Summer reading at Hem's featuring Robin Clarke, Deb Bogen, & Robert Gibb tonight. I missed Fred Shaw's performance, as usual my place of work won't let me out in time. This reading was notable for Pittsburgh (for me) because it featured 2 surrealistic, associational, non-literal poets, Robin and Deb.
Robin struck a very dark tone, asked the audience not to applaud, brought up as introduction {someone I failed to record the name of|}, a man who "was by all accounts and measures schizophrenic" and who though the government was monitoring and mind-controlling us, but as Robin points out, was not necessarily wrong (not a joke). Her poems followed that stream of conscious, fractured style you might in passing associate with schizophrenia: "Everyone wants to live, not even Robocop" "The powerful can do anything to your family in Pennsylvania" "To Warren Bogland, heads vanish into good intentions force, soldier". There were a great deal of powerful images, often in fragments, that displayed a kind of concern with disaster: "362 ghosts relay coal into trains day and night" "Smoke & Flames pouring down the shaft" "Calling them survivors was a mistake."
There was a silence in the audience as Robin read. Everyone had a look of concern or deep thought. In the past I've attributed this kind of look to boredom, assumed that, in the presence of poetry which is obscure and cannot be followed syntactically, people listen to humor the poet. With Robin's work this was clearly not the case, so I had a chance reexamine my assumptions.
Deb's work still made use of a lot of disconnects, but was less fractured... here are some excerpts: "4 heads burnt, no, branded by heat" "beneath the gargoyles the babies sleep" "no one says these stones aren't pillows". She had a poem about a tai chi lesson composed of little metaphors as spoken by a teacher: "your arms are broken sisters... make use of that joy." Several poems were titled in the format "_____ in the space of freefall" (e.g. "You in the space of freefall") and the method of freefall may have been the composition of these poems.
As I listened to Robert Gibb, I was overcome with nostalgia... thinking of the golden age of the 60's and 70's: Terence McKenna, wisdom gleaned from psychedelics, and so forth... not because any of his poetry was along those lines, but because of his voice, which was so mellow and understated, plus his appearance, with the beard, collared shirt, and age. Robert read "unconcerned", delivered his poetry as if nothing was troubling him, almost as if he was dead, although not without a great tenderness. Following his book "Sheet Music", and a trend in the night started by Deb who mentioned Roger Humpheries' band over in the north side, Robert talked mostly about Jazz... notable for me was a poem entitled "Early Jazz Greats Trading Cards Created by R. Crumb." Crumb is quoted in the poem, when listening to jazz: "One of the few times I actually [...] have a kind of love for humanity."
Gibb's last poem had quite a kick for its last line (also about jazz): "seemingly pitched to some infinite woe/ comes the last misshapen solo." Writing notes, sitting in the side of Hem's back room, wishing there was better lighting, I felt a kind of calm descend... Did not feel pushed or pressured into listening to poetry, rather just enjoying it... There's hope I think for poetry if the poets are good, and the crowd is at least a little friendly. --poetryburgh@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment