The night Robert Bly got "tarred-and-feathered"

 “…my Chicago had its moments: the Surrealist attack on Robert Bly that ended in a fistfight and the arrival of police.” ~ Paul Hoover

One four-below-zero winter’s night, I took the “el” train from my studio apartment in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood to the Body Politic in Lincoln Park. It was the mid-1970s. On that bone-chilling night, a high-impact though little known incident in Chicago poetry history took place. 

An older poet from Minnesota, Robert Bly, was making a special appearance at the Yellow Press Readings at the Body Politic Theater. I had never heard of him before. In years hence, he became well known as the spearhead of the American men’s movement, and author of Iron John: A Book About Men, a national bestseller. 

The room’s floodlights and brightly painted wall behind a small dais stage radiated welcome warmth against the bitterly cold night. But still shivering from my trip down there on the “el,” I kept my coat and cap on the rest of the evening. Before long, Robert Bly moved to the center of the dais. The lighting above Bly’s head appeared as bands of yellow, light orange and salmon enveloping the man in a fiery glow. He wore a loose-fitting white shirt and faded blue jeans. His white hair was mid-length and flowing, his face clean-shaven. A quiet comfort spread through the room as the frozen streets outside enclosed us in their silence.

Bly began. I found his poetry accessible, nature-driven, and dealing quite a bit with his home state, Minnesota. Unlike other readers, and in the fashion of a teacher, he repeated each brief poem twice so we could more fully absorb it. Soon, he donned an elaborate animal mask.  

Then, according to poet Al Simmons, “Five of them…four men and a women… approached him from each flank, and the woman came down the center aisle.” 

“We thought it was part of the show,” said poet Terry Jacobus. “Then the group knocked host Richard Friedman out of the way.”

Simmons continued, “Bly sat perfectly still as two of them each poured a five-pound bag of white flour over his head, then stood back while the other three began shooting Bly with water pistols.” 

I had remembered it as bags of powdered Sakrete. Jacobus mentioned something about “confetti.” In addition, Bly received one or more pies-in-the-face. It looked like pie plates filled with shaving cream to me (Three Stooges-style?), while others recall it as custard.

Poet Michael Anania, by circumstance, was busy giving a more polite poetry reading that same night on the other end of town at the South Shore Cultural Center with poets Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki Madhubuti, and Leon Forrest. “I was the token white guy,” he said. Although he missed the Bly reading because of this previous engagement, he had quickly got wind of the concurrent event and heard that Bly’s “tar and feathering” ingredients comprised flour, eggs and milk. 

Getting back to the Bly reading crashers, just who these culprits? None other than a group who called themselves the Chicago Surrealists, more of a political than artistic enclave, who published a magazine at the time called “Arsenal.” Among them were poets Penny Rosemont and her now-late husband Franklin Rosemont. 

It was of the latter that the late poet Paul Carroll wrote, “One hulking surrealist, dressed in Army-Navy store black, gargled at the audience that theirs was retribution for some recent review Robert had written in the New York Times, daring to criticize their hero, Octavio Paz.” 

I later learned that Bly was one of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s translators. Neruda, it turns out, who was politically a communist, and had been sympathetic to the Soviet leader Stalin. It was Stalin who had persecuted the Surrealists during his regime. For this and the crime in the paragraph above, Bly was doubly guilty in the eyes of the surrealists. Their goal that night? To “tar and feather” Bly in a shake-and-bake call-out for his transgressions.

Bly stood without a word against his attackers. Then, according to Paul Carroll, “Several leapt from the audience, led by poet and bookseller Douglas MacDonald, who gave the bums the rush out.” Also, the Stone Wind poets, Simmons, Jacobus and Henry Kanabus charged the stage. Simmons said, “There was a skirmish and we pushed them out of the theater…into a vestibule that became pitch black when the lobby doors shut behind us.”

According to Jacobus, “We wrestled, punched and landed out on Lincoln Avenue. The cops were called.” In the dark, someone (not Jacobus) inadvertently had clocked Penny. Another Surrealist ended up in the gutter, and at least two had bloody noses. “We almost got arrested for poetry,” said Jacobus.  

