Book Party and Launch: I Will Meet You at the River

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On October 12th, Suzannah Gilman had a book launch party for her first book of poetry titled, “I will Meet You at the River” at Quantum Leap Winery (1312 Wilfred Dr, Orlando, FL.) Suzannah  was born in California and grew up in Florida. She
attended Rollins College while raising four children, graduating with
honors. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Florida
Levin College of Law and is a licensed attorney. She has published
poetry, essays, fiction, and nonfiction, and has been nominated for a
Pushcart Prize for poetry. ” I Will Meet You at the River” is her first
book. She and Billy Collins, who served as U.S. poet laureate from 2001 to 2003, have been together for years.

I arrived a bit early and began sketching the winery. A huge room out back had large barrels of wine stacked to the ceiling. Suzannah and Billy arrived with cheese platters that they set up on the bar. I had met the couple once at a folk music parking lot pickin’ session behind the Twisty Treat in Ochoe Florida. Suzannah seemed a bit nervous and warm but soon the room was full of friends and supporters. I didn’t attempt to sketch the whole crowd. I got to meet her sons, one of whom is an artist himself.

I particularly liked one poem titled, “How Dinner Got Cold”, that  was about a couple preparing dinner together. There was the intimacy of the enclosed space as they brushed shoulders and he instinctively closed a cabinet for her. It reminded me of a scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton prepared a live lobster. By the time the meal was ready the couple had already satiated something much more than hunger.

Another poem, “On Living With a Famous Poet,” made Billy a bit nervous. “Jocelyn Bartkevicius was there, and she’s the editor of The Florida Review, where it was published, so I HAD to read it!” explained Suzannah. The poem described a young woman who idolized the famous poet and desperately wanted the shared intimacy of having her words read. Later that month I saw Billy on “The Colbert Report” where he joked with the host and they read a poem together. You don’t always get that much culture on prime time TV. Suzannah said,  “I did enjoy that party, oh yes I did.  It was the people, as I said, who just blew me
away by showing up and supporting me.  As good a feeling as finding out I
was going to have a chapbook published.”

 “Passionate, wise, and funny, this lovely debut collection reminds us that the familiar world at any moment can ambush us with ecstasy.”

– George Bilgere, author of THE WHITE MUSEUM

There Will Be Words

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On December 11th, I went to the final installment of “There Will be Words” for 2012 at Urban ReThink, (625 East Central Boulevard, Orlando).  Officially it was the end of the second year of these monthly readings by local authors. Jesse Bradley was the host.  The authors who read this month were,

Hunter Choate,
Rachel Kolman,
Jonathan Kosik,
and Leslie Salas

Flirt. 

I sketched from my perch on the second floor balcony.  I liked Jonathan Kosik’s story titled “Pensacola.” The story told was of pristine sand beaches turned into hazardous sites by thick merciless oil from a spill in the Gulf. Men in hazmet suits worked tractors that pushed the black sand up and down the beachfront.  Lifeguard stations stood empty. As the well spilled into the Gulf, the narrator tried to reach his wife by phone. There were irreconcilable differences. Lawyers sent papers that needed signing. 223 calls had been made. “A long drawn out period of litigation, mixed with harassment charges, would only delay the cleanup of what had turned into an ugly situation.” Experts believe the Gulf might restore itself in 50 years. For those who lived through the damage, the loss would last a lifetime.

On display at ReThink was a black dress on a manikin made entirely of plastic garbage bags.  The plastic was folded into ornate roses that decorated the bust and lower skirt of the dress. Dina Mack pointed out that the dress had a zipper in back and, if you were thin enough, you could wear it. I imagine it would get rather hot especially in the Florida sun. The International Academy of Design and Technology assigned groups of students to design the dresses. They were on display at various Thornton Park businesses. The schools slogan is “You imagine, we get you there.”

The next “There Will be Words” will be on February 12th at Urban ReThink. Authors mingle around 6PM and the readings begin around 7PM. You never know what stories might surface or sink beneath the black waves.

Caitlin Doyle at Infusion Tea

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“Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.” Flannery Oconnor.

I went to a reading by the Kerouac House resident author, Caitlin Doyle. I had spent a wonderful evening sketching Caitlin as she worked on her poetry. I came to realize that poetry like art takes plenty of hard work. I was pleased and relieved that Caitlin had been able to relax and made major headway towards finishing the poem she was working on called “The Ship.” I felt a warm glow of satisfaction when she announced that she planned to read the poem at Infusion. I had been witness to the birth of its creation.

To give you a flavor of the poem, you can read an excerpt of it below with the first two stanzas and the beginning of the third stanza. Caitlin plans to include the poem in her book manuscript, the project on which she is working while at the Kerouac House, so if you look for Caitlin’s book in the future you will be able to read the complete piece.

