Welcome to the San Francisco Open Mic Poetry Podcast TV Show.
I'm Joan Galvand and I'm the host for Special Edition.
I hope you enjoy this next bit of time that we're going to spend with our guests, Stephen
Coppell, a San Francisco poet and activist.
Welcome Stephen.
Thank you and we're here with Joan Galvand as our host and I appreciate sharing this
time with you.
Howdy.
I've got a little treat for all of us.
May I show it?
Yes.
Lucy Ladybug and she's got a little something, a surprise perhaps, for you.
Oh, is this one of Lucy's poems?
No, she picked it up, I think she was at 550 feet altitude and then she just wailed over
her.
So she decided to share it with us.
Okay.
And then.
Where's Olive?
Search the spinach, Popeyes shut, shielding the good humor man from a sorbet assassin,
bull's bellow to a key fellow who unlocks doors to ice cream flavors only imagined matadors,
allergic to red capes and red roses, sneeze, forcing jets to circle cabbage patches sewn
on a fatigue of jackets, zippers stuck in traffic.
That must be a difficult situation for those poor zippers to take.
I enjoy writing this kind of surreal zany bits of good verse because it brings me a great
deal of pleasure and joy as you might imagine.
And I want to thank you for reading it, you did so well.
Lucy says, yes, Joan's a great presenter of work.
Thank you.
Well, let's hear a little bit about you.
Stephen is a active member of the San Francisco poetry community.
He started with his series at the San Francisco Public Library called Word Painters.
It was an hour long event where he would present for local poets.
It was great success.
And after that, or during that time, excuse me, he also hosted a poetry hour for San Francisco's
Lighthouse for the Blind.
Every Friday morning, Stephen would have a poet on to read their work for the challenge
of sight, we would say.
Stephen also has a one-man play, which is called Poet with Props.
And his books include two-chap books, crux, and cracks, and also his full-length collections
include spritz, tender absurdities, and picnic poetry.
Stephen curates poetry for events and reads at open mics and is a very common feature
around the city.
Although what comes out of that poet's mouth is somewhat uncommon, you'd have to say.
We could say that.
I just said it.
Would you care to read a couple of your poems now that we've heard from Lucy?
Thanks, Lucy.
And thanks, Joan.
What if I said no?
That would be a little bit unusual for everybody concerned.
I'd better say yes, and we're going to go right into this remarkable piece called Basic
Training, which goes like this.
You should see how many medals I don't have.
I could barely find my finger pulling a trigger, especially that one.
This lieutenant leaves his toupee prey for hip cats and spats, wolves in sheep's clothing,
mad hatters, buried in the hamper, grunts march a platoon of ragtag, onion skin, thin blankets,
sheets, into whirlpools sudsy, a fluvium whose iron will wilts now, in the face of a ferocious
detergent, snail that salt in the smalls of backs, nervous, trigger happy, one-eyed jacks,
order all patches off duty.
The beauty of leave is a shore of dinas.
Beerenberger's a buck, fries on the house, bald officer first, up the ladder.
Thank you for that wonderful play on words.
Would you like to read one more poem before I ask you a few questions?
I'd love it.
And a bridge, I can't read it like this because the text is only on one side.
So, engineering with an Egyptian ruler, Sefti raises the bridge of his nose after measurements
reveal one nostril is one ox lip lower than the space a face might make, smelling the
selling of out-of-date perfume.
Near thieves, baskets of wicker, thicker than a ticker tape charade, float past a makeup
man squeezing tubes of face paint while sag member Moses holding roses, poses in a jumpsuit.
In military garb, a pontonier, praised to raw, speaks to a metaphysical flaw in his
mentalist bridge, lowering expectations, raising risks for leapers of faith, raw-raw
jumpers in mid-air states of mind, deny they intend to frighten Pharaoh's forces into the
river of Noah return.
Thank you, Stephen.
I have a few questions.
I'd like to hear them.
Maybe I can answer some.
So, when you're writing this, as you said, absurd or you call them tender absurdities.
What aspect of your nature do you explore when you're thinking and writing?
And hopefully writing after the thinking.
Yes.
And the question is a good one.
And my response is I'm always assessing and making full, hopefully full use of the poet
and the person's sense of whimsy.
Because what underlies all of the thinking and all the poetry here and elsewhere over
the past 16 or so years has to do with my having to pleasure myself by having as much
fun as I can, Joan, with the language.
And thus, if I do that with all sincerity and goodness of heart, then I can be proud
of what it is that I'm sharing with the public because it makes them feel better.
Your next question.
Is there one?
Yes, there is one.
I'll take it.
What is it about who you are, maybe a little bit about how you live in San Francisco, where
you live, that sets you apart from the other poets in your community?
And the first thing I can think of is that I can call on my own personal magic carpet
to enter or to stand or even to sit cross-legged on, and thus I'm able to access the imagination
that I carry with me, taken around by the magic carpet, so that I'm fully exposed to
what it is that excites me, pleases me, humbles me, and I'll leave it at that.
Okay.
I think it's poetry time.
Shall we go for that?
Magic carpet.
Okay.
Let's hear a couple of poems.
This is called, Don't fret the fruit, boxed bananas, bunched and sweaty, unzipped yellow
jackets, flaunt pulpy flesh, arousing raisins to call in sick for tomorrow's grapevine shoot.
Another mulch raises a stink, scaring off killer A's, B's, C's, while Ms. Tangerine
blossoms into a lower case, alfabetter, and sister compost stops demanding a raisin salary.
Aristocratic, aristocrat, and thin-skinned, petulant musket grapes demand foot massages
from winemaker and as deluci, you knew I was going to say that, whose wild stomping cracks
up casks still standing out of tension.
