in constant contact with your guts. Pushcart prize nominated and highly accomplished performance poet Mindy Nettifee is not going to lead you step-by-step up a how-to staircase. With this collection of essays, prompts and exercises, Mindy is giving you the wrench you need to open up the blood and let it flow into your writing.

 

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A glass-half-full statement re NEXT reunion in Long Beach tonight.

Tonight is the publication reading/party for NEWS CLIPS AND EGO TRIPS at Harvelle's in Long Beach. Won't be there, but I express thanks to G. Murray Thomas for publishing NEXT magazine and continuing its poetry calendar onto the Poetix.net site. Finding a copy of NEXT in the spring of 1998 was one of the best things to happen to me as a poet/writer--that a scene in SoCal existed and poetry wasn't limited to Drew Barrymore and Charlie Sheen and the old Cafe Largo on Fairfax.

LBC's Derrick Brown brings Lightbulb Mouth reading back from the dead.

http://www.lbpost.com/life/sander

Noticing that Derrick Brown killed the open mic segment.

From the one time I attended at the previous location (Basement Lounge) in June 2010, the open mic (which inspired me to walk out early) was essentially cronies like Eitan Kadosh making in-jokes with other cronies.  The one exception was an elderly man who took open mic seriously and actually got up to engage in the (apparently not audience-pleasing enough for Derrick) arcane act of reading poetry.

Recent Mindy Nettifee online radio interview.

In the interest of offering a sort of "equal time"--here's an interview with Mindy Nettifee
on the BreakThru Radio show WRITER'S BLOCK:
Here's a clip of the show: http://snd.sc/j0vb9s


Here's a link to the entire program: http://bit.ly/ksYf7B

My humbling continues: LBC poetry icon Mindy Nettifee teaches me that actions have consequences by unfriending me on Facebook.

Crying soft tears today; Long Beach-based, Orange County-blessed poet Mindy Nettifee unfriended me from Facebook.

It probably didn't help when I wrote a poem last year called I'LL BE YOUR DEAD MAN FOR THE EVENING (look it up in the archives here) that was an account of how uncomfortable I felt during the portion of one Lightbulb Mouth (a now-dead reading/"show") event I attended in Long Beach last June.  Mindy and Derrick Brown (Write Bloody small press publishing majordomo) were the engines driving Lightbulb Mouth.

And it probably didn't help even more when I wrote her backchannel at a later time and made the mistake of criticizing a Long Beach Icon she holds dear to this day.

But I can understand.  If you're Mindy Nettifee and you've accomplished quite a lot locally and nationwide as a poet and promoter, you're not going to want to hear from someone who, by stark contrast, can seem like a sorehead and a loser who just doesn't know how to be nice to nice people.

So the moral I've living with is that of the time-honored cliche: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

In the LA/OC poetry communities, you can quadruple that.

Mindy Nettifee, dinosaurs and the future of a virtual coffee house reading.

Last night, my wife and I logged on to Coffee Cartel (in Redondo Beach) by way of this website:
http://www.blogtv.com/people/diogenesclub which webcasts the Tuesday night poetry reading from roughly 7:30 to after 10:00 p.m.

Mindy Nettifee, last night's featured poet, referred to coffee house readings as "dinosaurs" in her opening remarks. Whether or not one agrees with Mindy, it's clear that attendance for at least some L.A.-area readings aren't what they used to be.

I would hope that the stay-at-home folks who used to be poetry regulars in, say, the 90s and early 00s might tune in to the Redondo Poets reading at the site above each Tuesday night if they wish to be supportive of virtual coffee house poetry.

To be truthful, the sound quality of the webcasts could use some improvement. But it's an opportunity to see the Larry Colker-chosen features and open-mike participants live and in-the-moment.

And that's an experience which should be spared dinosaur-like extinction from audience indifference/nonsupport.

A modest proposal re Long Beach's Lightbulb Mouth reading.

Awhile back, I wrote a poem called I'LL BE YOUR DEAD MAN FOR THE EVENING--inspired in part by not being able to make it past the open-mike section of the Lightbulb Mouth "poetry show" in Long Beach run by Derrick (Write Bloody publisher/entrepreneur) Brown and Mindy Nettiffee each Wednesday.

Here's a thought: As far as Lightbulb is concerned, perhaps the gesture of an open reading should be dropped--and they should concentrate on being a showcase-only venue for friends and nationally-known colleagues. And, if Mindy and Derrick desire a nonpoet-but-still-afficionado audience [as was explained to me backchannel by a supporter of the reading], perhaps they should try print ads in the LA and OC WEEKLY and expand their current base (although that requires money and some risk).

Coda: Reactions to I'LL BE YOUR DEAD MAN....poem.

To start with, I sent my I'LL BE YOUR DEAD MAN FOR THE EVENING poem to the co-host of the SoCal venue (which will be unnamed here) described in the piece. At first, his reply was a variation of the "start your own venue" comment that poets tend to resort to when faced with feedback they don't want to hear. I wasn't politic in my reply (though I said something positive about him as a publisher/entrepreneur--I've bought a few of his books/anthologies of other poets), complaining about the self-abuse/self-entitlement/members of the "club" feel of most of the open-mikers. He responded with a "you can't control an open mike" remark (not at all what I was saying), and ended the back-and-forth with the Facebook equivalent of hanging up on a caller.

In essence, the piece was written as a way of airing my discomfort with a place with a sense of "we're better, more astute, more literate than you." One of the first pieces of conversation I happened to hear was a couple of male poets wondering whether to participate in the open-mike or be like "common people"--which led to about 90 seconds of riffing on the Pulp song of that name.

There was one older man (looked to be in his 60s) on the open mike. So it wasn't completely young people in privileged revelry. [And I forgot to mention the slam poet on the open mike who, a long time ago, read a poem at another venue with a cheap, tasteless laugh-line about "seeing Angela Lansbury naked."]

It's just that my perception of the venue was that, for a first-time (and likely only-time) attendee, it wasn't very welcoming to newcomers. In fact, I don't even remember hearing any formal announcement of open-mike--so I'm guessing that you had to ask someone or know already who the open-mike MC for that part of the evening was.

So, that's my story about how I'LL BE YOUR DEAD MAN FOR THE EVENING came to be written. And it was meant to be more general than specific, since poets/the public are likely to encounter similar poetry venues in most cities/college towns--where you're not so much welcomed as made to jump through too many hoops to get the attention of the scenesters/ringmasters present.