No Poetic Justus? Rapp Saloon
You had to be there. I could say all kinds of stuff about how great, how wonderfully eclectic and totally alive the evening was. You couldn't even call it a "reading," exactly, with several people doing songs and comedy. When is comedy not a poem? When is a song in musical notes more like a poem than the poem itself? I don't know. It's like trying to ask, when is truth?, or what is the precise chemical composition of the poetic phrase or stanza that gives you a chill, or makes your fingertips tingle, or finds you nodding or moving your body in a strange new dance right along with the poet? Rapp was like that last night -- a self-combusting glow made up of equal parts nerviness, tart humor, melody, and brave new heart. I sat and tried to write it all down, gorgeous phrase by phrase, but it's really impossible: Tracy Witt's "imaginary millionaires on a sinking ship." The impossible-to-quantify "Jimmy Durante cell phone song" by the inimitable Dana Snow. Michelle Daugherty's moving "there are mirrors used to be in pretty rooms," asking the simple, true question: "why can't we want what we are?" Then there's Rick Weinburger -- imagining a crossroads where gods of classic Greek mythology bump against the metallic ping of 19th- and 20th-century technology. And after Rick, Robin Manos, the featured poet, offering a series of sweetly delivered but ennervating poems about sex and love (and sex) on the dark side of the street. Next up, Patrick Hanifan, breaking Robin's bewitching spell with laugh-out-loud tales about 1) his crummy car, 2) why other people have it backward, 3) the oklahoma bowling-alley karaoke queen, and 4) all the while snapping the stuff like crazy, 100 ways to astound your friends using common carton-stuff bubble-wrap.
Next up, the moon man himself (and Rapp co-host), Gary Justice ("I seek sacred dark spaces between the syncopation/and try to find the mind of God"). Terry McCarty countered his dry McCarty-esque "job interview" with a poem to his bride-to-be, Valerie ("I locked the doors and left the keys inside...") that had me turning my head around to see, sitting in the back row, the glowing woman who inspired so much love. Next, Neil Aitken, reading from two new chapbooks: "No Matter Death" and "Through Fields" (from "Morning in America," written after the McVeigh execution: "she wants to write her fear and her anger on his cement-pale skin. "// "...on the freeway.../where stray dogs mark their exit from this world...") -- oh, I give up. You just can't catch the beauty and depth of Neil's poems in any single line or two. You have to read it from beginning to end.
Donn Dedonn, whose Heather Long remains in Canada pending INS correction of its terrible mistake, brought her to us through his simple, humbling gratitude ("I tasted your fear with the tip of my tongue and found it sweet..." "In the warmth of the candlelight, you call me beautiful. Thank you."). I read next; followed by wiry-guy Gabe Cousins, sharing a few of his 180,000 words of "music and mime"; then by Rapp host Pete Justus, closing the evening with words about loss and courage -- "You can't be hurt without loving.../you can't love without taking a chance" -- that say out loud, for me, what the Rapp Saloon is all about. You should go down there some Friday night.
Rapp Saloon
hosted by Pete Justus and Gary Justice
Friday nights, sign-ups 7:30 p.m.,
reading starts at 8:00
Located in the Hostelling International building
at 1436 2nd St. in Santa Monica
(between Broadway and Santa Monica Blvd.)
Parking available in nearby parking structures.
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