It’s a hot night. It’s a hot night in Oakland! It’s a hot night in Oakland in February!! Yes, let’s go to a Friday poetry reading at the little bar, Tamarack, upstairs.
There are two poets from Brooklyn. The first is loose and funny on the mic. Her poems direct and forceful. She’s never been to Oakland. Later, she’ll wonder aloud to me why downtown is so empty. It breaks my heart to explain. There was a plague and the bip wave and people staring into little cameras on their computers. There was very old racism and very contemporary racism. Probably be a generation before streets previously filled with people are filled with people, if there are still people. One of her poems was about how embarrassing it is to write poems. We could all relate.
We’re all sweating. Can you believe how humid it is? That climate change dewy look.
The next Brooklyn poet read mostly translations of a French leftist, writing about the post-1968 world of a medium-sized French town. He is interested in 1968. Where do dreams go when they grow middle aged? Perhaps to a medium-sized French town, the archives there, where a teacher is discovered who had a sex scandal that symbolizes the flow of political time. History is smoking again.
The last poet is a local legend, a Language poet, which feels like a lot of pressure. He’s delivering a play with the poetry night organizers. They ham it up and it is very good. (A wig goes a long way.) It’s about a guy who catches bullets between his teeth, like for a living, but really it’s a skeleton on which to hang perfect ending lines from poems never written.
I manage to scribble two glittering ornaments down. Machines are only interested in being invented. And also: You’re killing yourself so you can say, “There’s more where that came from.” These lines, of course, symbolize the flow of political time. They were written in the early 1980s, performed by people in wide ties in a black box theater. Some of those people are at Tamarack now, listening, again. Several of them are the beautiful gray-haired, strong-backed women all righteous Berkeleyites aspire to be. Others, men with hearing aids, are just happy to be nominated. The young people came in late and are standing towards the back. We’re all sweating in perfect unison.
Outside, after, we stand around on the street corner drinking, scene-ing. We’re really doing it! Language, poet, ‘68, tank top, Negra Modelo.
A man wanders by and around and into the street, on which cars are also passing. His motions are herky-jerky yet graceful, a kind of meth slapstick, as he continually discovers he is, alas, still in the street on which cars are also passing. Where was he headed? To the other side, yes, of course. Alas. A Brooklyn poet worries aloud about him. “Is he OK?” No, the real answer is no, but he will make it across the street.
In every direction, there is an Oakland that has been destroyed. I cannot orient myself without seeing it, not even to the sky or the earth. Oakland, 1966. Oakland’s not for burning. A beautiful night, a street corner. Poets caravan to the next bar.
History is smoking again.-ACM