Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour: 10.23.06-10.27.06 ANYWHERE, USA Dispatches from poets stuffed in a bus touring 50 cities in 50 days. Friday: 10.27.06 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Day 49 / Los Angeles, CA & San Francisco, CA/ Edwin Torres

It’s Saturday night in LA. “I look fabulous, for someone my type,” sez the starlet on the rooftop bar . . . looking for a drink from this experimental poet.

“Yes you do,” I said.

She held out her hand, “I’m sure,” she cooed, and so began a meaningful relationship of 30 seconds where I knew everything about her life and then she found her friends.

Whew! What a strange ambience to this hotel, like sweat without the skin . . . everyone; guests, bartenders, maids, the walls on the gym . . . any physical connection to this place has an undercurrent of seedy copulation! I could search for some analogy to the physical honesty explored by the Impunities conference . . . but I’d run my decadence into the ground. The conference was fantastic, performances and panels hugely expansive—including a lovely bonding moment with Eileen Myles concerning the last reading which beautifully exposed the understructure of the entire conference—yeah, it’s just time to leave LA, put a twenty on the night table, along with my business card (‘cuz you never know), and join the bus in San Fran.

Golden Gate Town . . . I feel truly blessed to partake in the momentous breath of life that is, Poetry Bus! On the flight, I reflect on the building of community and how vital the connection. Whether it’s an academically torqued conference or a grassroots charge across the country, the desire of the reach is humbling.

I arrive at the airport at 2:30, call Travis, “announce my arrival” and head to The Make Out Room, where the afternoon reading is. Like a lemming with backpack and books, I navigate the BART system and marvel at the cleanliness of the tracks, suddenly feeling a drop of nostalgia for NYC grit. I get out at Mission and 24th St. and find it. Walking on Mission Ave. just two blocks from the station, forgot that SF blocks are mega-blocks. Looking for the bus as my marker, excited to see it parked, ready, waiting, confident . . . yay, I’m here! The reading is winding down as I show up at the door, packed place . . . great!, good to see Travis & Joshua. Noelle Kocot is reading . . . fantastic, spiritual, transformative, grounded, just pure, natural writing . . . yeah!

I’ve dropped my bags off at the bus and will meet them later at Club Deluxe (oohh, that sort of rhymes huh). I’m having dinner with Albert DeSilver, poet, publisher of Owl Press, fellow nomad. He lives in Marin County and has come down for the night’s reading. We’re meeting in front of the club, located in what they call The Haight. From the famous Mission District to the famous Haight Ashbury, Poetry Bus is seeped in famousness. So I looked at the map and didn’t think it was such a long walk but let me tell you . . .

Although I was peeked and sweaty as I negotiated the hills and mega-blocks it was a beautiful way to see the city. Thai food, fresh coconut juice, fantastic, I was pumped for the reading. Club Deluxe, funky place with a raised stage for a jazz quartet and a smaller circular stage for the poets.

Ingrid Keir & Jennifer Barone, were the mega-hosts, they run a series there and intermingled some from their crew into the mix. We had a band to work with too. Interesting how throwing music into the prospect of a reading changes your approach. I had a preconceived set for the evening, but the vibe, once I showed up, with jazz and drink . . .

The first reader, for me, was the most successful with the music . . . for the wrong reasons. Andrew Joron read some terriffic interpretations of DaDa pieces while the band played jazz allusions that never quite matched the text, except in volume. Andrew’s nervous conduction and the band’s offset syntax had a continuous tension that kept me on my toes and illuminated the narrative hiding in the text. Although the rest of the poets who worked with the band had moments of cohesion and coolness and dialogue, it was more expected . . .and for me, especially just coming from that conference in LA . . . I was more tuned into the possibility and new direction that comes from friction and dissonance.

But, having said that, Noelle Kocot was particularly effective and moving with the band. Something she’s never done before she said, and adding music and her own infectious exuberance to the mix made for a fabulous experience. I had fun with the band too, trying to push them into noise-band territory (Mars/DNA) we did a cacophonous love poem segue-wayed into a dream trance.

