Get Out of Your Basement – by Charles P. Ries
By: CHARLES P. RIES
Word Count: 839
I have never done a poetry reading in a Laundromat. But after years of corresponding with small press editors, Brian Morrisey of Poesy, Christopher Robin of Zen Baby and poet, Ellaraine Lockie I thought I would give it a try. But it wasn’t as easy as that.
“I know you love your writing basement and all your routines, but there are people out here who want to meet you; you’d be the featured at the Wired Wash Cafe! So what if it’s a Laundromat,” Ellaraine wrote. “Come on man, get your ass out here; we put your name in lights – Christmas lights!” Robin wrote. “We’ll do right by you. We might even get some surfing in. You can stay at my place,” Morrisey told me in another e-mail. The three of them chipped away at all my excuses for not dragging my ass out of my basement in Wisconsin to Santa Cruz, California.
Following a four hour flight delay, getting routed through Salt Lake City, being jammed in the corner seat by a very large man who needed all of his and half of my seat to sit in, and spilling my peach smoothie (with extra soy for protein power) over my shirt, I realized God was testing me. She wanted to make sure I was worthy of being a headliner in a Laundromat. (We Midwestern poets are often afflicted by a false sense of unworthiness). I crawled off my plane at the San Jose Airport; weak, egoless, with a peach smoothie on my shirt. “What am I doing here? What good can any of this accomplish? Why did I leave my basement?” I silently moaned as I walked through the terminal with Lockie looking for something stronger than a smoothie to drink.
The next evening after dinner at the Saturn Café; following a power outage, and a torrential west coast downpour, we walked over to the weekly reading that Morrisey and Robin have turned into one of the premier venues for small press poets on the West Coast. Past featured readers have included: A.D. Winans, Neeli Cherkovsky, Hugh Fox, John Dorsey, S.A. Griffin, Klipschutz, Gerald Nicosia, Joe Pachinko, William Taylor, Jr., Michelle Tea, Raindog, Café Barbarians, Jennifer Blowdryer and Michael Hathaway (who was supposed to show up, but his flight got canceled). More recently Robin started to tape the readings. He sells them as DVD’s, as well as sending copies to “The Poetry Collection” at the University at Buffalo / The State University of New York. There the readings are stored in perpetuity, along with the work of hundreds of other small press poets.
The Wired Wash Café Poetry Reading happens every Friday at 7:00 p.m. Posters are put up around Santa Cruz, Berkley and San Francisco prior to each reading. As promised, my name was indeed in a funky lighted sign that was hung outside the Laundromat. The washers and dryers went through their rinse, spin, and dry cycles; as each reader cycled through their five minutes. Dirty laundry, clean clothes, poets, and street people tumbled together. Do you think poetry gets the stains out?
That afternoon before the reading, Morrisey took me to the Trader Joes where I discovered corked-wine for two bucks a bottle. “It’s a lot better than Mad Dog.” he assured me.
“Well in that case, I’ll buy a whole case.” I told him.
The party following the reading was held in Robin’s apartment. A place that doubles as a recording studio, publishing center and contemporary nut-house-poetry-museum; he also sleeps and eats there. Lots of wine was drunk, pictures taken, interviews recorded, chapbooks signed and swapped, and lifetime friendships made.
Our small press community is virtual. We know writers across the globe whom we have never met. Through submissions, joint projects, reviews, essays, random correspondence and publishing our poetry, we grow our writing family. A family not defined by place, as a village or city would be; or by blood, as tribes or clans might be, but rather by a compulsion to write and manipulate language. We are word artists.
So what? I didn’t need to go to Santa Cruz and return exhausted. Ellaraine, Brian and Christopher could have remained as faceless as hundreds of other writers and publishers I know. But being there made me realize, there is magic in sitting across the table from another writer. Something happens to the texture of our friendship when we learn about another poet’s day job and personal struggles; when we bitched about the writing biz, and become alive.
Contract Information: For more information about the Wired Wash Café reading series or to submit work to Poesy or Zen Baby contact Brian Morrisey / P.O. Box 7823 / Santa Cruz / CA / 95061 or e-mail him at brian@poesy.org OR Christopher Robin / P.O. Box 1611 / Santa Cruz / CA / 95061-1611. If you need a place to stay in Northern California contact Ellaraine Lockie at elockie@comcast.net.You may order a DVD copy of the Charles Ries reading at the Wired Wash Café (or any of the featured readings) by sending $5 to Christopher Robin. You can contact Michael Basinsky at the University at Buffalo’s Poetry Collection by e-mailing him at basinski@acsu.buffalo.edu.
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