The defenders “…ducked back into the theater, to cheers and a standing ovation,” according to Simmons.

Meanwhile, the evening’s hosts had come to the aid of Bly to guide him out of the spotlight into the nearest bathroom. Once quickly cleaned up, Bly returned to the dais and finished his reading. Carroll said, “Robert Bly’s performance was a tribute to the spirit of poetry itself. It was not fanciful to say that we heard one of the voices of Orpheus speaking, at times, through him. The show went on for hours and hours. It should have gone on all night.” Afterward, it was drinks all around at the Oxford Pub next door. 

All I really knew was that both Neruda and Bly were poets I admired. As well, I later came to personally meet and appreciate surrealists Penny and Franklin Rosemont, as honorable people, poets and publishers of the great Wobblie poet and friend Carlos Cortez. I always liked the Stone Wind guys, too, and had visited the Evanston home of Douglas MacDonald more than once with friend Effie Mihopoulos. Among such poets, who can choose sides? I was never quite sure if the small Surrealist group’s “statement” was as keenly directed as they had calculated, but I’ll never forget that night. ##

~ excerpted from the nonfiction/memoir/creativity guide Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet

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The night Robert Bly got "tarred-and-feathered"

Poets! Do at Least One "Poetry Thing" Every Day

As poets, we probably know it's important to write every day. But even while understanding such a wise guideline, if you're like me, you probably don't write every single day. Whether it's because of work, commuting, childcare, domestic duties, or keeping up with friends and extended family, the time you need to sit down without distractions to write may be limited. Sometimes I don't even feel like writing. I'd rather work on artwork, read or catch up on the latest on Netflix. Or perhaps take a much needed nap.

So I made this new rule for myself. If, on a certain day, I don't work on a poem, I vow to at least accomplish one "poetry thing" that day.  Wait. What is a "poetry thing?" In my estimation, it could be one of the following:

~ Read poetry from a poetry collection or magazine

~ Submit poetry to a publisher

~ Attend a poetry reading, live or virtual

~ Edit an old poem

~ Promote your latest published poem or poetry collection on social media

~ Promote your fellow poets' latest published poem or poetry collection on social media

~ Give a reading at a live or virtual open mic

~ Attend a virtual poetry event

~ Attend an online poetry workshop

~ Do research and/or write ideas/notes for a new poem

~ Comb your personal journal for ideas for new poems

~ Go to the library to check out the new poetry collections

~ Follow a writing prompt from an outside source or a book to start a new poem

~ Select poems you've written that might make up a new poetry chapbook or full collection

~ Or just write a new poem 

Why do any or all of these "Poetry Things?" If you call yourself a poet, you need to live a poet's life! And life is lived every day! Can you name another "poetry thing" that doesn't appear on the list above? Please share. I'd like to hear from you. With so many options, there's no reason not to do at least one "poetry thing" every day! 

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Poets! Do at Least One "Poetry Thing" Every Day

Sestina poem for Bernie Sanders

Way back in 1986, poet Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem about Bernie Sanders. I am no Allen Ginsberg, but today I offer a recent sestina poem I wrote in Bernie Sanders' voice (words my own, but inspired by Bernie).

A sestina is a poetry form comprising six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet. All stanzas have the same six words at the line-ends in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern. All six words appear in the closing three-line envoi.

The six words in this poem are: grassroots, billionaires, our, wages, street, debt.

