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Show Nevv York Poetsarback walking the street" "V Oil true poetiy an adjunctive must physically push its verb. It must never be thrown in to quality or desecrate a verb. Another recurring theme, especially among the younger poets, is the view that, as scientist-poet Hugh Sicleman (Hits it, "There is not much time left tor us." Sicleman, Caeta and Miss Dragonette all write of cataclysm and apocalypse: the concept that world is moving simultaneously toward destruction and a great revelation or discovery that will at last disclose its raison d'esistance. In a peom titled, "Warning: A Light Near Infared," Miss Dragonette writes: Atoms break In arc specturm man and beast topple; lose their links and relations, between grazing food chains and decay chains Our city reels, vibrates, consumes itself. The sources of life fail, bewildered; used more and more gouged out to serve humankind Locked behind glass, I cry out: Look! Lie wary. Overbearing, candled red, turning violet we are too warm We are glowing near sunstroke. Readings at St. Marks Church, St. Adrian's Cafe, the West Rank and the super Nova reflect no one school." They turn up personal poetry built around eroticism and sex, ecology poetry, social comment, poetry and some just plain bad poetry. In one tasteless bar, 70 persons gathered recently on a Sunday afternoon to hear a chorus of three adults, a child and a tape recorder utter grunts, sounds and unconnected words (each of the "poetry" readers repeated different dif-ferent words and sounds at the same time) which had no apparent ap-parent relationship to one another. Marijuana smoke was in evidence, pornographic pictures adorned the walls. Patrons seemed only partially attentive-many attentive-many wandered in and out during the tape recorder piece. A cat skulked between tables. I he bedraggled c hild of one dreary-eyed dreary-eyed listener put his small head on the table and went to sleep. lust before the' 20 minutes of By SUZANNE DEAN Special to the Chronicle .. Moie; Miss Dean was Ce editor-in-chief of the SSe, originator of Parlor, Par-lor, 70, a Sears Intern and Zly attending graduate Jtool at Columbia University. ,fW YORK CITY-Serious ' forming poets are starting to Sdagain in the gas-l.t cafes and ,,mate church meeting houses J, New York's Creenwhich Village- The resurgence is coming at a -when the poetry scene-and -arts of the Village itself-have deteriorated into what one poet jrid long-time resident describes jj-acamival of sin that isn't even glittering, just derelict." ; the poetic fire catches, the quality and mount of poetry coming out of the Village during tke 70s could be greater than during the beatnik era at its height. Increased readings are already attracting poets who performed in the Village in the early '60s as well as very serious young people who entered college too late to become obsessed ob-sessed by the anti-war movement. "I'm planning to go back to the street and read," says Ree Dragonette, a published poet who quit performing about 1965 because pornographers and drug pushers were exploiting poetry readings in the Village. Heel something in the air. There isa new crop of youngsters. They areamazing. They're coming out of the universities and sometimes out of the streets.' But they all tome from very cultural : backgrounds. I've talked to many of the real performing poets who want to go back." Vincent Caeta, an award-winning poet at 27, goes further. "Art has Seen decaying for so long. Now suddenly similar themes are Wearing in works of artists who fa't know each other. I think w'n? due for a second waissance." Caeta is typical of a new, highly nteilectual breed among Village Poets. He participated in both the scene and the drug dement, but became innately in-nately involved in neither. At us times during the '60s he 'New York to write and read Yn Paris and to get a degree '" dieval philosophy at the diversity of Rome undecipherable; grunting, the poet had recited in monotone, poem after poem memorializing friends who had died one of a heroin overdose, another of cancer and another by suicide. Let me choose the kind ol light to light the passing ol my friend Paul Blackburn the poet A pale light like that ol winter dawn or twilight or phosphorescent; is not enough to guide him in his passing but enough lor us to see shadowily his last gaunt figure How he showed himsell to us last luly in Michigan when he made us think he was recovering knowing the carcinoma arreted in his esophygus had already spread to his bones How he led us on I spent so little time with him thinking he'd be with us now. F.stablished poets in the Village ( ontinued on page 10) Poverty, sex