Hello, welcome to Penn Women Presents, creative people talking about creativity.
I'm Eileen Malone, and my guest for this show is Marvin Heemstra.
Now, Marvin is a poet, but he's also a humorist, which is kind of rare today.
We don't see too much of that, do we, Marvin?
And he's pretty much the man about town in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Very plugged in, very involved in what's going on.
And we'll be talking about that during the show.
But I want to begin with this marvelous publication of which Marvin, you are the editor-in-chief,
aren't you?
Yes.
And this comes out on a regular basis in which various poets' chat books are reviewed.
And not critiqued, but reviewed.
Reviewed and understanding and celebrated.
And celebrated, yes.
This is not a mean-spirited publication.
This is a very generous, open-hearted, sharing kind of thing that you're doing.
And I love it.
You've done a couple of, well, two of chat books of mine already.
And I'm thrilled, absolutely thrilled.
And words getting out there, you're getting more and more.
One day it's going to be probably twice the size or something, I don't know.
But the interesting thing about this is that you write this column that, well, you know
it, but instead of me trying to define it or describe it, and let's turn it over to
you now, and instead of just reading it, why don't you perform it for us?
I would love to.
All right.
The title is called Feedback.
The subtitle is called A Poet Wrangler at Work.
Tonight we have time for just one short poem from each of you.
Give it your best.
You'll hear it from Willie Chiseled.
Okay, cool.
Well, I have ten poems tonight, one for each finger.
They're tightly bound in a neat organic sequence, so I'll just have to do them all.
Time.
Next we have Paulette Nassau.
Hi, everybody.
Here is a world premiere audience participation poem that requires everyone in the audience
to strip to the waist.
No need to rush, time.
Next we have Roofie Cockle.
I think Mother Nature is awesome.
How about you?
The title of my poem tonight is Earth Tickle.
We will all close our eyes for five minutes so we can share the wonderful sound of raindrops
hitting the lid of an 18-inch pizza box.
Time.
Meet Cynthia May.
This is a one-word, extremely urgent survival poem.
It's untitled.
Sponge, sponge, sponge, sponge, sponge, time.
Last but not least, we have Harry Buns.
My poem is titled Play-Doh's Squeeze.
It begins with an enlightened mirror image, scary but oh so meaningful from there we move
into serious philosophical debate just like that symposium but with a full bar.
After that we languish briefly in a sweet lyric, indulgence, and then we submerge ourselves
in a spirited apocalyptic vision all the Disney characters bravely face their final destiny
without any licensing rights except Pluto then, time.
What a wonderful group tonight.
Thank you all.
Oh that's marvelous.
So for the watching audience that isn't familiar with perhaps going to some poetry readings,
could you describe what you're doing in this piece here?
Okay, I'm covering the extremes and delightful things that happen and I of course thought
this was over the top.
I performed it now three times and everybody comes up to me afterwards, I've seen poets
just like that so it really isn't over the top after all and it's important to celebrate
the tremendous variety of poets that are out there.
Oh it is and that's wonderfully performed.
And just to make a quick mention of your, is that your publisher?
Janie Dresser and I single-handedly do the entire publication, it's just the two of us
and we work by Osmosis, we don't really have meetings, we just compile all the reviews
and put them together and that's that.
We do have a new website which we're coming up.
Maybe we can have the year...
Which just...
Earl.
It was just created this week actually.
That should be coming up and I want to mention a couple of the books, the Judy Wells Wonderful
Little Lulu Talks with Vincent Van Gogh which is very fine and moving right along.
We have Ed My Q's book Mind Walking and we have Lucille Langde's Wonderful God of the
Jellyfish and last but not least we have 23rd Street Poets.
Ta-da!
Of which I am one.
Of which you are one with Alice Rogoff, Sally Anne Fry, Tressa Berman and Caesar Love and
people really have liked those books.
They have, oh that's marvelous to hear.
So we're very happy that we can do it.
We both are involved in many other things but somehow we managed to...
I think it's great and I know you are involved in a lot of things and another thing that
you're involved with is, and I love this name, French Kiss Destiny.
Where did you get that?
Well it just came to me.
It's a humor...
It's really a book performed, filled with philosophy and all kinds of things.
This is a DVD.
This is a DVD and I'll share some poems in a minute and the happy surprise was it's been
very successful.
It came out in late 2007.
It's still selling worldwide and I'm still getting reviews.
I just love it.
Wow.
A wonderful rattle review in December 15th.
Rattle is a nice publication.