The Ship

The August I was grounded for sneaking out
at night, so stuck indoors I was homesick
for anywhere but home, my dad showed me how
to make a ship fit in a bottle – the trick,
string-rigged masts pulled full sail only once the hull
had been inserted through the bottle’s neck.
If wrongly put together, the ship could wreck

halfway inside, a tangle of strings and shards.
Mine cracked in two before the stern made it through,
as if to say: ‘better broken than contained’.
But my dad answered it with a tube of glue.
The parts seemed to come back in place by choice.
He raised the sails and corked the bottle to seal
the ship inside the glass. I watched the keel

rise on invisible waves day after day…

The poem then goes on to continue its exploration of freedom and containment in the speaker’s coming-of-age experience, as embodied by the metaphor of the ship and enacted in the tension between looseness and restriction within the poem’s rhythm and form.

To satiate my need for a suger rush, I ordered a banana split vegan cupcake and the iced tea of the day. Rachel Kapitan showed me some poems she is crafting which take the form of architecture. For the open mic that followed Caitlin’s reading, Rachel first recited from memory a Robert Frost poem titled “Stopping be Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Hearing the familiar poems lines was comforting. She faltered for a moment and the poets in the audience were on the verge of shouting out the familiar lines…

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep

She then read her own poem that involved a Kafkaesque form of sexual performance art. It had an anger and vehemence that caused the audience to howl. The evenings endless variety was exhilarating.

Rachel Leona Kapitan Reading

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Rachel Kapitan had a reading from her upcoming book of short stories titled, Small Town Heretics of the Emerging Sciences. I arrived a little early at Neon Forest Art Gallery, and found Rachel seated in the front row in a room full of folding chairs. She took a sip of her Rockstar energy drink. She was reading her manuscript and next to her there was a pile of graph paper note pads with strips of type written copy taped down in rows with yellow stickies protruding everywhere.

I said hello then let her focus on her work while I walked around to see the art in the room. The gallery show was titled, Grab and Go. Every piece of art was on sale for less than $100. Most pieces were around $50. Tonya Dickie entered the gallery and she spoke to Rachael about how clients she gives massages to would sometimes share their darkest secrets while lying on the massage table. Rachel had similar experiences with costumers at Infusion Tea. It is so true that reality is often so much stranger than anything that an author could make up.

Soon the room filled with people. Rachel was talking to another author about Modernism and Post Modernism. She mentioned her ideas about Poetic Terrorism which would wake people up from their complacency. She is developing a literary style she called Synthetic Fiction. It was all way over my head, but I was intrigued. I was introduced to Caitlin Doyle the current resident author at the Kerouac house.

Her first story was a straightforward reading of one of her short stories called “This is not a Beach.” The story contained some sexual exploits that would have made Anais Nin blush. What followed was fascinating and unexpected. She had cut up one of her stories into 64 segments which were taped down with 8 segments per page on 8 pages in several graph notepads. She asked members of the audience to pick a number between 1 and 8 for the page of the draft and then a number between 17 and 31 representing the draft of the story which had been reordered 64 times. Based on these random choices, she read the story, titled “Jubilation Saints”, out of order. There were sections of the story that would repeat again and again as if the refrain in a song. Rachel said that randomizing the story like this allowed the author a chance to re-experience the work as a reader. Even though the story was randomly shuffled, it always made sense. This story graphically related the sexual affair between two wildlife researchers of squirrels. The repeated attraction played out over and over in the reading as if this couple kept making the same irreversible choices again and again. I began to anticipate and take comfort in the repetition. As a listener I had to fill in the blanks thus personalizing the story in my mind, recreating it for myself. It was a fun exercise allowing the audience to step into the creative process.

Toasting Competition at Will's Pub

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Todd Caviness hosted a Toasting Competition at Will’s Pub this holiday season. Seated up front were the judges for the evening, Seth Kubersky, Mark Baratelli and Jordana Meade. There was a gallon of spiked egg nog on the judges table and everyone had a beer in hand. I arrived a little late and the competition was in full swing. I muscled my way back to the bar and got myself a beer from the tap. The event was packed so I was forced to stand in the back of the room to sketch.

Competitors were given a prompt and had to come up with a witty toast on the spot. Hannah Miller went head to head against her boyfriend Jack Fields. When given a prompt to toast Orlando, Hannah turned the competition o. It’s head by not taking the opportunity to lambaste her home town. She actually praised Orlando even in her inebriated state. After each toast the competitors would raise their glass and everyone in the bar would toast and drink. Judges commentary was often just as funny as the competitors themselves. I am glad I wasn’t dragged on the stage because there must be an amazing amount of pressure to say something funny. One competitor stood in the spotlight and after agonizing minute, had to admit he had nothing. This in itself was funny, so I guess no one ever really lost.