Great to stand on my circular stage, bathed in light, wood paneling around us all. William Taylor Junior went solo, had some very well crafted pieces filled with satire and wit, Joshua’s low key air gave some bite to the evening, Ingrid and Jennifer did a lovely job with their readings and host duties.

Afterwards, I wasn’t sure about spending my first night on the bus after flying up from LA earlier, I’m ready for it during this week, but I needed a bed and was offered one by local artist, Kyle Knobel. Poet’s Magic: a poet will always find a way. Kyle lives in a sun-drenched studio in a house that overlooks the valley. Waking up on Monday morning with the fog, shadow, sun and blue jays . . . was a truly, how corny to say it, but damn, it was poetic!

Made my way back to the bus, breakfast of chorizo, eggs, black beans and tortilla in The Mission. Set for the voyage ahead. As Joshua said . . . the stops, the cities, the readings are all fantastic . . . but the bus, the continually changing collective, the conversations, exchanges within, the inherent motion of the bus . . . is what makes it all roll.

Day 50 / San Francisco, CA & Ashland, OR/ Bill Wesley, the bus driver

I wake in the Mission with coffee on my mind, and more than just my first blog to be nervous about—I’ve written four poems and it’s highly likely that I’ll be reading them in Ashland tonight, after driving 350 miles and bringing the Poetry Bus very close to the 12,000 mile mark.

The day before at the Make Out Room, where the Noon reading was held, I was completely blown away by Noelle Kocot’s reading of her poem “Civilisation Day,” so later that night, after the evening reading in the Haight (she read with a jazz band behind her!) I showed her my poems, which she liked very much (she assured me she would tell me if they sucked) and talked about how she works. I was amazed to find out the poetry just flows out of her in a rush and she leaves it unedited! After attending a few readings early on in the trip, I found myself thinking in poetics and before long I was composing little bits in my head as I realized the narrative form would be the best entry-level poetry for me since I had years on the road and more than a few stories to tell. I somehow gravitated to stories involving wildlife contact of some sort, and I have been writing and editing them in my head as I drive. Finally I got a chance to put them down in my laptop in LA, and showed them to Joshua Beckman in Santa Cruz. He gave some great advice on editing and I made some major rewrites on one and minor tightening on the others, until I felt they were ready to go public.

It’s a beautiful fall day in Northern California. Driving up I-5, we pass through miles of open farmland through Dunagan and Willow and Williams. Up around Williams there are big fires everywhere. We drive through one big, dark cloud of smoke. I think the fires are deliberately set to burn of the detritus of harvest time. We head up through Corning and Redding. We climb up into the mountains crossing over Lake Shasta, following the Sacramento River up to Mount Shasta.

It’s a beautiful time of year up in the mountains of Northern California but we don’t have time to stop and enjoy it because we are worried about making our 7pm deadline. Slow going over Siskiyou summit but we make it into Ashland with plenty of time to spare and a beautiful sunset there. Every city on the tour is its own little navigational parking nightmare for the bus, and Ashland is no exception, but the problems are relatively slight and we get ourselves parked at the venue with few problems. Joshua and Travis and Matthew have their meetings over the order of the readers and then they come to me and tell me I’m reading third in the second set, which is fine with me. I feel good about it. I had my poems looked over by Joshua, Noelle, and Anthony McCann and all seemed to like them so I didn’t think I would make a complete ass out of myself. I am a little bit nervous though. We get up into the Meese room of the Hannon Library of Southern Oregon University to find a full house in a nice intimate little room with great acoustics. The poets in the first set are all great and I’m feeling more and more nervous as my time comes closer. During the break I go to Joshua who has promised to help me time my poems so I don’t go over the five minute limit and we have a nice little discussion about reading; of course Linas’ camera is right there.

