Philly Verses the World

How Hostile City learned to love the poet.

by A.D. Amorosi

Neal Santos

On a freezing night in February, Philadelphia poet CA Conrad got anointed.

There were no man-made thrones or leafy laurels at the Institute of Contemporary Art's party for the release of his book, co-penned by Frank Sherlock, The City Real & Imagined: Philadelphia Poems.

Hell, this is the local scene we're talking about. And it's not as if Conrad, equal parts cherubic and witchy, is the king of poetry — in Philly or otherwise — with a miter to hold and decrees to be writ into law. But like what happened to Andy Warhol when he showed his work at the ICA in 1965, you could sense something in the air. After years of readings at places like Bacchanal in the 1980s and North Star Bar in the '90s, the tides had changed — for Conrad, for the poets he befriends ("all my favorite poets ever are living and local," he says) and for Philadelphia poetry at large.

From its expansion into venues erudite and hip to its increased outreach through the Internet, Philly poetry is due for an uprising.

"I'm patient and work and work and read and write and work and read and write," says Conrad of the time he's put in. "Poetry's the center of my world. So many people get into writing poetry, then give up because it doesn't fulfill some external desire, whatever that is."

Poetry in Philadelphia isn't just an obsessive preoccupation for people like the activism-conscious Conrad. He's publishing book after book and selling out those volumes. His 2009 Advanced Elvis Course (Soft Skull) scored him radio interviews and readings coast-to-coast — all of which might have to do with his mystical, dreamlike, savagely funny take on the myth and mirth of Presley-mania. Right before the King's birthday in January, Conrad told me about his rebuttal to a group of nasty Elvis fans who'd threatened the poet's life: He created a gay-heavy take on "Jailhouse Rock" and published it on his Web site. The poem, which makes John Rechy read like a Disney script, garnered Advanced Elvis Course even more publicity.

"I've been pushed into the mini-mainstream like a diseased guppy in a shark tank," he laughs while reminiscing about the flak that he — an aggressively out and radical homosexual — received for his queer take on the King. "Sharks don't want to even taste the diseased guppy, so I swim among their shit and surprise them by barfing on their teeth. It's Elvis, after all, the force of a billion loving fans connecting all over the world in psychic space."

Not only did Conrad receive the Gil Ott Book Award for last year's Kafka-esque The Book of Frank (Chax Press); after its initial run, that samebook got picked up by Wave Publishing to be reissued in an expanded deluxe edition due out this summer. "The original publisher couldn't keep up with the demand and let it sell out because he ran out of money," says Conrad, who'll add at least seven new poems to Frank's freak show — which should only further fuel the fire for a collection that encapsulates the filth and beauty of the world as only Conrad could taste it. "It's definitely a book where the semen of cowboys can finally be properly worshipped."

Neal Santos CA Conrad (left) and Frank Sherlock, photographed March 26 at Walking Fish Theatre, Kensington.

But it’s not just radical writers like Conrad, and it’s not just publishing.

“Eight PhillySound poets came out with books in the past year,” says Frank Sherlock of his and Conrad’s Philly-based poet pals, such as Ish Klein and Dorothea Lasky, who collectively run a Web site and podcast dedicated to their spoken word (phillysound.blogspot.com). “Publishers finally have their ear tuned to what’s been going on in this city during our last decade.”

Not since the mad dawn of the poetry-slamming ’90s has free and rhythmic verse become the focus at so many diverse venues. Not content to find itself nudged into a taproom’s slowest night with writers drunkenly spitting lousy verses to angry ears, poetry’s implicated itself into galleries, libraries and university writing centers with great momentum and greater audiences.

The Free Library, which makes poetry a force to be reckoned with at April’s annual Free Library Fes­ti­val, this year spotlights soulful Philly poetry mistress Sonia San­chez. “The woman’s an institution, a trip and an Earth mother,” says the Free Library’s booker, Andy Kahan, of snagging the local luminary and author of the newly published Morning Haiku (Bea­con) for the Fest. Better still is the Free Library’s long-running Monday weekly series. Monday Poets has picked up steam with a broader range of avant-garde writers joining in the discussion — and crowded houses to go with it. “Perhaps it’s because sharing poetry’s become more accepted and commonplace,” says Monday Poets organizer Amy Thatcher, that it’s no longer thought of as a “marginalized art form reserved for tenderfooted and serious-minded intellectuals.”

