Is baseball the most poetic sport? Ron Silliman, for one, thinks so!

I like putting free poetry in unlikely places; I feel that, challenging as writing free poems is, doing it for a literary crowd is soft ball. Writing poems for 45,000 baseball fans… now that’s hard ball!

Jimmy, Emily, Heather, and I set up our shingle at Turner Field in the Fan Plaza for a day game between the Braves and the Mets. As the crowds streamed in we shouted “GET YER FREE POEMS! !” as if hawking peanuts and beer.

There was a large group of Lutherans at the game that day, and many of our early efforts were for them:

superheros are for real, by Jimmy L.

Although the nights deliver its crimes
in twos and backalleys where grandmas
are mugged, there in the muck swirls
also the mitochondrial dna of radio-
active wastes that are so crucial
to big business and origin stories
of many a superhero’s super skilzzz!
Thus the problem becomes its own
solution, donning capes and perhaps
sporting silly tights, silly names &
_____ intern to be the sidekick to
_____ sideburns — yes anyone can be
_____ us, a super hero!

(some lines obscured in the photo, hence the blanks — fill them in and win prizes !)

Jobs (for Leon), by Jon C.

Hard to believe everyone
wants to have a job, since like
the God-tested suffering,
same-named, they are mostly
torment when pay is the goal.
Fire, punch the clock, the daily
grind — the words themselves sound
like a series of plagues, yet
the jobless rates’ rise causes
more worry. And how hard cap-
italism worked to kill a theory
of being which placed work first
(and won), meanwhile this over-
inflation of profit left us bank-
rupt, doing anything for a dime,
slaving over a hot spreadsheet.

first grade, by Heather B.

‘hello how are you?’ is for moms
we say, ‘would you like to share my organic rice
krispy treat? it’s been on the floor for less than
three seconds!’
let’s start a club and call it the morning and the
afternoon.
our names look the same because our letters are
a bit wonky-doo baby giraffes with long
cocooning neck scarves and no sore throats
let’s be free-range eggs before we’re spotted
shade-grown farmers
we haven’t lost any of our friends to the sandbox
yet
grade A balloons pricked with recycled hedgehog
quills, harshing my mellow via easybake
shake legos down to the bottom of the box
no red ink by the end of the year.

Later, a security guard working the area came up. We were sure we were going to get busted for writing free poems without a permit… but actually, he wanted one for himself:

Gary’s Increase (for Gary), by Jimmy L.

Follow this line that ends in an arrow
upwards as a function of time. You
know this, I know this, Gary knows
this too, as he patrols the ballpark
with the confidence of each stride
as his shadow lengthens with the mid-day
rotation of the earth, the increase of
leaves in the fall, the shackles of a job
discerned out of one wise eye’s worth,
brushed off with skill, as an authority
with clean shoulders, a voice of reason
& relations of the public sort sorting out
the inner & outer selves in directions
surehandedly gripping the hours’ decrease.

We had some fun requests from kids:

headless monkeys (for Jacob), by Heather B.

oh how funny could it be
if every monkey you could see
was headless as a turtle who
was shy as could be?
pretzeled arms and legs and hairs
but headless monkeys have no cares
their brains turned off unawares
give not a hoot for zoo affairs.

now here’s a thing about apes decapitated
they’re so very rarely appreciated
fromore to the next they look the same
but here’s the fun + funny game
to tell the headless monkeys apart
check out their various forms of
banana-based art!

Also some from adults:

L.A. (for Jenny), by Jon C.

Noir crime, dark romance, palm trees
line soul’s entertainment. The show
must go on, and every waitress sees
stars in her future, dreams grow

when in walks De Niro, or seems.
Illusions an ocean lapping flat
shores are only so many scenes
on the floor. Whenever that

curtain falls, gangs step in, news
trucks circle. Lala a play
of desire and dream that proves
the false is the real in L.A.

Lou Reed, by Jimmy L.

Lou Reed shared a cigar with me
once during the full moon waxing
poetic about heroin, and the sweet
voiced voicings of that mystic
in dark clubs, where John Cale
was serving Old Fashioneds
from the back of his pick-up
where a parcel had just been
delivered, a wooden crate
to be handled with care,
with respect and a chain saw.

Right at the end, after we got a request for a poem on ‘single ladies (a church group meeting)’. Emily wrote one:

single ladies, by Emily B.

Feminine mystique elusive
knowing one’s own self
touching submerged amid
surroundings of green, blue
petals, blossoming. A woman

always chooses her identity
yet makes the rain fall
gentle fierce lotus rising
from cracks in the pavement.

and I wrote one:

single ladies, by Jon C.