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Bernie Sanders Sestina

(in the voice of Bernie, words are mine)

was it worth a lifetime dedicated to grassroots

ideals, while one percent of our wealth lies in billionaires’

hands? I’m old, you’re young, it’s Our

Revolution, to speak up for higher wages,

to call out the special interests, Wall Street,

the cushy expungers who’ve left us in debt.

it’s not to Congress, but to you I’m indebted,

let’s take the grassroots

to the White House, take our voices into the streets,

hold onto what’s valuable save the greed of billionaires,

max up the minimum wage,

declare health and education ours.

will it take the time Egyptians built the pyramids for our

younger generation to pay off their student debts?

can we expect wage slave owners to automatically offer decent wages?

would a skyscraper bow down to its landscape of grassroots?

could a pseudo-billionaire promise to make us all billionaires?

will this highway to hell we’re on pave over our hometown streets?

to comprehend our grave issues doesn’t require street

smarts. Or a math degree to see the tatters of our

economy. There’s been an uptick of billionaires,

yet with heads barely above water, the body politic now drowns in debt,

if we’d grab one end of a rope at the grassroots,

we might buoy up our backsides with a living wage.

corrupt leaders don’t believe that the wages

of sin is death. They look at our powerful words as bearing no street

value. Lavish lawn parties are their idea of grassroots.

they believe in holding our

infrastructure, climate future & immigrant children as bargaining tools, debts

that everyone in America will pay for, except the billionaires.

the rich in compassion and action are our spiritual billionaires,

but big business and big pharma won’t pay their wages,

to look out for one another should be our primary debt,

instead of chasing the empty dream of easy street,

it’s not my America, or your America, or their America, but our

America, that wouldn’t have happened from the get-go without the grassroots.

might even billionaires soon awaken to grassroots ideals? To realize equal

wages are for all our benefit? Banded together, might we finally arise from

sewer depths of debt to solid street level? Sound pretty good?

                                                           ~ Cynthia Gallaher

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Sestina poem for Bernie Sanders

Frugal poet's guide to "Happy Hour" dining

From selling floor to the slam, from cubicle to podium. Where to go in between? Happy hour!
As a frugal poet, my dinners were usually eaten at my kitchen table, as were breakfasts. Lunches were brown bagged, unless the current employment powers that be would pop for an occasional pizza party or barbecue. But what happens when you want to catch a poetry reading relatively soon after work? Take in happy hour!

Frugal poets likely haven’t the cash flow to treat themselves to downtown dinners. There may be no time to stop home, but you don’t want your stomach to growl and be heard over the P.A. system during your reading at an open mic.

Happy hours at the local pub/grill, usually starting anywhere as early as 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. and lasting to 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. or so depending on the venue, can make the joyful transition between you and hunger on those nights you can’t and don’t want to hurry home to eat. When the poetic muse of the night calls and you don’t want to accept the invitation in a cranky mood from lack of calories, you may find yourself at an outdoor café noshing "happy hour" specially priced tidbits to hold you over, watching the urban hoopla whisk by.

Better yet, look for citified venues that offer happy hour and are also situated by a river, lake or ocean. During your brief, but happy, respite, you’ll be front row to the exact same views residents in nearby apartments or homes pay dearly for.

Happy hour! Drinks are certainly discounted. And when else might you get 10-cent chicken wings, dollar tacos or burgers, $2 bar bites or beers, and even $3 complete meals? The bewitching happy hour may take place on certain nights of the week, sometimes every week night, depending on the establishment. Find yourself there, frugal poet!

Chicagoans might want to read 11 Happy Hour Specials to Try in Chicago Now.

As well, find out more frugal poet ways to live an elegant life on little in my nonfiction creativity guide, memoir and reference, Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet. ◦

Frugal poet's guide to "Happy Hour" dining

Finding my first book -- Night Ribbons

After my son marked his third birthday, I felt ready not only to take a small breath after raising a son from a baby to toddlerhood, but also mark a few beats to focus on my next creative leap. I was 35 years old. I had some general hopes and ideas, but little did I know that this would became the year my first book of poems, Night Ribbons, was published.

I thought it was so late in my life in "getting started," although I had been writing poetry for 15 years. It was true that I had given readings all over Chicago, had numerous poems published in small press magazines, but had for many years longed to get my first book published. I sometimes thought it would never happen.

My previous readings and publications came in handy when I drummed up the nerve to apply for artist's grant from the City of Chicago. My step-by-step background served as documentation of my poetry career up until that point. It's what helped me land the grant to fund the publication of my book. I was surprised, thrilled and relieved.

