Rebecca Seiferle wrote:

>Like four good little stories in this, Ken,
>
Yeah, I spotted at least 4 prose poems or "short shorts" in there. A
series of absurdities. I did not mention a place on West 3rd Street
called the Baggott Inn--not named for the English belletrist, as far as
I know, nor for a current opera singer whose real name is (I swear to
God) Buffy Baggott. The place was a step up from the "buckets of blood"
in the outer boroughs only because fights didn't take place. Readings
at the Baggott occurred every Saturday at 3 PM, in the back room. There
was a structure: several open mike people, 20 minutes from the feature,
then more opens. It actually wasn't a bad environment because most of
the open readers were good enough to sooner or later wind up as the
feature. That's what happened to me--and I found out if you were the
feature, you got paid a chunk of money under the table. People got
chummy...sometimes a bit too chummy for their emotional health: it was
the poetry-as-sex-lure thing at work again. Out front, the neighborhood
drinkers were at the bar, getting sloshed, watching college football
games. Some of the poets snuck in their own fortification, a forbidden
practice because the bar was in business to make money, not subsidize a
reading group.

> and that 90 miles to read one poem,
>eek! a tie with the worst reading story I've yet heard, a woman poet about 7
>months pregnant who went 3 hours by train to give a talk, arrived, and found no
>one had announced the talk, so there was nobody there, or she hoped there
>would be nobody so she could go home, when one person walked in a moment
>or two late, and she had to give the talk anyway!
>
>
I am amazed this woman didn't freak out and run amok. A talk to ONE
person? They could have gone out for coffee or a drink and at least
turned it into a social event.

>Geographical differences, maybe, but for some reason this Open Mike thing
>reminds me of this Southwestern guy who would arrange readings, a couple of
>poets usually, followed by an Open Mike, though that meant he would get up to
>introduce the Open Mike session, introduce himself, silvery hair and all, and
>then read and talk for another hour! V de Suckero was his name, if I remember
>rightly,
>
>
One of the Baggott readings was like that. I won't use the man's name,
but when he was "in charge" he would read his endless, tedious, retro
"tributes" to the Beat poets. Channeling is okay as long as you're as
good as the people you channel; he wasn't close. Then he'd get fulsome
in his praise of the people he brought up. As for V. de Suckero...you
have to be kidding:-).

Ken

--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538