and other tissues do not concern him s "fh as philosophy, religion d hls search for a unity bet-we" bet-we" art and science. important phenomenon 2 ,be the dentist-poet. J Sdeman, who instructs J Works"PS at Yale to Shelor's in physics at rS rind a"51"? f Wh?1 the University of ofa More studying for his Columbia ArtS in PetrV at CoZgand t0 be poetic gonettl 3 5Clentist' Miss d wrote researched "0,k on thAn!ai0r exPsitorY W 'St0ry of scien. different' h ' are attracting a Cae'a reads w f Patron' When 'Hest c , Poems recently at across W kk Cdfe' located Just Vestbeth gtn Str' from ' a government- sponsored middle income housing project for artists, the listeners were mostly in their late-20s. late-20s. They were attentive, and they applauded politely. Missing was the despondent, bleary-eyed drug tripper (most have turned to heroin now and don't come to poetry readings) and the wide-eyed wide-eyed tourist (he's been warned not to come to the Village). Caeta believes the performance is nearly as important as the poem. At his West Bank reading, his knees flexed up and down and his hand smoothed the air as he read. His deep voice carried the words out in a dramatic crescendo. He walked up and down the aisles between the bar and the small tables, reading and pacing to his poetry's rhythm. His poetry drew its images from things of science: atoms, planets, light, electricity. Discussing the way a painting conveys universal values, he read: The lines drawn down the back of a page bend my spine Lifting my head I can hear the synapse crackle The lines tray before my eyes make shapes of shooting stars Tear away at the black and empty space etched by light I can see the Cod in my brother's face is bitten Spit out in enormous tears the size of plants Huge atoms appear upon the page-whole galaxies involving lines Deeper than the worlds grave creep up the spine Until the brain surrenders to the eye that does not see but knows , Immaculate consciousness and t0 whatever hand did these , b0w before the Holy Chost and watch the moon bend as if to say Upon the ink that mounts the page in lines of light traced from Cod's wind "In the 17th in the pre-machine age-science and art were one," Gaeta said, explaining his use of scientific imagery. "We're moving back toward an amalgamation wherein science and art will be united. They will both be art." Caeta is concerned not just with what words say, but with the physical force of the sounds words make. "Each word has a certain vitality of its own," he said. "But when you take any word and lay it against another word, you create a whole new action. l'm convinced that it is not words but the order of words that makes the difference," he adds. "If one knew the key to the unity of language, one would also understand the principles that unite the physical universe. If you could find a perfect poet, he could change the world." Miss Dragonette has a similar view "High energy physics and poetry are identical," she said. In 'Culture is changing (from page 9) display a robust disregard for this sort of post-drug scene poetry. "It sounds like something out of the media," says novelist and poet Helene Dworzan, who set up and is operating readings at the West Bank. "It's objective, factual, but without feeling. It's like reading a list from the police blotter. It's sure to die out." "A poet's ultimate goal must be simplicity," adds Caeta. "He must be conscious of not painting too abstract a picture or he will end up having painted nothing." While elemental sounds may have the potential to communicate, com-municate, Caeta feels they fail as poetry unless they progress into words and phrases and ultimately convey a "consciousness of abstract things." Nevertheless, the poets don't discount role fad poetry the poetry of beatniks, drug users and anti-war protestors-has hac opening the door to what l believe will be a more unw poetry during the 70s. "The beats were very gutsy sexual," explains Caeta who r poetry at the Metro Caie beatnik hub, with Allen Cinsf during the early '60s. "They were very concerned at revealing their inner e sciousness. They wanted overcome their inhibitions-free inhibitions-free themselves and then i society." The drug culture, in Caeta'sw brought an opposite trend At poets began looking back ins: their minds and souls. During the later '60s, poetry in! Village deteriorated as the dr scene got freakier and as pc were temporarily distracted ' opposition to the war. According to Caeta, poets ' survived the '60s are just ik beginning to fuse the k speaking beat philosophy the drug scene concept searching for the world throu. mind expansion. The result, he says, is universalism which could important in the 1970s. |