[New-Poetry] Poetry Aloud 2: Jack McCarthy

[Anny Ballardini]

There is in Italy an actor, director, writer, and what have you, who is
quite similar to Jack McCarthy. He stages only shows in dialect, that is why
he is not known outside the very limited local scene. His name is Andrea
Castelli. I remember a show he gave about 10-15 years ago. He was speaking
of the usual oil problems and that sure, there were so many people who
invented any kinds of cars, the water car, the air car, the oxygen car, the
any-kind car,
not only did politicians eliminate the engineers from the scene, they cut
them into pieces and sent the pieces out of space in case someone could be
able to sew them back together again.
The show was impressive, in an open air theater at the beginning of summer,
and a summer storm started gathering and rumbling with all its force. At a
certain point a thunder literally broke the sky and Castelli went like: "You
see, also our All Mighty God agrees!"


On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 8:54 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

>  I'm currently teaching my course Poetry Aloud, and thinking anew about
> the sort of questions that always reward further pondering.
>
> One of the most interesting poets to emerge from the poetry slam movement,
> I think, is Jack McCarthy, who is also often mentioned as one of the oldest
> slam champions.  I believe his poetry career mainly took off after he
> retired.  He calls himself a "stand up" poet, and a "creature of the open
> mic."
>
> If you visit his web site, make sure to listen to some of the audio clips
> of him performing his poems aloud
>
> http://www.standupoet.net/audio.htm
>
> He's also written one of the best essays I've seen on the tensions between
> Page and Stage poets, the world of academic vs. open-mic poetry.  It's
> titled "Answering Carol: an Open Letter from the Margin."
>
> And here it is:
>
> http://www.standupoet.net/APR.htm
>
> An excerpt, discussing his friendly arguments with Donald Hall on the
> subject of performance poetry:
>
> I had occasion to send a pre-publication version of The Worcester Reviewarticle to Donald Hall and he wrote back to disagree with virtually every
> assertion I had made. That was the beginning of what to me has been a
> fascinating correspondence.
>
> In a subsequent column by Don in American Poetry Review, I came to this
> passage:
>
> “I have a slammer friend with whom I write long letters of combat. He
> writes me an argument which he thinks will be a winner. He bets me that I
> cannot find a poem printed in Poetry or The New Yorker which, read aloud
> at a slam, will win first prize. I could not agree with him more. To me, the
> notion of the argument reveals its poverty. What the hell do I care,
> considering a poem's virtue, about the votes of a bunch of cheerful
> self-chosen enthusiasts in a bar?”
>
> I immediately dashed off a note to Don that began, “It would have killed
> you to say, ‘I have a slammer friend named Jack McCarthy?’” At subsequent
> readings, I had fun telling the story, reading the APR quote, and ending,
> “So you’re not looking at just any poet here. You’re looking at a poet who
> has had his best ideas refuted by an American icon in a major American
> journal.”
>
> One of my purposes in this present essay is to exhort our erstwhile Poet
> Laureate to speak for the whole of the American Poetry community, which
> includes Spoken Word, and not just for the variously defined segment
> generally referred to as the “American Poetry Establishment.”
> --Jack McCarthy
> --
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ====================================================
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
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