Poetry readings in Phila­delphia are a constant: To name just a few, venues include the Green Line Café (with veteran Philly poet Leon­ard Gontarek at its helm), Mostly Books, UPenn’s Kelly Writers House, Moonstone Arts Center, Rocket Cat Café, Chapterhouse and even Conrad’s own “Urchin” gue­rrilla series in which poets invade public spaces without warning. Take that, flash mobs.

“I was thinking about taking a break from hosting until the Green Line came along,” says Gontarek, a legend of Philadelphia poetry work­shops who’s hosted events ranging from political discussions to silly affairs in which poets read their own love letters and song lyrics from the ’80s. At Green Line, Gontarek offers up a talk-show format where two “guests” alternate between reading and being interviewed by the hosts — he and Lisa Grunberger. “It takes it out of the traditional stand-at-a-podium-and-read presentation, gives it a new setting,” he says. People genuinely interested in poets get their chance to find out about them at the Green Line, and even unwitting patrons will stop and listen. “Forget Warhol’s 15 minutes,” Gontarek says — “we make everyone famous for 30 minutes here in West Philly.”

Still, there’s no quicker path to prominence than the Internet. And local poets — from Ish Klein and her YouTube “BOO! Show” to Thomas Devaney, who created the poetry-film mash-up onandonscreen.net — are hitting the road.

“OnandOnScreen is relevant and fun,” says Devaney, who has already invited poets like Vincent Katz (painter Alex Katz’s son) and Philly’s Julia Bloch to pair their written words with complementary video clips. “It’s a way to interface poetry with videos, which have become one of our common languages.” 

Devaney has long understood poetry’s relevance and how important it is to advance it. A visiting assistant professor in poetry at Haverford College who also teaches creative writing at UPenn and who judged the poetry portion of City Paper’s most recent Writing Contest, Devaney is a published poet (A Series of Small Boxes, Letters to Ernesto Neto). “My own role in the scene has changed over the years,” says Devaney, who’s produced everything from “LIVE at the Writers House” on WXPN to the February ICA reading that helped launch Conrad and Sherlock’s poetic love letter to Philly, The City Real & Imagined.

“What’s just as exciting,” says Sherlock of this connectivity among poets, “is that there’s a younger group of poets who share our commitment to community and activist bend to poetry’s place in the world.”

But community — nay, a true sense of togetherness — hasn’t always been the norm.

Gontarek  and Conrad in particular share vivid, often harsh memories of the darker, more dramatic days — like when someone tried to put a cigarette out on Etheridge Knight’s face after a Bacchanal reading, or when Daniel Keiner narrowly averted being stabbed while reading a politically charged poem that rubbed an audience member the wrong way. Even after performance artist Ketan Ben Caeser passed Conrad the torch to his North Star Bar poetry nights in the ’90s, the oddly violent, wholly unwelcoming atmosphere remained. “It was such a nightmare that I vowed to never run a series with living poets again,” says Conrad. “I don’t miss that stupidity.” 

Nowadays, the subgenre need not fight so hard just to be heard. The present-day scene, at least as these working poets see it, is more about sharing than selfishness, freedom over fisticuffs. From that place of calm, a more fruitful atmosphere of reading and publishing has sprung.

“Poetry’s alive in Philadelphia, as writing, as community, as an expression of and an exercise in activism,” says Conrad. “It’s better now than it has ever been since I’ve lived here. There was so much drama when I first arrived. It’s bizarre and makes for good stories, but poetry and community is far more valuable in ways that make bearable this stinking, sinking planet. Plato said that the poets should be banished from the city limits, but I’m glad he’s dead so that I don’t have to exert myself kicking his stupid ass.”