Yakima Valley's Granny Smith shimmies out of a summer blush in a rush past the barn
poem, Leaving home without her usual escort, though kernels offered to call her a cob.
Who knew our rural cab was driven by Mickey Mellon, who can't elope after all, since rumble
seats still sticky from last night's fair, Ms. Letitia, honey potted.
Thanks for smiling.
You're probably still wondering if Mortis comes, so we'll get to that in time.
I think that you may have invented a form.
It seems to be you used triple entendres and, yes, a lot of wordplay.
That's part of the fun that I conceive, think about, and think, well, which series of words
would be appropriate in telling a little modified story and still being fun for the listener?
So you picked right up on it, as I knew you would.
Thanks.
I have one other question before we hear a couple of more poems.
I know you in San Francisco for quite a while, and I know you as a very generous participant
in the poetry community, helping other poets along, mentoring poets.
Why don't you talk a little bit about how poets can help each other?
Very thoughtful question, and I would expect that as fellow poets in San Francisco do expect
if they're thinking and talking about Joan Gelfand, because Joan has a breadth of experience
and background in helping various people actually from coast to coast, of which I'm thrilled
to be able to talk about myself.
Now to answer the question, I would say that I don't just accommodate any words out of
any poet's mouth because I don't believe them.
They have to show me, they have to prove to me time and time again, just by my listening,
or going to a wonderful venue.
We have several wonderful venues where poets gather to present their work in San Francisco,
and we're very pleased to share that with a variety of people.
One of the people that I've noted and heralded and tried to sponsor or help along the way
all of this person now is way beyond my particular level of thinking and word play, which is
a gentleman, young gentleman, I won't say his name, but certainly younger than myself
with the name of Clyde Always.
Because this man is worthy in so many aspects of being a solid and thoughtful citizen as
well as being excited about his prospect as a writer of poetry primarily, I've wanted
to assist him in whatever small or modest way that I can.
I thank you for mentioning that aspect of my nature as you have for our universal camera
here, and I want to continue being thoughtful and helpful when I can.
So thanks for mentioning that to our audience.
Well, I think it's much appreciated.
I hope so.
I'm quite sure it is, and it gives me a great deal of quiet repose at certain times, and
then when I'm sufficiently in need myself of certain kinds of stimulation, poetic and
literary in general, then I take many steps leading down to the magic carpet, ask permission
if I can ride, and in given so, then I'm taken away to that very special place or even places,
and I'm now ready to read a next piece that was forthcoming after a very rigorous magic
carpet ride, you can't believe the exposure to the air that I feel.
It arouses a great deal of delight because this long, blonde locks that I have blowing
in the wind, that itself is a very purposeful thing, and usually I let the wind give me
a scalp massage.
Shall we take the time to look at another?
Okay, more serious.
Water will not wait.
The child I seek dwells far from here.
Her breath is song.
In praise, cactus raise, spiny arms, clouds shake their bellies, ravines fill with water.
Her gaiety split seeds pirouetting to the ground.
Her cool brow comforts the exhausted breeze.
Coyotes gather to hear the hush of her advice.
Whose child is she, stepping over stones in souls, soft as moss?
Hope is she, and not forsaken along this stumble road, my path.
Yes, a little bit more serious.
Okay.
One more poem, and then maybe read something from your most recent book.
Okay.
We'll go for the prop, since it's a little bit unusual for poets to have it.
Oh my goodness, look at that.
For lunch, even little rabbits take time out.
For lunch, hungry for munchies, frantic rabbit chases after Alice scatterbrained palace.
Thief, whose holy camisole keeps dropping carrots on Persian runners, stretched out on a marble
palisade, dreaming of marathons.
And scenic mandalay, serf giving birth to Dorothy Lamour, Serong folded just right, practicing
her habit of advising each rabbit, forget Alice, hip hop to Dallas, and sweet baby carrots
from celebrated, pixelated, urban farmer Francis.
Stephen, thank you so much.
I think we're probably rounding the corner of our special edition.
One last question for you.
Have you written what you would consider your masterpiece yet?
Yes, and I even brought it.
Do you want to hear it?
Excellent.
What a nice feeling.
You've written your masterpiece.
What a nice feeling.
Technic poetry.
Yes, indeed.
Okay.
Just got startled, carried away in this particular piece, has great appeal to me and great appeal
to any listener or set of listeners south of the border, and certainly are wonderful
and fine, talented, and I was going to say, and I will say, are generously gifted director
John Rose, as we heard earlier.
So I'm going to dedicate the reading of this particular piece, although I've read it,
rather will read it in English, written in English, spiced with a few words in Espanol.
I did not pick chapulta peck out of just any pack, senor.
Nervous and blindfolded, jaguar piñata and I, trade blows, and cell phone numbers, haul
in split decision, then pose for photographs, while tour guide Luis is pleased to hand out
bus passes to travelers not booking boroughs or sitting on their asses, will our taxi to
Zacatecas take us past the silver mine expecting a spring polish, even though undergrads with
a sterling reputation might hop off and on their study van, lingering longer over fermentation
vats than it takes to analyze the local corona.
Tired, dehydrated, smiling salza and corn tortillas, we lunch at Cantina Rowina, a bunch
of campers happy.
Our dictionaries are in Spanish and Aguascalientes, best westerns, best rates, are exclusively
for the guest snorkel dressed in wetsuit, face mask, fins.
For you my dear, our universal audience, it's been a pleasure being here.
Thank you.
One would rule in the world if you had kept cityers on necklaces.
What are they talking about?