Singles like cheese slices wrapped
in plastic, stacked and looking
for a bread slice. Church base-
ments occasion not hooking
up but more, if not rapt-
ure at least a foot race

not run, rather walked and rose-
smelled. Long tables for small groups
with cupcakes, fruit juice, crackers,
gather a couple and future gropes
for twoness. Alone is prose,
plus one is a poem for lip smackers.

Here are the images (click for larger):

This was our busiest Free Poems on Demand ever! For the first hour or so, we were getting about one new request every 15 seconds. It was impossible to keep up with the demand and eventually we had to turn our sign around so that we could catch up. Then, just as we were about to pass out from exhaustion, our regular free poets Heather and Jon showed up to save the day.

At one point someone demanded a poem on the topic of “yeast infection”… and this was while two of us guys were manning (no pun intended) the table (me and Zac). Nevertheless, Zac managed to write an amazing poem about the subject.

Click on the photos below for a bigger view:

Last year’s Decatur Book Festival was Free Poems on Demand’s debut in Atlanta.  Since then, we have appeared in many festivals, campuses, street corners, and art galleries. So it is fitting for us to come back at this year’s Decatur Book Festival to write more poems than we have ever written ever! We had a whole line-up of extra writers helping us too: Benjamin Solomon, Ed Hall, Allison Rentz & Ping Pong, Priscilla Smith, Heather Buzzard, Melysa Martinez, Emily Baughman, Andrew Page, and Amy Herschleb. This doesn’t even take account for our regular writers Jon Ciliberto, Robin Bernat, Zac Denton, and me! That’s 14 writers! We would also like to thank Dan Beauregard for the typewriter, Duane Marcus for the canopy, Kill Your Darlings Atlanta for helping us write, Bill and Amy from The Seen Gallery, and Ed Hall and Priscilla Smith from Eyedrum, and all the readers at this year’s Experimental Writer’s Asylum.

The first day was HOT HOT HOT, even under the canopy. There were huge crowds in the first two hours or so, then we got a little rest as the day wore on and there were fewer demands (but still a steady stream).  The second day was much nicer, cool, a little drizzly but not bad. And a steady stream of great topics from DBF demanders. Here are only about half of the many photos we ended up taking (click to enlarge):

Well I knew this would happen.  We get a Facebook page, and it’s just so easy to upload photos there that I’ve started to neglect this page entirely! Well, my apologies for not writing about our Decatur Farmer’s Market event; you can find photos on Facebook.  It was a success! We were placed next to the peaches which were understandably the most popular booth there.  People asked for poems while they waited in line.  There was music, local organic vegetables, and even a man in a peach suit (wow, he must’ve been hot in there):

Then this past weekend we were outside of CouchCouch during Atlanta Streets Alive—for a few hours on Saturday, they closed down some of the main streets in downtown Atlanta for people to walk/bike/dance through.  It was really nice to see the kind of community that could form if we all ditched our vehicles more.

CouchCouch held a Free  Market (kind of like the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny dishes, except we’re talking about clothes, books, furniture, electronics instead of pennies).  One generous teacher gave a Free Dance lesson to anybody who wanted to learn (foxtrot, salsa, mamba, tango, etc.)! Then there was also Free Bike Repair:

It was nice to see all these free services being offered in the spirit of the community. Of course, we also wrote free poems (though Jon and I were both atypically blocked/uninspired for some reason, but such things happen, oh well):

Bicyclette

gearing up to cumulus
accumulated in currents
of hot & cold compresses
to fore or aft where
the spokes are spun
or undulating a wave
of pick-me-ups, the voice
trailing, of reason or risk
made concrete in airy
hothouses, in skies aloft

Sometimes people want to try their hand at writing free poems, and we love letting them! For example, this little girl’s name is Sarah Grace.  I wrote a poem about her awesome red hair:

Sarah Grace wanted to write a Free Poem, so I let her write the next one demanded from us.  The topic was “being engaged/being in love”, and we all thought Sarah Grace did a great job:

We’re happy to participate in tomorrow’s (June 11) Decatur Farmer’s Market One Year Anniversary Celebration!  There will be live music, face painting, cooking demos, free poems, local organic veggies, fruits, baked goods and more!  The festivities start at 9am and end around noon, so drop sometime during that window.  It will be at the corner of Trinity and N McDonough, across from the Chick-Fil-A in Decatur, GA.  Hope to see you there.

