Poetry Trumps Politics in Ginsberg’s Paterson

Grand Stairway at the Hamilton Club.

Of all the political theater I've witnessed over the past few days, none took me by more surprise than Congressman Bill Pascrell's performance this past Saturday at the historic Hamilton Club in Paterson, NJ.

The occasion was the 40th anniversary of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. You can read about the center, and its legendary founder and executive director, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, here and here.

I attended the event on a lark -- because I love poetry, and I wanted to hear the poets who had won this year's Allen Ginsberg Awards. I was expecting to be among perhaps a dozen attendees. In fact, there were many, many more.

Including Rep. Pascrell.

He said he was a lifelong fan and writer of poetry. At the event, he read a poem he had written many years ago. It was scrawled in a script reminiscent of my grandfather's handwriting. Here's the 90-second video:

Witnessing a politician's simple and unapologetic ode to wanting to live life as a doorman was an unexpected blessing.

Perhaps appreciation for poetry can repair our losses, since we've otherwise seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by madness.

Other highlights from Saturday included:

• Gillan's story about Ginsberg passing notes to her at a reading many years ago.
• All the wonderful snippets of language I heard (I'm looking at you Marc Harshman, poet-laureate of West Virginia, and your "angel words" and the people who lived on the mountaintop and kept rocks in their pockets so they wouldn't blow away).
• The sheer variety of poets, with a special shout-out to Elizabeth Marchitti who, like my Mom, is 88 years old and lives in Totowa (the next town over from Paterson, where Ginsberg grew up).

The historic Hamilton Club itself was a surprise and wonder. As were the displays by Gaetano Federici throughout the building. Here's more about the sculptor, and here's his bust of David in front of a window overlooking downtown:

The charm of the event even extended to the catering, provided by an opera singer (Sheldrake Lukas, left) and a poet (Xandt Wyntreez):

Finally, I walked away from the event with a bag of swag, including a print of the event poster, featuring a beautiful image of Hamilton House by photographer/poet Mark Hillringhouse. At the event, Mark said he sought to take an image of the building "that seemed to glow from the inside... the same way poetry makes us feel."

The swag also included a 40th anniversary t-shirt and a thick, bound copy of The Paterson Literary Review (2012-2013).

If anyone would like that copy, drop me a line at bvar@verizon.net, and I'll mail it to you for free.

Feb. 1 was also the deadline for next year's Allen Ginsberg Awards. I submitted one of my poems previously posted here.

Considering the quality of the competition, it will be difficult to get enough votes for an honorable mention. Harshman -- one of two first-prize winners this year (Francesca Maxime and her poem, "Pleather," was the other) -- prefaced his reading Saturday by noting that he had long-ago "graduated from rhyme."

I never did. With apologies to Mr. Ginsberg, epic free verse is not my style. I blame Mr. Poe for that.