The Night I Go Power Mad with Poetry

You’re invited to the most esoteric Saturday Night You’ll Ever Hear

This Saturday I’m doing something a little special: I’m hosting a Storytime hour where I’ll be reading a selection of my favorite poetry and short prose.

(See occasion details at end of today’s story).

“Reading the old stories” — Susie and Brenda Marston looking at a vintage copy of Angry Women.

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It’s an invitation-only weekly gathering of word-nerds/sensualists, that my friend Sage Lee has been hosting for a few years.

Every Saturday at 5pm PST, Sage reads to a couple dozen of us on Zoom. The listeners, poetry lovers of all kinds, aren’t on camera except to say hello and goodbye.

I’m usually lying down on my bed, listening to Sage read, with my eyes closed or sipping on my milkshake. We are literally read to, for an hour, and I can’t tell you what a luxury it is.

We begin with poetry and ends with prose. The reason our little clan is so faithful— aside from our leader’s dulcet tones— is his taste is exquisite. We’re in the hands of a master. I’ve started reading queerish Homeric poetry adaptations and WWII-era Romanian surrealism — he always points me to the best parts!

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I could have had my soul removed at a young age in order to have one mounted on rubber.

Of course, there were disadvantages too.

When the weather was too hot it would weigh down on me quite heavily.

And eventually it had nibbled away a little at the inside of my body. I had some small sores at the corners of my lips.

But those were small inconveniences compared with the advantages I’m getting. And in the end, why argue about it, my own soul— as the soul-remover had told me— was too damaged.

I should consider myself lucky to have been able to get myself a false one.¹

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Last week Sage asked if I’d like to be the “substitute teacher” for an upcoming “Storytime” while he takes a break. I trembled in my poetry boots!

Of course, I said yes . . . but I’m sweating.

I have two main poets’ wells to draw from, in my family history. My parents, Bill and Elizabeth, met at Cal during what was called the Berkeley Renaissance, (particularly Bill Everson and Jack Spicer) and the North Beach poetry of the 1950s.

My undergrad parents-to-be would go on their early dates to readings at City Lights and drag nights at the The Black Cat bar. Yes, I am historically-envious!

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A diamond

Is there

At the heart of the moon or the branches or my nakedness

And there is nothing in the universe like diamond

Nothing in the whole mind.

The poem is a seagull resting on a pier at the end of the ocean.

A dog howls at the moon

A dog howls at the branches

A dog howls at the nakedness

A dog howling with pure mind.

I ask for the poem to be as pure as a seagull’s belly.²

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There was always poetry in the house, particularly California writers. My dad became close in the 60s to poet Gary Snyder,³ and both of them were especially interested in pre-contact, pre-colonial storytelling from the first peoples of California. They collaborated on site-specific translations, journals, and books, like The Coyote Reader.

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Young brodiaea plant,

you must come up quickly,

hurry to me!

Spring salmon,

shine upriver quickly,

hurry to me!

My back has become like a mountain ridge,

so thin,

so hungry.⁴

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Fast forward to the 1970s: In Los Angeles, I swam into high school women’s liberation. The women’s political scene was filled with poetry and performance art. The activists I admired were poets— and I realize looking back on it, I thought being a feminist WAS to be a poet.

—Think of Kate Millet, Maya Angelou, Marge Piercy, Audre Lorde, Muriel Rukeyser, Alta, Judy Grahn. It was endemic. There were dozens of indie women’s journals and newspapers at the time, and they all ran poetry. It was our community lyric.

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I’m not a girl

I’m a hatchet

I’m not a hole

I’m a whole mountain

I’m not a fool

I’m a survivor

I’m not a pearl

I’m the Atlantic Ocean

I’m not a good lay

I’m a straight razor

look at me as if you had never seen a woman before

I have red, red hands and much bitterness⁵

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In the late 70s, my dad would take me to Wednesday night’s open reading at a broken-down meeting hall in Venice— this was when the beach community of Venice was a boho barrio. You could live for $200 a month and walk around sandy and barefoot anyplace.

This meeting hall had quite the collection of tenants: You’d see the AA meetings break up, and then poets would show up with cans of Colt 45 and crusty sheafs of typewritten manuscripts.

Guess who the first Venice woman poet I heard there, circa 1978?

Exene Cervenka! She read the very poems that would in a couple years would be put to music on X’s first LP: “Los Angeles.” I remember her dropping half her photocopies on the floor, apologizing and cursing, and then reading “The World’s a Mess It’s In My Kiss.”

No one is united

And all things are untied

Perhaps we're boiling over inside

They've been telling lies

Who's been telling lies?

There are no angels

There are devils in many ways

Take it like a man⁶

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Storytime March 14

If you’re the type who loves to read to, at bedtime or anytime, let me invite you to my Storytime this March 14, at 5pm. It’s a zoom gathering. There’s no fee, there’s nothing to buy or sign, this is just a downhome poetry hoot.

I’m be reading poetry from: Diane di Prima, Diane Wakoski, Dorothy Allison, Judy Grahn, Wendy Rose, Danielle Willis, and Margaret Atwood. I think they’ll be a few things you haven’t heard before.

To get the link and password, I’ll ask you to email me and introduce yourself if we don’t know each other already! I’m at: Susie at susiebright dot com.

If you send me a request by Saturday morning, I’ll write you back and give you the golden ticket!

P.S. Send me your cell number if you want a reminder.

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In Case You Missed It

1. From The Confession of a False Soul by Ilarie Voronca.

2. Excerpt from A Diamond by Jack Spicer

3. I produced two of Gary Snyder’s live readings on audiobook, which are a tour de force: RipRap and Cold Mountain Poems and Danger on Peaks.

4. Variation of a Karuk prayer shared by Georgia Orcutt to Bill Bright

5. From Edward the Dyke by Judy Grahn. The first poem.

6. Excerpt from “The World’s a Mess It’s In My Kiss,” by Exene Cervenka