The Resident

Community

Poetry night provides venue for local artists

By Mary Gottschalk

When poets talk about their writing, it's, well... poetic.

"It's how I have to express myself. I figure things out through poetry. I express the way I see the world through poetry," says Jane McDonald, who has been studying and writing poetry for five years.

"It's the joy of language and creating and the beauty of trying to say things in a fresh and original way," says Christine Richardson.

Her husband, Dennis, adds, "You just allow the words to play around in your head and move them. It's the word play and the use of metaphor to really describe a situation in a different way."

The Richardsons have been poets for six years and volunteer moderators of the monthly poetry readings at Willow Glen Books.

On the second Thursday of each month, the bookstore at 1330 Lincoln Ave. welcomes poets and poetry lovers for a reading.

The format is a single poet doing a reading, lasting up to a half-hour, then after a refreshment break, it's open microphone time for audience members to read their own poetry.

"We usually have 10 to 15 people that want to read," Dennis says, adding that Christine does the introductions, while he works on set-up.

An additional special poetry reading is set for March 3 at 7 p.m., featuring Ellen Bass and Frank Xavier Gaspar. Each will read for about 30 minutes, with a break in between.

McDonald arranged for the special reading when she learned that Gaspar was coming up from the Los Angeles area to participate in a workshop with Bass, her poetry instructor.

"Both Frank and I are very accessible poets," Bass says. "Even if you don't know our work and even if somebody doesn't consider themselves well educated in poetry, you can still understand.

"We both speak very directly to the reader or the listener. [Our poems] are not obscure, and they're not obtuse; they're speaking from the heart."

Bass says she first started writing poetry more than 40 years ago when she was in college.

"I became pretty serious, and not long after that I went into a MA program at Boston University and was fortunate enough to study with Anne Sexton the first year she was teaching there.

"After that I was pretty much solidly into writing poetry."

Bass has done more than write her own poetry; she has also worked to increase awareness of the works of other female poets.

She's proud of the groundbreaking 1973 publication of No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women, which she co-edited with Florence Howe.

"It was 20th-century women's poetry and was instrumental in bringing attention to a lot of women poets who were not well enough known and weren't being included in the standard anthologies," she says.

Bass has published several volumes of her poetry, has appeared in many magazines and anthologies and has won seven awards for her work.

Gaspar, who says he has been a poet "all my life," has also won several awards for his work.

Poetry readings such as the one Gaspar and Bass are participating in are important, Bass says, because "poetry really is oral. Being able to hear poems in the poet's voice is so much more multidimensional than just seeing it on the page.

"Also, there's something about listening to a poem that is very different from reading it. We listen more slowly than we read. When we hear a poem out loud, we're able to take it in more slowly and in the way in which the poet means it to be heard.

"Also, I think the opportunity to hear poems in a group and in community when we're all there together is a different experience than reading by yourself. It's wonderful to have poetry in our community. It's also great to be able to meet and hear the poets whose work we've been touched by."

As soon as she opened Willow Glen Books in 1992, Cathy Adkins started supporting poetry readings.

"We helped publicize the readings, and we'd try and get the poets books if they were published," she says.

At that time the poetry readings were at Mr. C's Tattler. When the coffeehouse closed around 1994, Adkins didn't hesitate to welcome the poetry group.

"A bookstore needs to be a place where the community comes together around literature. Poetry is literature to me, and a community bookstore needs to be supportive of community writers," Adkins says.

"I stock the publications of any poet that asks. Many are self-published and aren't going to be found in other bookstores.

"It's an encouraging thing for someone to come in and see his or her writing on a shelf of a bookstore and to be able to say, 'You can buy a volume of my poetry at Willow Glen Bookstore.'

"It gives me a lot of pleasure and satisfaction to do that."

As to the poetry readings, Adkins says she doesn't mind the extra work.

"The real substance of the program are the artists themselves and the poetry lovers," she says.

McDonald says she started attending the poetry readings a year or so ago and enjoys the evenings.

"After the readings we go across the street to Mr. Beans and just hang out a little bit. It's a real community event," she says.

The audience changes from month to month, says Christine, although there is a core group.

"It's wonderful to have this space. It's just a nice cozy setting, and people find it's very supportive. It's for all levels of poetry and a nice venue for people to come and listen and share and be heard," Christine says, adding she believes "poetry needs to be said out loud."

Free verse seems to be more popular among area poets than rhymes.

Dennis says he writes free verse.

"It's beginning poetry," he says of his work. "There are only a few I think are really good.

"After you study poets a lot, you realize to really write a good poem takes a lot longer than writing a little verse."

Bass points out that while "poetry is one of the least popular art forms, it's one of the ones that people turn to the most when there's a ritual. If there's a death or a birth, people want a poem for the occasion.

"Or if someone is going through a very hard time, they often turn to poetry.

"Poems play an important part in our lives, maybe more than we realize."

Gaspar agrees with Bass' assertion about poetry's place.

"Our culture is really not poetry-centered," he says. "If you meet someone and they say they write books, the first thing you think of is a novel or a history book. Poetry really is a minority art."

Yet, Gaspar says he believes, "There's a hunger for it.

"There's a real hunger for the spoken word, so it's important that there are places people can go to hear it.

"It's nice to have human people breathing in the same room and sharing words."

Ellen Bass and Frank Gaspar will give a special free poetry reading at 7 p.m. March 3 at Willow Glen Books, 1330 Lincoln Ave. Free poetry readings take place at 7 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month at the bookstore. For information on other poetry readings, visit the Poetry Center San Jose website at www.pcsj.org.