After the competition there was an open mic. A poet gave an amazing surreal account of his father’s attempt to sell his old car. Truths were stretched to the point of snapping and the entire account was laugh out loud funny. Mark Baratelli had to follow this amazing performance and I am sure he was pulling my leg when he asked me what he should do when he got on stage. Of course when he got up there, he lit up and the audience was laughing along with him the whole time.

I am writing this blog post entirely on my iPhone so I apologize for the Fat fingered flubs I must be making.

Poetry in Motion

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Emotions Dance Company held two performances of Poetry in Motion at the Winter Park Playhouse (711-C Orange Avenue, Winter Park). Local poets recited their work as the dancers bought the words to life with expressive dance. I asked Larissa Humiston the dance company’s choriographer and founder if I could sketch in the sound and lighting booth. She agreed and escorted me back through the dressing rooms and up a crude ladder made from nailed together two by fours. I knew it would be dark up there so I got out my book light. The entire show was dimly illuminated with simple spot lights on the poets and the main stage.

Tod Caviness recited a fabulous poem about a Punch and Judy puppet show in a park. “Everyone went home happy. Even the kids with swollen knuckles like wedding rings.” When ever Dion Smith performed, I had to stop sketching and just watch. She has the delicate features of a ballerina but fully embraced the modern dance she performed. Curtis X Meyer’s poem about a disfigured photographer was amazing when accompanied by dance. I had watched this piece in rehearsals and knew that Larissa had to step in to dance the part of the photographer since the male dancer kept missing rehearsals. She had an amazing ability to get completely lost in the music and she immediately made the role hers.

The whole cast did an amazing job. I am so happy I live in a town where such cutting edge, collaborative, expressive work is being created and performed.

Suzi Fox Fashion Show

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I went to The Peacock Room (1321 North Mills Avenue) because I got a tip that there was going to be a fashion show. There was a $5 cover at the door and for once I decided to splurge. I almost immediately bumped into George Wallace who seemed to know what was going on. He walked me over to a pool table covered with shiny and colorful underwear. Everything looked like it was made of satin but he went on to explain that this was a new material developed by Suzi Fox. He pointed out some men’s running shorts and for a moment I was interested since I have been running in the mornings for the past few months. The running shorts were however so tight that they left nothing to the imagination. I didn’t want to look like a zealous British tourist running through my neighborhood. There was a group of women dressed in this Liquid Vinyl Clothing and they were posing for a photo while sitting on the edge of the pool table. Of course I wanted to get a sketch of this group but they were clustered in the corner and I figured that after the photo was taken they would wander off. George told me there was going to be some staged readings on the back room stage so I decided to bide my time and wait.
Michael Pierre, a local comic, got up on the small sage and introduced each performer.
Rachel Kapitan got behind the mic dressed in a provocative skin tight outfit. She started to read a poem that got hotter and racier with each stanza. I suddenly realized this wasn’t going to be the usual night of open mic poetry. She thrust her hips from side to side delicately stroking her belly as she read. The poem built to its climactic conclusion. I was glad I was sketching since it kept me a touch distracted.
Next on stage was Keri Sardone. She was dressed in a skin tight liquid blue dress and she read an account of a woman executive who got what she wanted from the young male stud in the office. Herow voice was silky and smooth – just like the clothing being modeled. According to Michael most of these accounts had been written that night at the bar with only a brief rehearsal prior to the reading on stage. He read a descriptive account and the whole time a woman dressed in a skin tight gold dress stood behind him. As he read about her exploits she clenched her fists and subtly spread her legs at just the right moments. It was a delicate use of implied erotica. As each woman read, videographer Myk Freitag, circled them recording every juicy moment.
I wasn’t too shocked by the show, because when I lived in New York City I had a gay friend who wrote all the pornographic letters to Oui Magazine. He would write one letter from a man’s perspective and then write the next letter from a woman’s view. He had a real knack for writing the hot woman’s letters. I had arrived expecting a typical fashion show but I got so much more!