Right.
So it's a very...
Now is this one that you took with you to Scotland?
No, that was in the past.
Okay.
Okay.
But I'd like to share a couple of poems.
Let's do it.
This is called Middlefinger Lament.
I should say the photography was done by Mark Hodgkis and this one was filmed on the top
of Corona Heights clinging to a rock in the wind which was very effective and this is
called Middlefinger Lament.
Middlefinger.
Not Littlefinger.
Be careful.
Middlefinger.
Okay.
There we go.
I can count on my toes but can I count on you?
My thumb will print anything if he isn't sore.
Second finger pushes buttons like she's been there before.
Third finger is a nice guy but he makes a sorry point.
He says when I'm up all alone I could start a war.
Fourth finger's feelings are never out of joint.
Pinky aims at the North Star.
They have a spiffy jazz bar.
Scott Joplin opens tonight.
There's only two dollars till seven.
Don't miss it.
I can count on my fingers.
I can count on my toes but can I count on you?
Will I ever make it to ten if I count on you?
There's a touch of something more than just humor going on.
There's a lot going on.
People pick up the war thing and I've got tremendous response on that.
This is a more traditional poem but I think lots of fun.
The whole book relates very much the individual to the universe and which is very important
if we're not part of the universe.
We're not here.
Okay.
This is titled My Best Audience.
Where the heaven is my audience.
She's painting mandalas on her toenails and reading Jung to Kitty in a bombed-out garden.
He's doing chin-ups after a run around the lake.
He's on a long trip on a landmine today.
Mountains sleeping in.
Cougar wiped out in her den.
Big Horn Ram winks at his rival.
Where aware is my audience?
Ah, the kind sky, blue sky.
Angels with human pretensions, poor devils.
The deep blue sea, especially the jellyfish, they've read all my books on quiet, tropical
nights.
The jellies chant my entire opus from the top.
You're not even looking at the page.
You know them by heart, don't you?
I think that's very, very important for any writer to know the work very, very well.
It's good to have it in front of you.
So when you do perform you have podium?
I have podium but I move around and depending on the situation I often have a lighting
person.
Lighting?
Lighting.
Really?
And my famous Marilyn Monroe poem which I'm not doing tonight.
Why are you not doing it tonight?
Well, because I'm doing other things.
The Lighting Man in Edinburgh actually.
Now this is at the Fringe.
At the Fringe in 1999 actually created an image of Marilyn Monroe flying over the audience
and the poem was spoken to her and directed to her.
I see.
I see.
So all those things help.
Well you are certainly out and about so you've been to Scotland and you've, you also were
nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, I'm told.
Right, that was the.
How'd that happen?
Well, it just happened.
It was actually one of the first small edition books that was nominated in 1990.
Is that this little guy?
This is this little guy.
This is a beauty, this is a beauty.
And it was shortlisted and almost made it.
There was a battle between some other writers and I almost won by default, but I didn't.
But anyway, it was a fun thing.
Isn't it beautiful?
Let me see if I can just, look at this, well that, let me just take a page.
It's a wonderful letter press.
Isn't that gorgeous?
It's so exquisite and it's so sparsely laid out and tastefully, tastefully done.
Let me share the very first poem which is short.
The title is Dream Tease which means that.
T-E-E-S.
Each poem has a T-shirt.
Ah.
Design.
Yeah.
In front of it, this first one is titled The Troll of Spring Dreams is Busy Under the Bridge.
With shameless petals desperate for love, cherry tree is easily seduced by a royal flutter
of sky blue butterflies.
One ivory Buddha eye dozing off on the throne of each wing.
Under words, butterflies nap for a blissful satin moment until a mean robin walks by.
The host of wings open, guess what?
No cherry tree, there's only a polka dot sky.
That's sweet.
It's very sweet.
All right.
So we've been to the Embraer Festival and here we are in San Francisco and where did
we come from?
Where was home?
We came from the heart of Iowa in the middle of the prairie with the wind blowing and my
father fed a thousand cattle and my first experience entertaining, I would scoop the
corn cobs out of the bunk and I would hop in the bunk and I would tap dance and sing,
oh what a beautiful morning to 1,000 cattle who had no choice but to listen to me before
I scooped the—
A rapt audience.
The bunks full of corn again, so I realized the power of performance and I've been really—
Hooked ever since.
Hooked ever since.
But you not only do you like to perform now because you are performing your written word,
but you have a piano background, don't you?
Right.
I've always played the piano.