We will be doing Free Poems on Demand at the Hambidge Art Auction & Performance Gala to benefit the Hambidge Creative Residency Program in North Georgia.  The event will be held on May 14th from 7 to 10 p.m. Regular Free Poets Jimmy Lo and Jon Ciliberto will also be performing their art and poetry as part of the evening’s festivities.  Advance tickets to the event will cost $35, so even though your poems will be free, they won’t really be free.  But at least you’re helping a good cause: poor artists. The location will be 764 Miami Circle, Atlanta 30324.  This is the former Fay Gold Gallery space but is now the Bradford Gallery.

• More info on who you’ll be helping here: Hambidge Creative Residency Program
• More info on the Art Auction here: Hambidge Art Auction & Performance Gala

On March 19, Free Poems performed at {Poem 88} Gallery in the White Provisions building.  The theme that day was ‘body parts’ as there was a discussion of breast-censorship in the gallery space happening at the same time.  Notice in the above photograph how the chalkboard has an added step: 3. censorship not included.  Patrons were free to provide their own censorship, and by all means encouraged to do so by way of the fire-arts or magic marker or sure why not take the bureaucratic route with a trusty shredder. Of course we were open to other ideas as well, not only poems about body parts or censorship.  The clientele were intrigued, but mostly content with laughter, a laughter that resided just south of the nebulous plexus and north of the diaphragm in the diagram.  Let’s start out with a poem by regular free poet Jon C on the topic of life and work balanced:

Here’s one by me on the trials and tribulations of mothering 2 little girls, a problem I am faced with on a daily basis:

And here’s one on the double meaning of time/thyme:
Jeff was out to conquer the world of yogurt:

And from Robin, a poem on ‘Love Addiction’:

Jon got requests that were oddly custom fit for him.  Topics like ‘tennis’ and ‘ukelele’, which happen to be things he is fantastic at doing:

Here’s a poem I wrote about rabbits for a little kid:

Rabbits are formed by habit
or a mellifluous excess of flaps
they come when bunnies are slapped
until they hop around w/ happiness

Rabbits are dense balls of lint
in green grassery they’re hid
like effervescent weeds, they hint
at what’s there (or not) under lids.

And here’s two poems written on the topic of bumblebees (the first is Jon’s and the second is Jeff’s):

A couple asked for a poem about their relationship.  I asked them for the gritty details of their courtship and long history of break ups and make ups, which (surprisingly) they told me!  Below is the result, a 2 page epic poem about them (the part on the bottom of the first page are notes, and are not part of the actual poem):

Here is a transcript of my scratches:

I love you, I can’t do this
I must do this
I don’t love you, I do, I do!
I swear by the furniture I’ve bought
in yr name, by God,
in this living room which is
still mine, you have yr place
not that you can’t sleep over
no I’m not saying that
Oh the days when love
was an easy syllable upon
the neighbor’s lawn
when we bonded over fights
about those jerks dawn & bill
or the boogie woggie
of certain unspecified YouTube videos
and simplicity was just an illusion
we referenced like stale air
we live by; but even in the musty
aisle’s of Richard’s where our labyrinthine
lives connect
like a bit of soda shaken up
over the brim syllable upon syllable
breaking over day’s edge w/ a bit
of orangina on time’s forgetful line
like a clothesline that trembles
every time the wind blows
and every other week we fight
& forget, fight & forget, fight & …

Funny but true story: they did not tell me anything about Orangina.  I just thought to put it in, kind of a stream of consciousness thing… I had never written Orangina into a poem before, that I can recall.  Anyway, they came back and said “How did you know Orangina was our thing!?!”  Yes, free poems, and free psychic readings as well!

The scene as captured by Jon’s artistic line.  I also received a request for a poem on the topic of ‘organized chaos’.  Unfortunately, the client was in a hurry, and I promised to write the poem and e-mail it to her.  Here is that poem, taken with my cell phone:

What are these streets lined in blocks but
messes disguised in uniform of human agency
like photographic evidence boxed in the attic
shuffled off to edges where seeming disorder
gains a new face, a once-over with perspective
lighting the way with its dim 40-watt bulb
nonetheless sufficient for a historian’s task
or the artist’s, forming some semblance of narrative
out of her mind’s hierarchy–a jumble
of knots and associations, an alien landscape
where certain arbitrary choices are necessary
a way of choosing out of resemblance, a life–
or in a certain shared sense, an agreement
as to the styrofoam quality of the orange peel
its heft like air in your hand–that such
chaos reigns even in this most busy network
formed into order within disorder within order
the human body reaches out to catch itself
thinking itself falling, but actually pulling away
at an increasingly rapid speed.