Kasey Mohammad, the only local poet on the list tonight, reads first in the second set, a set of flarf poems. Rick Meier gives a great reading, and then it’s my time. I introduce myself and mention that I have been driving the bus for nearly 12,00 miles Which gets big applause—I have my poems all printed out in all caps and I think its in a large enough font but I get up there and I find can’t see it without holding the paper right in front of my face. I fluff a few lines but I get through it okay. The nerves are easing away. I’ve got a lot of experience speaking in front of people so it’s not too bad. People seem to be enjoying them okay. I finish and am met with a huge wave of applause. I sit down to watch the rest of the poets. Lisa Fishman gives a great reading and Joshua Beckman’s always awesome. Christian Hawkey, I’d never heard him before—beautiful stuff.

Then Matthew comes up, sits down next to me and lets me know how much he enjoyed it. That means so much coming from him. He also gave me some tips regarding the font, a font with a serif would be easier to read, all caps can make it harder to read, and it didn’t help that the light above the podium had gone out. All and all it went well. All the poets on the bus give me very positive feedback and Kasey Mohammad commented that there were no clichés. And of course the whole time, Linas has his camera in my face. Then I’m back behind the wheel as I have to do some tight bus maneuvering backing out of the college library parking lot and driving a few blocks pulling in behind the public library. Craig Wright was generous enough to put everyone up in his beautiful home nearby. We had a nice meal in town. The best thing about the meal was the camaraderie and the conversation. I’ve been made to feel like one of the family from day one, but now I feel like I’m one of the poets. Afterwards, we go to Craig’s house and hang out a little bit but it’s getting late and we have a lot of miles to cover in the morning, and I have my first blog to write, so I head back to the bus.

Day 51 / Portland, OR/ Bill Wesley, the bus driver

It’s a little hard to leave Ashland, both mentally, since we had such a gracious and welcoming host, Vincent Craig Wright, and physically, as I had a bit of a tough time extricating the bus from the narrow alleyways and streets, requiring Joshua to get out and watch my back and sides for me while I managed to get by two cars with inches to spare.

Once we get to the freeway we’re after some biodiesel—Travis looks it up on the Internet and finds it in Phoenix, Oregon, just a few exits away, and they are even listed on the freeway exit signs! The signage continues for a mile or so then we drive right by the place because there wasn’t much of a sign on the place itself. We finally get topped off and get back on I-5, but we’ve lost time in the process, and have to rush a bit the rest of the day to make it up. All this time I’m trying to dictate my blog to Liz Black, a Wave Books intern who has been with us since Austin, but my laptop touchpad is driving her crazy, bouncing the cursor around, moving random chunks of text to unexpected places. She handles it with good humor, and at a rest area near Oakland, Oregon, I finish up the blog and pass it to Travis for transmission.

It’s a nice sunny day passing fall colors in the Southern Cascades as we wind through some low mountain passes. We stop for a quick lunch in Cottage Grove, and then push on past Eugene and Salem, making our last pee-stop at a rest area outside of Aurora.

Whenever we stop anywhere Linas Phillips, the filmmaker who’s making a documentary of the tour, gets out with his camera and accosts locals asking them how they feel about poetry, and asking them if they would like to have a poem read to them by a poet. Linas searches out the quirkiest, weirdest people he can find, and if they aren’t particularly into poetry, so much the better. I spot a classic Linas victim headed out to the parking lot and I look over at Linas and he’s grinning a thumbs up. Everett is a big goofy logger looking guy going to his camper van to retrieve a cowboy poem that he helped write.

Linas pulls together a group of poets, myself included, to listen to Everett’s poem which has to do with a cowboy going out on a boat with all his ropes and tack to escape all the fences and rules, then when civilization intrudes too much on that lifestyle, goes off with space aliens to tame horse like creatures on some alien planet somewhere—we all applaud his affable reading, then Matthew Zapruder reads him a poem which seems to contemplate suicide and Everett doesn’t seem to care for it very much. He gives us his basic philosophy—life is short so it’s best to joke and laugh about everything.