I started teaching the piano when I was 14 because my music teacher wanted some help
and so I've done that throughout my life and I coach both poets, writers and musicians.
That's become my specialty.
Interperforming.
The importance of performing correctly and presenting yourself and it's a niche that
very few people deal with.
What do you mean performing correctly?
Well, you have to do more than play the thing correctly.
You have to relate to the audience.
You have to get into their souls.
When you walk in, you have to open up to them.
You don't walk in with one shoulder, blocking yourself from the audience.
So it's sort of an opening.
Yeah.
And it's very important and I went to graduate school at Indiana University, which is a big
music school and so I have those contacts.
And you know what?
That musical background bleeds over into the lyricism of your poetry, of your work, doesn't
it?
And that's a great segue into this poem from both French Kiss Destiny and the Poets XI
Anthology, which we'll talk about a little later.
This has an introduction, as many of my poems do.
I love prehistoric rock painting, all kinds of animals, hand prints gotten totally out
of hand, a rock hot cave diva dancing her dream.
People tended to do much better before they tried to think.
And the title of the poem is, carbon dating can be pretty sexy, but remember forever isn't.
Long long ago before people got stuck in thoughts, giraffes galloped by joyful notes bouncing
on the landscape.
People painted those giraffes on solid rock.
Rock loved the paintings, flatly refused to give them up to the hot tongue, glissando
winds or the cold rain cloud bursts.
I print poems, heart scapes high on a cliff.
Rock face will cherish my words and hold them tight till earth grumbles.
Thanks a lot for the memory, and snorts the last snort and explodes what will be left.
Thus it's been around, and countless space-born buttons still on the card, dreaming of a good
home on a spider fingers hot jazz bass player's best.
There's a lot of rhythm.
Yes, there is.
Yes, there is.
I'm actually working with a drummer to...
Ah, a little percussion going on.
Yeah.
You started, or got hooked, or whatever the word is, into knowing that you wanted to
write humorous poetry.
How?
Well, I wanted to communicate.
From the last century where almost all poetry was extraordinarily dreary, and so I said there
must be another way.
I entered the Velomontaville competition in 1986, and as it happened, I entered three
short humorous poems, and there was a tremendous response.
There was a standing ovation, and I said, well...
You won.
I won, and this is...
You know how unusual that is.
Right.
Yeah.
And we've talked about this.
It's much easier to bring someone to tears than it is to get them to laugh, especially
with the written word, and you did it.
And I mean, normally judges, for some reason, it's always the tragic poem that they put
to the top.
And you won.
Yeah.
It's unbelievable.
I was very happy about it.
They liked me, and then they had me do a feature program a few months later, which is unusual
for them, and that went extremely well, and so I was hooked in on the trail.
Addicted.
Addicted forever.
Forever.
And you said we were...
Oh, this one.
This one.
We talked about this because I'm looking at the clock, and we have a bit to talk about
yet.
I'm going to hold this up so our camera can see it.
This is a wonderful competition.
Explain this.
Yeah.
2008 was a third year.
Jack Hirschman.
Oh, who's Jack Hirschman?
Tell us.
Well, he's a wonderful, actually, pre-beat poet who's been in San Francisco for a long
time and is very well known here and in Europe and everywhere, and he selected the poems from
the 11 San Francisco districts.
That's the 11.
The 11 San Francisco districts.
Okay.
It's a wonderful...
Now, how did each...
How did these poets get...
Well, we all...
Was there a call for poems?
Yeah, there was a call for poems.
There were about 3,000 entries, and 30 poets were selected.
So it was...
Did Jack select them?
He selected them all.
So that...
Wow.
That was a hard job.
It was a wonderful event.
There was an event in the branch libraries and then a big event.
This is connected with the libraries then?
Yes, right.
How is that?
Well, the friends of the library do lots of things, and they've been behind Jack.
He was a poet laureate for a while.
That's expired, but he's still doing the good things.
And so do the poets from here give readings at the libraries?
Is that what happens?
Yes, there was...
The winners at each branch library had an evening, and that was great, and then all of
them performed at the main library.
That's fantastic.
So it was great.
And I'd like to share a couple of those poems.
Yes, I'd like to hear.
This is a...
Out of 3,000 poems, my God.
This is a serious...
More or less serious poem for me.
I've always been interested in Native American lore since I was a very small child.
I was reading every book...
Because of where you grew up?
Probably.
Yeah.
My grandfather was still associating with the Native Americans when he was a young
person.
This is titled, The Poet's Incantation.