The Museum of Design Atlanta has invited us to their next Thursday night “Drink in Design” series.  Here is their description of the event:

MODA is open late on Thursday evenings and we invite you to join us between 6pm and 8pm for our hip and happening Drink in Design events.

Just purchase a regular admission ticket and you’ll be treated to a drink! Each week, we’ll also have food, dance, and other events you can enjoy as you take in our exhibit. See our calendar of events for more information.

Come request a poem!  From what I hear, there will also be a movie (Roman Holiday) playing in the background.

Also: a note on the last event at {Poem 88}.  We had a lot of fun writing body related free poems as well as poems on many other topics.  I’ve been really behind on updating this blog, but there will be a full report coming soon!

We will be at {Poem 88} art gallery this Saturday, March 19 at 2 p.m.  until probably 5 or 6 p.m.  Come out and request a poem!  It will be during the Westside Arts District Arts Walk, so there will be plenty of other things to do as well.  In the {Poem 88} space, they will have discussion between Sharon Shapiro, the current artist on exhibit, and art critic Dinah McClintock about the feminist aspects of the show and the recent censorship issue.  In honor of this topic, we might write some breast-related poetry, but only if you request it!  Come and check it out.  The weather’s supposed to be really nice!

On Friday, February 11th Free Poems performed with Dance Truck at the Contemporary and on Saturday, February 12th we did our thing all day at {Poem 88} at Tanner-Hill Gallery.  It was a Free Poems-filled weekend, and we’ve been recovering for the past week or so, which is why I haven’t written about it yet.  But today is President’s Day! Which means no work for government workers like me (YAY!) so here is the full report of what went down.

Corian Ellisor's WikiDance from CL's photo of the day, taken by Evey Wilson.

Free Poems collaborated with Dance Truck and this was vastly different from our usual performances.  Dance Truck is a portable dancing venue, which basically means they are like Free Poems except for Dance.  They take their own moving truck into a space and perform dances in public spaces!  On Friday, they had 4 different dance groups performing every half hour, and Free Poems responded to the dances with poems that we then read aloud on the truck.  The dances themselves were responses to the artwork at the Contemporary, so it is a nice artistic conversation of sorts.  For more pictures of the dances, visit this page.

Here is a poem I wrote for one of the dances.

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)

What she did is what we did (x2)
We the coo kids
Wanna buy one club soda
One club soda comin’ up
For all the single ladies
all the single ladies
with an olive on the sholda
of the skoo bus
We rock it we rock it
till din-din
We walk it we walk it
into the flood lights
till the flood lights dim-dim

The dance this was inspired by was really interesting.  There were about 10 dancers responding not to music but to a YouTube clip (but you only hear the sound, the clip itself isn’t shown or anything) where this girl is talking about how she will show you step-by-step how to perform certain dance moves.

All through the night some of us (Zac, Jeff, Jon) also wrote Free Poems for audience members, although for me it was a little bit hectic because there were so many people and I kept having to go outside to respond to the dances every half hour and then come back inside to write poems for people.

On Saturday, Free Poems set up at {Poem 88} Tanner Hill Gallery and wrote love-themed poetry for people who came in.  It was two days before Valentines Day so we got our cheesiest cliches ready for the occasion.  There weren’t too many people, but that was kind of a relief after Friday’s exciting event.  We needed something a little slower.  Plus, it gave us time to really write some thoughtful lines.

There were some couples who came in, one of whom were engaged and had their wedding photographer with them.  There was also another couple who, after receiving their free poem, asked to write us a free poem!  We gave her the topic of ‘Tangential worms & brain tissue & eyelashes’ (yes, we demand quite a lot!)

Tangential Worms & Brain Tissue & Eyelashes

I used to search for whole things
shells intact opaque & milky
with zero of a hole bored in it from
some soft mollusk looking for shelter
But then my mind merged with the Earth
and it became clear in a symmetry
perfection and in scattered things
skeletons and fractured fossils
an eyelash here or there, that the
hole is only for the worm.

– Ashley Lewis

Thank you Ashley!  We really enjoyed the poem! We wrote a lot of poems but we didn’t do a very good job this weekend of documenting, recording and photographing our events, thus the lack of pretty pictures and audio/video clips in this blog post.  Maybe next time.

Thanks to The Contemporary, Dance Truck, and {Poem 88} for an eventful weekend.