Earlier the front roof vent flipped over onto the roof, requiring me to pull over and try to pry the hinge with a big screwdriver while Travis got up on the roof to push down while I pried forward. While I’m grunting and straining Linas is interviewing me, on camera, about my earliest childhood memories (I was 3 and slipped down to the deep end of a swimming pool, looking up to see my Older sister, Nancy, plunge in and swim down to save me) because he just rolls like that.

Getting closer to Portland, running late again, we hit commuter traffic, and when we finally get off the freeway we are misled by Google Maps again and it takes a while for Travis and Matthew to orient us and get me pointed in the right direction. We finally get to Mississippi Studios and it’s a really cool place, though it’s a little strange that you have to walk through the restaurant next door and around through the patio to get to the space, which is like a small, cozy theater. I’m not reading, but the poets that do are great, including the locals. It’s also my first time seeing the Vis-a-Vis Society, which is Sierra Nelson, and Rachel Black, two thirds of the Typing Explosion, who were on the bus from Toronto to New York. They pass out poetry surveys during the first set, and in the second set, wearing their white lab coats and using an overhead projector, they give the hilarious results.

Edwin Torres, whose work brilliantly fuses performance art and poetry, finishes his reading, near the end of the second set, with a poem for me about Bald Eagles in Homer, Alaska. I know it’s Homer because after offering me many kind words after my virgin reading in Ashland, we discussed our mutual love for the place, which figures prominently in one of my poems. His poem was about the fact that Eagles mate for life and his observance of one couple hunting together, and it puts my meager poems to shame.

Afterwards I drive the bus to another host house where we all hang out for a while before calling it a night. Some of us are a little sad that it’s almost over, but I’m kind of used to trips ending by now, and I really, really need some time off.

Day 52 / Portland, OR/ Bill Wesley, the bus driver

I’m sitting in a doughnut shop in Portland when Joshua and Linas come in and ask me to go back to the bus to re-enact for the camera the many times Joshua has gently woken me with coffee and doughnuts/scones/muffins in hand—thanks Joshua! After my nomination for worthy performance as a lifeless lump we drive back by Mississippi Studios to pick up NPR reporter Jake Warga, who thinks he’s just going along for a ride to Seattle-interviewing us all on the way—instead we drag him across Portland to a U-Haul store where we rent a pickup truck so Linas can get some exterior shots of the bus on the road, and then on to I-84 East through the Columbia River Gorge to the deserty area of eastern Washington around Centerville for some scenes Linas wants.

The scenery is incredibly beautiful along the Columbia River—some of the nicest I’ve seen on the whole trip! The river on our left, majestic bluffs and cliffs on our right, firs and pines mixed with yellow and orange leaved aspens and birches. It’s a little hard to concentrate on the view though, since I’m constantly passing and being passed by the pickup with Matthew Zapruder driving and Linas, windblown and freezing his ass off, in the back filming like a madman! Meanwhile, I’m pecking out my blog when we stop to eat or pee, and Jake is interviewing away with his voice recorder. We are sitting in a pullout on the Washington side overlooking the river, while the pickup goes ahead to scout locations, when Jake brings his microphone up for the first time asking me what poetry means, how I came to write mine, and what was it like reading my poems in front of people for the first time—we are interrupted when the truck returns for us.

We finally get to a deserted stretch of country road that seems to suit Linas’ needs, and proceed to line up and block out his shot, which is of him walking down the road and the bus pulling up to a stop, and a group of poets getting out and lining up on the road in front of him. It’s supposed to be a kind of fantasy sequence that he wants to open the film with and I get to stretch my acting muscles again with a weird staring shot. I learn to hit a mark with the bus, and we shoot the scene several times before calling it a day. I continue to play leapfrog with the camera truck on the way back and Linas is really getting blown around back there—until it’s not light enough to film and he returns to the bus. While Matthew and Sierra take the truck back to the U-Haul, I get more mike time with Jake.

