I recently wrote an article for Mannequin Haus, a fascinating publication, about this event—LA Poetry Beach—and the series of events that led to up to my becoming embroiled in it. I hope that they don’t mind it appearing here as well.
Riding the Poetry Train
Writers publish and forget the articles of yesteryear, until a stranger finds one, and somehow it changes things.
Three years ago, the Dutch artist Erik Van Loon, known for his massive scale events and activism, reached out to me on Twitter, having found one of my forgotten articles about the night Charles Bukowski read his work in my living room. Van Loon, a huge fan of American poets, wanted my help with an event he was formulating, LA Poetry Beach.
Inspired by Kerouac, Van Loon envisioned the Amtrak Poetry Train, from the east coast to west, picking up poets at stops along the route to Los Angeles, and collecting submissions for a commemorative book. In Los Angeles, he planned numerous readings in the downtown area, with the reading finale at Venice Beach, where this year he plans to replace the “Muscle Beach” sign with a “Poetry Beach” one. At each stop across America, poets would exit the train to read their work, including small places where a poetry reading had never happened before.
The first poet to submit, in year one, was the Los Angeles poet, Greg Bell. Like me, a veteran of the legendary San Francisco Cacophony Society, that gave the world things like Burning Man, SantaCon, and The Marcel Proust Support Group, Greg was entranced by the concept of LA Poetry Beach, an event for American poets, conceived and finessed by a person living in Rotterdam—who doesn’t consider himself a poet—a wildly passionate streak across the American countryside, in an era of psychological depletion, while awaiting the firm hand of justice.
Over the time we’ve known Erik Van Loon, Greg and I became enmeshed in his poetic extravaganza. We have mostly served as the sounding board for Erik’s unstoppable imagination, explaining the constraints of the American Way. confounding his Dutch logic. In the last months, we’ve seen him through acquisition of a 1940’s taxi, with the license plate POETRYCAB—his version of Further—and most recently. the script of the film he intends to make of this year’s event.
LA Poetry Beach is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for poets, unless they can do it again. It may well be a lodestar in the history of poetry in America, and you’re invited to come along. This year’s theme for submissions is the widely interpreted “I Could Never Talk to You,” and entries must be received by September 10. To submit or sign up for the ride, go to https://lapoetrybeach.com/.
If there are poets out there reading this, apologies for not posting sooner. The deadline approaches quickly, but better late than never.
Proust Said That © 