But now to put the actual book together. Riffling through 15 years of poems was an interesting venture to find just the right ones that would help pull the collection together. I focused on four different subcategories to group the poems in the book, almost like chapters: Women of Day and Night, Chicago Days and Nights, Donde Hablan Espanol (Where They Speak Spanish), and Ancient Days, Faraway Nights. These four themes seemed to distill what I had been working on those first 15 years of my writing life.

Gathering poems into themes for Night Ribbons became a lifelong practice for my other books. Although Night Ribbons carried four themes, my subsequent books narrowed down to carry single themes: Earth Elegance (poems  about animals), Swimmer's Prayer (poems about Chicago), and Omnivore Odes: Poems About Food, Herbs and Spices. My nonfiction reference/memoir/creativity guide Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet also carries its own theme. 

At my Night Ribbons book release reading at Guild Books on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago,
I served black and red licorice, and bottles of cheap champagne

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Finding my first book -- Night Ribbons

Frank O'Hara in action at NYC's Museum of Modern Art

I was 12 years old and my mother, stepfather and I had chosen that summer to leave Chicago, at least for a short while, for our big family trip to New York City to see the World’s Fair and all the major sights Manhattan Island had to offer.  None of us had ever been there before, and none of our summer vacations had had its destination as a big city.  

Near the end of our trip, my parents and I were exhausted after a morning of walking for miles and sightseeing in New York City. I was awestruck by New York.  There was more of everything in New York than in Chicago, and the abundance seemed more thought out, more polished, more avant-garde, more talented, more new, and more old.

After much of a day of sight-seeing in Manhattan, we wandered into the Museum of Modern Art like cow-town bumpkins, amazed, tired, and upon entry coming to a revelation that we couldn’t take one more step.  But we had already paid our admission and weren’t about to turn around and go back to our hotel.

What I had expected to see was art. Who I didn't expect to see was Frank O'Hara, the poet, himself. He was one of the art curators at the time at the museum. That was what his obituary said a year later. Yes, that he was a museum curator, the New York Times stated, "but also a poet."

But wait, I was only 12 years old at the time. I didn't know anything about poets or poetry back then. And certainly didn't know who Frank O'Hara was. 

It went like this. My parents and I decided to take a breather and sit in the atrium which led to the sculpture garden.  The sculpture garden had just been redesigned the year before, the brochure read. A long bench was where we parked ourselves faced the window looking out to the sculpture garden. When we turned the other way inward toward the building, we faced a large hallway with a group of workers and museum people talking and maneuvering crated paintings into another room.  

Too exhausted to converse and undistracted by anything else to do, we sat and just absorbed what unfolded before us as if watching a movie. Like someone on a fast, having visions, I watched and remembered with a great intensity. A slim man with a receding hairline was energized over all the commotion of mounting what seemed to be a new exhibit. He paced briskly into other rooms and back out again, stage left and stage right, making lively comments to his fellow workers great and small about the paintings, pointing to one crate and another, turning to someone else to make a remark, then laughing so loudly his melodic voice almost echoed in the halls.  

He didn’t lift a finger, and though directive, was not dictatorial, and seemed to treat the whole episode as if at a party, or a friendly spider excitedly weaving a web around and around where only he could move freely up and down the strands to wherever he wished. It seemed like this man never rested, and did not need to rest. You could almost tell he was always like this. This was him, he loved what was going on, and although he seemed to want to attract a lot of attention to himself, it's as if he did so to invite you in to love what was going on, too, if you wanted. Were the crated items possibly for the forthcoming Robert Motherwell retrospective?

I knew about sex, but knew nothing about homosexuals. I really was naive about it.  I didn’t, at that point, know such a thing existed.  As we continued to watch, my mother grew irritated.

"That guy is too much," she moaned. She seemed disgusted. I couldn’t understand what he had done to offend her.  He wasn’t talking nasty, or wasn’t slobbering around like a drunk, which were two other public behaviors which offended my mother.  She is a person who can’t stand when a person puts on airs. It seemed as if the man’s vocal, though light bravura got to her.

