St. Mark's Church on the Bowery

The past New Year’s Day your Moby correspondent spent just over five hours at the 36th annual marathon poetry reading at St. Mark’s Church on the Bowery, dedicated this year to the memory of Jim Carroll, who died September 11, 2009.

I hadn’t been for several years. Taylor Mead had given one of my favorite performances there in the early nineties and although I have seen him since, knowing that he is of a certain age, I wanted to be sure to see him again. I might have cited any number of other attractions — Philip Glass, Charles Bernstein, Eileen Myles, Jonas Mekas, and others — but Taylor Mead was sufficient.

I arrived at almost exactly 4:00, learned from the program that Taylor (what else to say? “Mr. Mead”?) wasn’t scheduled until 9:00, and settled in to watch and listen. With no disrespect intended to those who came before or after the hours between 4 and 9, most of my must-sees were scheduled to appear during this parentheses — although neither Genesis Breyer P-Orridge nor Lewis Warsh appeared at their expected times.

I didn’t take notes. A transcript, or recording of the entire proceedings would be necessary to recall the poems, or the music, dance, and theater (all featured more prominently than in past years). The room is crowded and buzzy, the seats uncomfortable. To fix on more than a line or two, from among the hundreds or thousands, would bankrupt my powers of concentration. I don’t even remember the title of the most electrifying performance of the night — by John Giorno. Much of the crowd is composed of the poets, musicians, singers, dancers, and actors who will take the stage. I imagine that many more are here who will not perform. I, on the other hand, am pure audience, an interloper, and mixed with my respect is an envy of the familial cross-talk that takes place among the poets. I am here only to be inspired and encouraged, to pay my respects, to listen to the voices of those who were there, to hear the echoes of the progenitors. (When he finished, Giorno returned to his seat, mopping his face with a handkerchief, to watch those who followed. I saw Elliott Sharp, well after he had performed a solo guitar piece, watching Patti Smith from the side of the stage. I can share this with them: their courtesy and their curiosity.)

The theme, ancient and familiar, was age. When Taylor took the stage, after some difficulty, and with assistance from Penny Arcade, he began by pooh-poohing Tony Towle’s applauded revelation that the poet had turned seventy in 2009 — Taylor had turned eighty-five the day before — “Whatever!”

All of my favorite and familiar poets had aged dramatically since I had last seen any of them (my companion didn’t recognize Patti Smith. From where I sat, with only one contact lens in place, Todd Colby looked like an exception; he hadn’t aged since I first saw him almost twenty years ago) and although none were intended as valedictory performances, the entire evening was overcast, in my mind, by the thought that

Judith Molina and Julian Beck, way back when

those assembled are among the last straggling representatives of the ecstatic ambitions that animated the country during the first two decades of my life, the last hierophants of condemned hopes —- bearers of revolution —- almost unimaginable among the petty, prosy, managerial dreams that rule outside of that church. All the more poignant then that the night’s thoughts and emotions, and the youthful vitality and humor with which they were typically expressed, are bound to these aging bodies. At eighty-five Taylor Mead was unquestionably one of the youngest people in the room. John Giorno, seventy-three, brought down the house with his hilarious, unfollowable rant. Judith Malina, eighty-three, fiercely and un-ironically declaimed a manifesto written by her partner and husband, Julian Beck, forty years ago, when, I retrospectively learned to hope, they were re-shaping the world I was growing into. They failed. Or, we did. We in the audience laughed, still shocked by the wild promises that some outsized, unbiddable spirits had dared to fulfill. In part:

we will do
only
useful work

we will

plan ways ahead of time

to bring the apples to the city

and you will go to the public

storehouse
and take
what you need

no money

no barter

no more bullshit

and if you dont want to work
you dont
haye to

and all the people involved with
money government bureaucracy
army and production of useless
shit merchandise

will

be
free

and if each man –

works about ten hours per week
the world and the revolution
will keep turning

all

the prisons

will’open

if there is nothing to steal
there is
no stealing

there is no thing in this world
that i want more than
your love ;

if i have something
that you want
take it

we dont need law
we need
feeling

(Read Beck’s full text here.)

Many, many of the poets have recent, new, and soon-to-be-published books. The list of the performers can be found here.

Buy their books and read them.