I <3 POETRY

Right now, poetry is everywhere in the art world. Its resonates locally in murmurs and shouts, ranging from Diana Fridd’s whispered eulogies –for which she mines obituaries for nuggets such as “We Have No Words For This In English”—to Cheryl Pope’s hollering “Just Yell!” Globally, it culminated this winter, with Ugo Rondinone’s summa cum laude tribute to his friend, lover, and mentor, in “I <3 John Giorno” at Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

Caption: Installation shot of “Thanx 4 Nothing” in “I<3 John Giorno!” at Palais de Tokyo, October 2015 Photo by Lise Haller Baggesen.

The show opens with the gratefully nihilist mantra “Thanx 4 Nothing,” a meditation on “letting go” so profound it is like yoga in a bottle –but without the spandex and the body shaming:

may all the suicides be songs of aspiration/thanks that the bad news is always true/may all the chocolate I ever eaten/ come back rushing rushing through your blood stream/and make you feel happy/thanks for allowing me to be a poet/a noble effort, doomed, but the only choice.

The piece builds up like a crescendo until that moment, you fully realise what you have known all along: “Damn! Donna Summer was right! We are all ‘Full of Emptyness.’ Brimming in fact. Overflowing.” So much so, that when you enter the next room your minds eye is already dilated sufficiently to receive the message “I Want To Cum In Your Heart.” Gulp!

Taken as a whole “I <3 John Giorno!” is a sumptous, luscious, and yes, orgiastic, tribute to a life well (albeit sometimes reluctantly) spent, out- but mostly inside the flamboyantly gay New York art scene of the late 20th century. Its monumental scope, archival depth, and intimate tone, gives the viewer a feeling of being a peeking-Tom into art history in the making. But above all, it is a lesson in—if we all knew more about POETRY—what a wonderful world this could be!

Where John Giorno’s poetry mainly flows inward, and takes you on a journey to the bottom of your heart, the borders of your mind, poetry equally willingly travels in the opposite direction—out into the chartered territories where art meets community in a battle to win our hearts and minds—while fixing a neighbourhood, a public school education budget, or a prison reform in the process. These are tricky positions to navigate.

Poetry’s appeal to the art world is easy to spot: it’s fresh, it is angry, it is credible, it is appealing, it is endearing, it is gritty, it is rousing, it is sincere and it is portable and pocketable; all the things “art world art”—with its cluncky logistics, inflated production budgets, and art fair schmucks—is forgetting how to be. The art world’s appeal to to poetry? Not so much. Caution must be advised if you are considering adding a little youth poetry to your art event, lest the effect will be that of a gospel choir at a Madonna concert—the sincerity of their little prayer drowned out by the artist’s blonde ambition.

To avoid such embarresment, I greatly encourage you to visit “Louder Than A Bomb 2016.” This, the Largest Youth Poetry Festival, not in the city, the country, but in the world (and probably the universe), is entering its sweet sixteenth season featuring 120 teams with participation of more than 1200 youth from 60 different zip-codes. Its umbrella organisation YCA (Young Chicago Authors) was recently awarded a McAuthor fellowship in acknowledgement of the leagcy of this program and others like it.

The festival is the brain child of Kevin Coval, who declares: “this is the best theater in Chicago, and I think it’s the best political platform in Chicago.”

Titles of poems such as “Islamophobia,” “How to get into College,”“Crafting Your Gender,” “How to Friend a Suburban Black Girl,” and “The Rage of the American Dream” speak to the breath of topics being not only explored, but deeply felt and internalized, and to the urge to, as one poet put it: “pick up your pen and change society!”

To really drive home the impact of the written word, showmanship, choreograpy and performance is added, hightened by the additional excitement of scores awarded. The public participation is what makes this theatre truly one of the greatest in Chicago; judges are cheerd, boohed or given the unsolicited advise to “Listen To The Poem!” and the atmosphere at times is so rowdy it is hard to remember that “The Point is not the Points, the Point is the Poetry!”

The preliminary bouts are in full swing as I write this, and by the time you read it the scores are in. But fret not: tickets are already on sale for Quarter Finals (Malcolm X College 3/5/16), Semi Finals (Metro Chicago 3/13/2016), Indy Finals (Du Sable Museum 3/17/2016) and Group Finals (The Auditorium Theatre 3/19/2016) via the YCA website.

My favorite so far (and I am biased, yes, but not alone in this opinion) is team REBIRTH’s “If Hogwarts was an HBCU.” Speculating on the all-star faculty of a Historically Black Magic Academy, this fun, timely, and above all, incredibly DOPE piece is infused with such much swag, that before you know it you will want to enroll in the LTAB lifelong learning program. I guarantee you will walk out of the theatre, not believing, but fully knowing, that if we all knew more about psychology, sociology, and (Black) history—but above all, if we all knew more about POETRY—what a wonderful world this would be!

 

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Lise Haller Baggesen is an artist, writer, and proud poetry-mom, living in Chicago. Her book “Mothernism” was co-published by Poor Farm Press (Milwaukee) and Green Lantern Press (Chicago) in 2014, and her Mothernism show is currently touring the United States. More info on the work and writing by Lise Haller Baggesen can be found here: lisehallerbaggesen.wordpress.com