 

"I wish he’d just go away," she said. "Get lost," she said softly, "or we’ll get lost." To me, he was just being enthusiastic. In fact, his energy seemed to energize the fatigue I was feeling, and his enthusiasm over the paintings somewhat primed me to discover for myself when we’d go upstairs to see the galleries what he found so compelling between four stretcher strips. 

Years later, as I began to make my own way through the world as a poet, I read Frank O'Hara's poetry and as well as his biography City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara, learning then of his work as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art. Wasn't he the energetic man I had witnessed during my visit to New York City as a seventh grader? Although I knew nothing of his poetry, or anything about poetry at that age, wasn't I inspired by him, at least back then, by his enthusiasm, so precious especially in light of it being his last year of life, not knowing that an accidental death lay before him that next summer. 

Why were my parents and I led to the museum that day? Only to spend an hour of our time sitting on a bench? I think it was a personal blessing for me to see a great poet, Frank O'Hara, in action, not reciting poetry, but celebrating life itself.

I mention Frank O'Hara in my new nonfiction reference/memoir/how-to/creativity guide Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet, and how City Lights Pocket Poet Series published O'Hara's Lunch Poems.

              

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Frank O'Hara in action at NYC's Museum of Modern Art

Your Stay at a Writer’s Colony Is a Fabulous and Frugal Choice

I’m a poet and a playwright, and as many writers like me, I find myself ever needing more dedicated time to write.  Even though I am now fortunate enough to work my day job from home, scheduling my own hours to complete assignments and attend conference calls, you’ll find me in-between those hours keeping keen watch on my computer and phone for incoming messages and requests.

By midday I may be off to teach yoga for a few hours at a time, and just when I return home to send off more tweets and Facebook posts on behalf of my employer, and maybe even then try to squeeze in writing a poem, another scene or a blog post such as this, I'll look at the clock and suddenly see it’s time to make dinner for my husband who’s spent another wall-to-wall weekday pounding that challenging turf called teaching English at a Chicago public high school.

Yes, like many writers who juggle life and work schedules, I yearn for more time to write. My writer husband definitely does as well.  Beyond that, simply as people and as a couple, we need a scheduled vacation every once in a while. Here’s the question: Why not combine both vacation and dedicated time to write, and apply for a stay at a writer’s colony? My answer to that question is, yes, I have done so a number of times, and stays at colonies have been among the most interesting, satisfying and creatively prolific vacations yet. 

I have gone solo, as well as with my husband, one time even bringing our small son along to a private writer’s casita in the New Mexican mountains for two weeks, where we mixed writing with side excursions to Albuquerque, Taos and Santa Fe. I have spent two weeks at a working organic fruit and vegetable farm, pitching in with farm chores in the mornings and writing in the afternoons and evenings in an off-grid cabin. I have served as a writer-in-residence in a circa 1835 townhouse in the rolling hills of southwest Wisconsin, and stirred up recipes that inspired food poems in the culinary suite of a writer’s colony in Arkansas.

Most recently, my husband and I were both accepted for a two-week residency at Rivendell Writers’ Colony in Sewanee, Tennessee, (pronounced swan’-knee) situated about four miles from the heart of town, in a grand old stone manor overlooking spectacular Lost Cove, an area where writer Walker Percy spent many a summer sojourn.  I chose to apply to Rivendell as it’s a day’s drive from our home in Chicago, while at the same time knowing the breathtaking Cumberland Plateau terrain would offer a total change from our urban life in the Midwest flatlands.

I chose Rivendell because while it’s part of an estate with a long history, it has been transformed into a writers’ colony only over the past few years. Not too many people know yet about this gem. The time to apply was now!

I also chose Rivendell because of its emphasis on food writers.  The Southern Foodways Alliance holds periodic workshops at Rivendell, and one of its directors serves as an advising editor to Rivendell. The colony director Carmen and her husband Michael nurture a lush garden of raised beds near the manor house, where residents can sometimes pick lettuce, tomatoes, herbs and other seasonal offerings to add to their meals.  