I’m too tired to drive straight to Seattle, so we all sit down and have dinner at an Elmer’s diner in Portland so I can rest and caffeinate for the last leg of the Poetry Bus Tour. Linas stays up and keeps me company—DJing while everyone else sleeps.

When we finally get the bus parked in front of Wave Books, at about 1am, it’s kind of sad and joyous at once—we’re all hugging and acting deliriously stupid for Linas’ camera, and Jake asks me to read him one of my poems, which, of course, Linas films. After everybody leaves I get out my laptop to add up all the tolls we paid during the trip ($108.40), so I can get reimbursed, and calculate the final mileage: 12,333!

Day 53 / Seattle, WA/ Bill Wesley, the bus driver

I left home (the Green Tortoise bus yard in Oakland, CA) on July 7th deadheading a bus to Anchorage, AK with a crew of two other drivers, then drove two 14 day camping trips around the state, then drove that bus down to Seattle, to await the arrival of the Poetry Bus. During that time I called my boss, Lyle, and told him I didn’t want to work Burning Man this year, mostly because of the alkali dust that permeates everything there. A few days later Lyle called to tell me about the Poetry Bus and I was immediately fired up about it—I was excited to be meeting and working with poets, I was excited to be driving to new places, and I was excited to be doing a trip where all I had to do is drive—no setting up camp kitchens everywhere, cooking, shopping, all the stuff I have to do on a daily basis to make sure my passengers have a fun, safe, unique vacation. It turned out to be all that and so much more-truly a life changing trip for me. I now feel like I’m connected to a network of creative, engaged, articulate friends around the country, and I can’t help but feel I’m part of the Wave Books “family,” all of whom are just amazing, wonderful people.

We managed to eke out a little more Poetry Bus tour as people piled on for the short drive from Wave Books to the Space Needle reading. We were up at the 100 foot level, just under the revolving restaurant, surrounded by great views. Monica Fambrough had been working feverishly over the last two days putting together a DVD slideshow of the trip, which was to be shown before the first reading, exclusively for Wave Books subscribers. Technical difficulties stalled the slideshow, so we socialized, ate canapés and partook of the open bar, and then it was time to read. The first part was a group of three readers; myself, Monica Fambrough, and Matthew Zapruder , followed by a Q&A panel consisting of myself, Joshua Beckman, Travis Nichols, Monica Fambrough, Matthew Zapruder, and Liz Black. Then the rest of the audience was let in for a reading by Laura Jensen, Survey results by the Vis’ a Vis’ Society, then the final reading.

I was first up, and I had some new poems to read, which felt good, and seemed to go over very well even though one poem was a little bit “blue” as they say in stand-up. Monica and Matthew gave stellar readings, as usual, and then it was time for the Q&A. Joshua, Travis, and Matthew answered most of the questions, including the inevitable “Was there any hanky-panky on the bus?” and the inevitable disappointment at the answer—no. Several news organizations were quite disappointed by this answer over the course of the trip, causing some to lose interest altogether-including the Jim Lehrer News Hour.

I was told that Laura Jensen hadn’t given a reading in 20 years, so it was quite a privilege to hear her and her recorder—very nice. The audience was seated facing out to the city views, away from the podium for her reading and for the final reading which consisted of 9 or 10 poets giving brief readings one right after the other while the audience gazed out at the skyline. I was engaged in trying to solve the technical problems with the slideshow which involved my laptop and the interface with a DVD projector. We solved it in time to catch Edwin Torres, Joshua Beckman, and Matthew Zapruder finish out the reading beautifully, then we all gathered in the back room and enjoyed the slideshow, which was beautiful and quite poignant coming at the end like that.

Then we squeezed in a little more bus time as everybody piled in for the last short drive from the Space Needle to my overnight parking spot a few blocks North. Of course it couldn’t be that simple-we got caught in a massive traffic jam due to a High School football game that just got out—extending the tour just a little more-nobody seemed to mind. We hung out on the bus for a couple more hours-it was very hard for everyone to let it go and say our final goodbyes, well hopefully not final, just goodbye for now.