Poetry In Plain Sight - Don Kingfisher Campbell

I recently wrote a post at BlogHer about poetry and poets as reporters. Yes, indeed there is much work for the poetry community to tell the rest of us. Great time to be a scribe.

Without hesitation, on to the video of the day. Don Kingfisher Campbell is too tall to be an mischievous elf. There are times when listening to him I have to straddle between the spoken and the intended meaning of his words. This can be a lot of fun except in situations where I'm not supposed to be laughing.

To quote the Second Sunday Poetry site:

Though often his poems have a message, just as often they are as fun and easy to take as a high-fat, high-fructose dessert. Nothing is off limits, no one is spared in Don's robust, luxuriant, maximalist universe, which we enter today.

He is also a very good poet. This is recording of Don reading his poem
Queen Mary at the Saturday Afternoon Poets meet-up in Pasadena.



Don has got books, chapbooks, audio recordings for sale on Amazon and is popping all over the Southland. If he is not hosting an event he is reading at one.

I'm going to miss the next couple of poetry readings but you don't have to, it is open to everybody. Just plunk your butt in a chair, bring some cash just in case you want to buy a chapbook or something and go with the flow.

Here is a quick run down of current events to soak up some goodness:

Monday, August 2nd, 8 to 11pm - Don Kingfisher Campbell, features with CaLokie as part of the open mic for Da Joynt poetry reading series @ The Attic Theater on 5429 W. Washington Blvd. in Los Angeles, J. Evert Jones (AKA James Maverick) hosts, also offering kick-ass blues from Tokyo Mississippi! Beer/Wine and a $5 cover.

Saturday, August 7th, 4 to 6pm - CaLokie, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Marvin Dorsey and friends Thea Iberall, Pete Justis & Angel Uriel Perales plus Special Guests Peter Lewis & M.L. Liebler perform on the Center Stage @ Frazier Park Fiesta Days Celebration on Frazier Park Mountain Road in Frazier Park (3.7 miles west of Interstate 5)

You can also check out what is going on by visiting Don's blog and other places such as Poetic Diversity, his Facebook page, and certainly at the Emerging Urban Poets blog.

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Ring My Bell on the Finally Friday Freakout

You know what the biggest surprise is about the Bell city council story? That the Los Angeles Times actually investigated and created a news story worth reading. The reports about fiscal mischief is what newspapers are supposed to do.

To pay attention to the local community. This story has resonated with everybody cuz if tiny Bell is on the scoop and dupe then we might have a solution to the budget crises. This is what you need a bean counter for; not to run television shows but to do the government numbers like taking a lice comb through school kids hair.



You are going to come up with something. So in honor of the L.A. Times not running another story about Lindsey or Mel, for allowing non-AP content on the front page and in full recognition that they are gonna milking this story for all it is worth and then some, I give you Ring My Bell by Ann Lee.

I would have linked to the Anita Ward version but Warner is not fooling about yanking stuff down, if you catch my drift. Anyway this is a fun, dance inspired version. Very respectable.

Unlike those rascals in the city government of Bell,California.

Damn. I see multiple investigations. I see people booking a flight to a non-reciprocating country. I see someone looking for the guy in MacArthur Park who specializes in reconfigured identities.

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Poetry In Plain Sight - Raindog

The beat goes on, this time is Raindog, who on first glance, I know we are two different people living on this planet. He has experienced stuff I'm not going to understand. It is a masculine, hard knock focus of living. It is an appreciation that we come from different spaces.



This is a recording of one of his poems that he read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading at the library. Raindog is a poet and publisher; his publishing company is called Lummox Press. I bought two of his books and there is good stuff twixt the covers.

The poems and stories are full tilt living until the brick wall causes you to stop and ponder the wisdom of your actions. Reading poems from a very strong masculine voice has provoked questions.

There is a poem of Raindog's that ticked me off. It might explain why I'm not going to be dating much in my future. It is the one on page 139 of FIRE and RAIN Vol. 1 where he is talking about reaching the age when the older women he use to seek out now remind him of his mother.

This is the first stanza:

I have reached that age where the older women
whose company I once sought (because it made
me feel more mature) now all remind me of my
mother and the desire to go to bed in the grave
each night put me off so badly that I can't stand
the sight of them the next morning.