That brings me to mention Rivendell’s two kitchens, one country style and the other commercial grade, where residents can prepare and cook their own meals.

And lastly, I chose Rivendell because it is a short drive from the University of the South, home to Sewanee School of Letters, Sewanee Review and the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. Sewanee Review is one of the oldest literary magazines in the U.S., started in 1892. And the Sewanee Writers’ Conference has been an annual event for more than 20 years, gathering poets, playwrights and fiction writers from across the country. What a literary atmosphere in such a magnificent corner of Tennessee.

So what’s so frugal about a stay at Rivendell, which requires a fee for your residency, and where you need to supply your own food and cook your own meals? Firstly, the subsidized cost of a two-week stay is far less, perhaps one third or even a quarter of what you’d pay for a comparable hotel stay, if you are accepted as a writing resident. And, just as an aside, how many spots where you've stayed offers an open-air deck where you can practice yoga on a cool morning?

I don’t know about you, but the more I learn about food, the harder it seems to find restaurants where I’d care to dine.  When establishments serve Grade A eggs or meats, it does not mean that the animals weren’t factory farmed or fed GMO grains.  I eat more organic food than ever, and sometimes the only way to make sure I’m getting the caliber of meals using the wholesome foods I prefer is to cook them myself. 

As a food poet, of course, cooking (and even drinking) are surely part of my research! Even making different popcorn recipes that I shared with other residents in the evenings helped inspire a new poem. What could be more frugal and fantastic than passing around a bowl of buttery popcorn, chatting on the outdoor patio overlooking the cove, and checking out Rivendell’s vivid sky full of stars.

Of course, frugality-wise, it didn’t hurt that I also applied for and received an Illinois Arts Council Professional Development Grant to help fund my stay, food purchases and road trip expenses. 

Check your local arts council and see what type of help they can extend for writing retreat stays to help you complete your latest writing project. At Rivendell, I did just that, writing a number of new poem drafts (sometimes two a day) to add to my current manuscript, “Botanical Bandwidth: More Poems About Food, Drink, Herbs and Spices.”

In addition, it just so happened that the first week of our summer residency at Rivendell also coincided with the last week of the Sewanee Writers Conference taking place in town.  Besides the paid workshops and meetings the conference participants attended (of which we weren’t part of and costs upwards of $3,000), there was a sizable schedule of daily lectures and readings open to the public, free of charge. 

Not only did we enjoy two lectures on fiction writing and one on playwriting, we personally met some of our favorite writers who were on hand, including poet A.E. Stallings and fiction writer Tim O’Brien. What frugal serendipity!

Noteworthy to any working vacation, the town of Sewanee is surrounded by a spectacular network of hiking trails, with views that are priceless. What writing experience isn’t enhanced by an inspirational hike through the woods?

Find out more about Rivendell.

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Your Stay at a Writer’s Colony Is a Fabulous and Frugal Choice

Meet and Greet Poets at Naropa

I suppose this post is more about photos than text. And more about lasting poets than passing fancies. During the third week of Naropa University's Summer Writing Program/Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, my husband Carlos and I had a whooping wild time attending workshops, lectures, panels and readings with some of the finest poets across the states.

We had fun hanging out with Truong Tran, a San Francisco poet and artist of Vietnamese descent who teaches poetry at San Francisco State University and Mills College. Found out he actually lives in Haight/Ashbury. His latest book is entitled "Four Letter Words."

Clayton Eshleman, professor emeritus of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and his wife Caryl were a joy. Eshleman is the highly regarded translator of Cesar Vallejo and Rimbaud. Carlos was part of Clayton's workshop on Rhizomic Poetics all week.

Poet Anselm Hollo, originally from Finland, is now a full-time professor at Naropa University. His wife Jane, a Mississippi native, is pictured with him.
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Meet and Greet Poets at Naropa