Emily Carr

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Emily Carr read from her book, “Directions for Flying: A Young Wife’s Almanac” at Cavanagh’s Fine Wines (1215 Edgewater Drive). I rather liked the intimate warmth of Cavanagh’s. There were a few tables nestled between the free standing wine racks. I ordered a house white wine and blocked in the background before Emily started to read. The proprietor bought a bowl of popcorn and placed it on my table. Most of the people who came for the reading were still crowded around the bar located in the far corner of the establishment. Darlyn Finch, an amazing poet in her own right, said hello and joined me at my table.
When Emily stood up on a small step stool to reach the microphone, she seemed small and delicate. Her right arm is decorated with a poem she wrote over time line by line, each line being tattooed in a new color. The upper part of the tattoo has a tree branch and a lone sparrow. This collection of poems she explained tells an ongoing story which changed with the seasons. The book of poems is broken up into months from April to March with three poems per month. One poem involved thoughts behind sitting in an abortion office and realizing that she must follow through. The myriad of thoughts and rationalizations hit a deep human chord. Many of the poems were dark and brooding yet a sparrow seems to light up each unexpectedly. “Directions for Flying” won the 2009 Furniture Press Poetry Award.
Emily is the current resident author at the Kerouac House. At the Kerouac House I got to see “The Nest” which is a spot in the corner of the living room where Emily placed a mattress on the floor . She surrounded this spot with knick knacks she has gathered in her travels, a heart shaped snow globe, an Elvis post card and tiny glass figurines. The nest made for a cozy little artistic fortress.

Chemonologues

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Marilyn Wattman, a cancer survivor, wrote Chemonologues and I went to the first reading of the play at Theatre Downtown (2113 North Orange Avenue). The play reading was supported by a professional development grant from United Arts. When I got to the theater, the front doors were locked. Tommy Wingo was also waiting with a huge collection of sound equipment. He made a cell phone call to Brian Feldman, Marilyn’s son, and was told to knock loudly. Sure enough, after several loud knocks the doors opened. Marilyn immediately greeted us and showed us into the theater. Tommy set up in the center section and I sat down at stage left and started sketching the stage area. I used my time by penciling all the chairs in the proper locations and when the actors arrived I sketched each in ink on a chair. The theater is a dark intimate space and I fell in love with it immediately.
Chemonologues is set up as a cancer survivors support group. Marilyn interviewed dozens of cancer survivors in order to find the different voices in the play. She began as a reporter but over time realized she was personally and intimately involved. During the talk back after the reading, Mr. Feldman got choked up as he described how Marilyn hated going to support groups. He continued by pointing out the never-ending costs of cancer; medical bills keep piling up and there is no way for the family to deal with it.
Several times during the reading characters clashed and disagreed, but overall the play was more educational rather than dramatic. The information is presented in a preachy manner at times rather than being presented through conversation and action. For me, the play ran too long, but I can see the amazing potential in the premise. One audience member pointed out that too many of the characters in the play were in the acceptance stages of the disease. She wanted to see other stages of grief and denial, like anger, bargaining and depression. She pointed out that it would be nice to get more of a feeling of the day-to-day struggles of living with cancer, and how our health care system often leaves survivors up the creek without a paddle.
The harsh realities presented in this play are difficult to face, but I do feel I understand and can empathize more with families that have to live with the disease. Most everyone I know has had their family touched by cancer at some point and yet it is not something that we talk about very often. This play is a diamond in the rough that could still use some more polishing.
Thumbs up to the cast who only read the play once before this reading and to Marilyn who is taking bold chances, and I hope she continues to do so.

If I Had My Way by Joseph Hayes

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If I Had My Way was written by local playwright Joseph Reed Hayes. This reading of the play at the Winter Park Playhouse was funded in part with a development grant from United Arts of Central Florida. The play is set in Central Florida in 1945 at a time when there was a POW camp where the Kissimmee airport is now located. Margaret Perry had left her southern home and was educated in Atlanta and New York. Her mother lived her whole life in the ranch home in Central Florida and when she became ill her daughter returned to take care of her. Margaret resented every aspect of having to work in the ranch taking care of her sick mother. She rejects friends and suitors until one day an Italian POW, bought to the ranch as replacement help, teaches her her the power of love though the beauty of fresh cooked food. Joseph read a section of the play in which Bernice, a young 19 year old woman who works in the kitchen, dreams about her future husband who she has yet to meet.
The play deals with bigotry and hate in the old South. Joseph says the play is influenced by the Blues and you can feel the lonely rhythm throughout. This is a serous play about lonely souls in hard times. Yet towards the end of the third act the actors talk about the scent of Orange blossoms which is a sweet smell that once experienced, is never forgotten.
I attended the reading because Darlyn Finch a local poet and friend had been asked to play the part of Mrs Alecia Jamison the ailing mother. Darlyn didn’t have to act to pull off a convincing southern accent and she did fit the part perfectly. In a question and answer session following the reading Joseph explained that the play is still a work in progress. Some lines changed as he worked with the actors. Even in this early stage the play packs a punch and I felt deeply for each of the characters. I hope that when the play is presented on the stage for the first time I will be there to sketch.