As a Native American dreams with bliss of the grand dance entry that begins each pow-wow,
a poet can't wait to enter the circle to unearth a new poem.
The circle of life is the poet's stamping ground.
Just how can a poet enter, sneak in like a pack rat, trying to steal the sun, close
eyes tight, and run in as fast as you can, approach the circle slowly with a carpe diem
grin.
Before I begin, I touch every bead, tickle each eagle feather.
I dance into the circle, I dance on rhythm, and rhythm dances on me.
When I dance, time stops to look in the mirror and smile.
Then I become a great blue hair and a buffalo showing off a wind in an instant tall grass
rippling, a hummingbird looking in on a cactus flower, and every shade of light and darkness.
As I dance, every bead, each eagle feather chance, dear beloved poet log, every morning
with great care.
Let your words dance, be everything glow when the sun goes down over the lake.
Choose words that bloom in the candlelight.
You know, you could sing that.
Yeah.
Couldn't you?
There's so much music in there.
It's a very, very musical thing.
Very.
And then back to humor.
I've been working on poems about frogs for years.
Let me see this.
Yeah.
You'll see it in a minute.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
And there'll be a large book titled Frogs in Depth, and this will be one of them.
And it's titled Three Poet Frogs About to Croak.
It's a balmy early morning at the pond quiet except a January fly snores, and a hungry
toad dreams she swallows the entire universe with only one burp.
The three poet frogs always wake up early to chat before those shameless dragonflies
shatter the serenity absolute, lascivious swoops and come hither tail English.
Attempted poeticide is everyday stuff on this pond.
One tried to push me off my favorite lily pad yesterday, I almost croaked.
Butters poet frog the first, a serious Shakespearean sonnet snob.
You're just too sensitive for your own A-B-A-B-C-D-C-D-E-F-E-F-G-G's be more accessible.
Croaks poet frog the second, the one with a tongue to remember.
I want a po-fan to find my poem delicious, juicy, gulp it down whole.
Poet frog the third rolls his wise eyes, chance his omniscient dry or wet omnipotent credo.
Never indulge in a single syllable without a kind and exhilarating purpose.
That includes your final croak.
A frisky dragonfly gets fresh with the air, morning opens.
Three poet frogs doze and put their croaks on hold.
Now I know why you wouldn't let me pick that up.
That's marvelous.
Yeah, it's fun.
Where do you write?
A where or when?
Both.
Both.
When and where?
Well, much in the morning.
I'm a very early person.
How are you?
I'm up at 5.30 and I have my breakfast and my mind works for about three hours.
And then it's kind of rudimentary for the rest of the day, so I've learned that.
You go with your power when it is.
I can do nine hours of work in those three hours.
Because you tap into where the energy is.
Yeah, and then it's done and then the Mickey Mouse thing happens.
And then you go do lunch and dinner and all that stuff.
Things that you don't have to think about.
So I'm lucky that I've found that.
Yes, and if people want to get a hold of you, which they very well may, because I know there
will be a great interest, especially in your seasonal review.
I know there's a lot of people out there that would love to send you.
So we're going to put up your email address so that they know they can write you direct.
They don't have to go through us.
They can just write you direct.
Drollmarve.
Marv.
At aol.com.
Easy.
And you will answer them.
I very much will, and I'll let them know what we can use and what we can't use at the
moment.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Already like everyone else.
We have the stacks of chat books to the ceiling.
No, you must have.
What do you think?
What do you think is going on in the poetry or literary scene in the Bay Area right now?
San Francisco Bay Area?
Yeah.
I think it's wonderful.
There are so many fine venues.
That's amazing, because I travel around a lot.
Do you attend a lot of the open mics?
I do, and they're kind of puny in most places.
You mean very few people attending?
Well, I'll just take Cincinnati, for instance.
I featured there in the library in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is a large city equivalent to San
Francisco.
Yeah.
I think their place had only three poetry venues, unlike the Bay Area, which has a lot.
How many would you say we have?
We have at least 50.
At least?
Yeah.
I think on any given night, there's an open mic somewhere with a featured writer.
There are a lot of them.
It's quite wonderful.
And they're decently attended?
Yes, indeed they are.
And what about the written word, being on paper, and everything's on the internet, and
a lot of literary publications are now online?
What do you think about that?
I think it's good.
Of course, I'm interested in performing.
You could have a video of you on the internet.
I published for years like everyone else, and I still publish, but I think performing
is much more important.
We have to begin to wrap up.