Other Women
FIRE and Rain
RD Armstrong
Selected Poems 1993-2007
Vol. 1 page 139

It starts out like you want to slap him upside the head. As you keep reading the rest of the poem in the book you find out that time and space have done it for him.

It is a good poem but the sucker does generate questions in me. If men my own age look at me and see their moms and I look at them and see them for who they are in the here and now then I can see why there is an uptick of Rocky Road ice creme and beer on Saturday nights.

I'm a Cherry Vanilla person with leanings to Vanilla Fudge Swirl but I have taken the pledge not to indulge for a bit. I have brick walls of my own that I'm trying not to slam into.

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Poetry In Plain Sight - Armando Flores Jr.

Men are human beings. Women are human beings. When you separate the cruff and the extreme forms of base nature people there are some good folks who go through bad things. Some of them involve love.

If you are wise you write a poem about it. It was a hot Saturday afternoon but thank goodness the air conditioner in the library was working. This is Armando Flores, Jr. with his poem about the passing of love, Eulogy.



For more info on Armando or his work visit his blog at http://charactersoftheplay.blogspot.com

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Poetry In Plain Sight - CaLokie

I have always loved poetry. I use to participate in a poetry group. I wrote ok but not great poetry. I stopped because the pain of living grew to be greater that the pain of creating.

We need poetry. One of the things I want to see change is the visibility of poetry in our society. Not just by the anointed; it needs to be spoken by those of us on the front lines of life radio back to those to come we lived as best we can and here is what we found on the journey.

This is a touch-up of humanity in these times. This is my small contribution, long delayed.

CaLokie has seen a thing or two and works hard at crafting poems as a reminder that 140 characters does not always cut it - we need to soak up feelings, meaning and intent.

This is CaLokie with a poem about the six month anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti.



The Back Story

I have a memory, me, Alice Dayton, Don, CaLokie and a few others were sitting in a restaurant. We were trying to figure out how to advance and move poetry out of the niche or closed society it was in the early 1990s.

We didn't have an answer. We didn't have the full blown Internet that we have today.

A few weeks back I was curled up in the bed remembering what a crummy excuse for a human I was when I looked at the cover of To Kill A Mockingbird. One book, one creative act can change a heart, soul or way of life.

You don't have to write a book. A poem will do. Poems are really good at getting to the essence of our being. You don't have to be perfect.

You just have to write it down.

Or say the words.

Or listen.

Anyway, for how ever long it last I will try to post a poet reading his or her work or interview a poet. The video will be homespun, not fancy and gently edited. All poetry belongs to the creators; they maintain their copyright.

All I'm doing is recording what I experienced on that day. Poetry in plain sight.

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Saturday Stuff To Do

If you can't find something to do Saturday July 17th you need to be shamed.

On the poetry tip there is a reading by three fine representations of So. Cal poets at the Santa Catalina Branch of the Pasadena Public Library on 999 E. Washington Blvd. The lyrical flow starts at 3 and ends at 5.

L.A. BlogHers are meeting up at Mel's Diner in Hollywood on July 17th as well. If you can take the Metro Red Line and save yourself some parking grief. This is also a 3-5pm event. And no, I haven't figured out how to be in two places at the same time.

In-between Pasadena and Hollywood is Glendale and they are going to have a downtown Vintage Car and Rock Show starting around 6pm I believe.

Have that urge for meat on a stick? OC County Fair is also in play with Weird Al Yankovic involved in some way or another.

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Don't Play That Song on the Finally Friday Freakout

There comes a point when a song isn't just a song. It is a combined lesson in storytelling, musicianship and all the elements coming together to draw your attention to a different level.

At the time Aretha was the only singer that I cared about. I was 10 years old so I could be excused for my musical one track mind. I did like other women singers but Aretha was my queen, my only queen of soul.



This song just made me want to listen to it over and over again. The piano, her voice and something about how it was constructed was astounding. It was like unlocking a puzzle, a musical puzzle. It would be a long time before I understood the true meaning of the song but musically I kept asking "How did she do that?"

If I could create something so tight and perfect that lasted three minutes I'd be a happy girl.

Still striving.

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