Correction: Lisa Martinovic lived in Hogeye, Ark., for six years. Brent Long, part of the first Ozark poetry slam team, was from Joplin, Mo. This article incorrectly stated how long Martinovic lived in Northwest Arkansas and where Long was from.
Hot Springs’ snowy main drag reflects the glow of a near-full moon. The restaurants are dark, the usually bustling street deserted. Or is it?
There, under the black awning of a rock club, a couple in well-tailored coats brave the Dec. 26 night. They are not the tattooed twenty somethings who usually hang around Maxine’s. His breath freezes in rhythmic puffs. His wife is still, fixated on his words: “Out of the night that covers me/Black as the pit from pole to pole/I thank whatever gods may be/For my unconquerable soul.”
After a few moments they turn, careful of the ice, and make their way down Central Avenue.
Such is the dedication of Richard and Suzanne Tucker, the godparents of the Hot Springs poetry scene. These Wednesday readings, which began in 1989, hold the record for the longest running, uninterrupted poetry event in America. The series has never missed a Wednesday - not for Christmas or a last-minute venue change due to fire and now, a blizzard that takes out power lines.
“It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” says Chuck Dodson, who organizes the readings currently held at Maxine’s. “They were going to make sure that poetry was read that night in downtown Hot Springs.”
Hot Springs isn’t the only Arkansas city with a venerable poetry history. Fayetteville and Little Rock have poetry communities that thrive thanks to the efforts of poets in the early ’90s.
But for a noncollege town with a population of 35,000, Hot Springs stands out. Besides the weekly readings, there have been performance poetry events, or slams,and, since 1997, an annual haiku conference. From 1992 until 2001, there was the Arkansas Poetry Festival, which showcased luminaries such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Rita Dove, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg.
It all started with the Italian artist Benini and a poet-cum-trolley-driver named Bud Kenny. Benini moved to Hot Springs in 1987 and helped fuel an arts revolution that included gallery walks, music events and a documentary film festival. One evening over dinner, Benini told Kenny that they needed a poetry reading.
“I said, ‘Well, if you get one going, let me know about it,’” Kenny recalls more than two decades later in the smoky loft over Maxine’s bar. “Next day I got a call from John Giancarlo at John Giancarlo’s Grotto, and he said, ‘Hey, I heard you want to start a poetry reading.’” Unwittingly, Kenny became the first host of the weekly readings held at the Grotto, assorted bars, hotels and pizza joints. In 1997, The Poet’s Loft was born, and the weekly reading found a longtime home.
Richard Tucker, 78, is a neurologist, but words are his first love. As a child, his mother read him passages by 12th-century poet Omar Khayyam (The Rubaiyat). The Tuckers own a historic building on Central Avenue where Suzanne runs Historic District Antiques. Upstairs, Kenny televised The Poet’s Loft, a coffeehouse which hosted Wednesday readings and other poetry events. From 1998 until 2011, the Tuckers bankrolled the $2,500 purse for the Arkansas Grand Slam. In its heyday, it was the most lucrative poetry slam in the nation.
Kenny remembers fetching Ginsberg, 1994 Poetry Festival guest of honor, from the airport. “He didn’t want to come, but we offered so much money, I think his agent told him, ‘You’re going to go,’” Kenny says. “He was real uptight till we got him to his presidential suite at The Arlington and then we had this reception for him. The Tuckers have this beautiful apartment … he walked in and was blown away.”
Two years later, 27-year old Maria Kuntz (now Maria Crone) started the Spa City Slam, which Kenny would eventually take over. She found an e-mail address for Marc Kelly Smith, who responded with a crash course on how to run a slam. Crone didn’t realize she was corresponding with the creator of contemporary performance poetry.
“It was like you wanted to learn the guitar, and you just e-mailed Carlos Santana,” she says.
A former construction worker, Smith held the first slam in 1986 at a Chicago bar.He was two years into hosting a performance poetry event, combining elements of theater, dance and hip-hop. The genre became an international sensation. In 1996, Smith founded Poetry Slam Inc. (PSI) to try and “protect slam from commercial interests,” but by 1999, he left the organization. “I’m an artist, not a bureaucrat,” he says.
By 2002, HBO had the Def Poetry series and PSI became the governing body for a series of slam tournaments. During slams, poets perform original three-minute pieces, as individuals or as an ensemble, and random audience members serve as judges.
Smith is well-versed in Arkansas poetry. He has been featured at events in Little Rock, Hot Springs and Fayetteville. “PSI should have a hall of fame for these people - Bud Kenny, Lisa Martinovic, Brenda Moossy [the latter two of Fayetteville]. They donated their heart and spirits and never got any monetary return,” he says.
In 1998, Kenny met Patricia Myers at The Poet’s Loft, where they married on New Year’s Eve 2000. Then they set off on a walking tour of the eastern United States, with a mule pulling a small cart. They walked on and off for seven years, feeding themselves by passing a hat at impromptu poetry performances. They printed poetry booklets using solar electricity from panels on their cart.
FAYETTEVILLE’S TEAM OZARK
If Kenny is the heart of Hot Springs poetry, Moossy was the soul of Fayetteville poetry.
Born in Texas in 1949 to Lebanese immigrants, Moossy wrote story-poems rich in dialogue and archetype. She moved to Arkansas at the wane of the ’60s to start a commune but after a few months left the commune for college. For the rest of her life she worked as a nurse, devoting herself to HIV patients.
In 1992, Moossy and other Fayetteville writers began gathering at a restaurant for informal readings. They called themselves the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective (OPWC). The next year, they established a board and organized monthly open mics. Around that time, Martinovic, then 37, a San Francisco native, was on an epic road trip. She meant to pass through Fayetteville but stayed for seven years. Martinovic and Moossy became co-chairmen of the OPWC and spearheaded the new, monthly Ozark Poetry Slam.
It’s Ann Arbor, Mich., 1995. Team Ozark is the first Arkansas team to enter the National Poetry Slam. Martinovic, Moossy and Brent Long, also of Fayetteville, and two guys from Joplin, Mo., descend the stairs into a basement bar teeming with dreadlocked, pierced, intimidatingly hip poets.
Onstage, teams pop off clever intros. Team Ozark has nothing prepared.
Martinovic has an idea. When she first came to Arkansas, an employee at the Siloam Springs Visitor’s Center gave her a run-down on the state’s key industries: tourism and “poe’try.”
Martinovic was thrilled to discover that poetry was big business in Arkansas, but her hopes were dashed as the employee went on about chickens. So in Arkansas, “poe’try” meant “poultry.” She channeled her disappointment into a humorous poem, which she quickly teaches her teammates.
They perform “The Great Chicken Poets of Arkansas.” Martinovic plays herself, Moossy plays the employee and the three men softly croon: “Oh, we grow those chickens down in Arkansas
” ….
The bar erupts in cheers and snaps as the intimidated show themselves intimidating.
LITTLE ROCK: A TALE OF TWO SCENES
It took Little Rock another 17 years to send a team to the nationals. But Little Rock Slam founder H.K. Stewart says competition was never his goal. Stewart attended his first slam on an October 1995 trip to Dallas. “I sat there and watched and thought, I can do this in Little Rock,” he says. Vino’s agreed to host the monthly event and the cover charge was set at a dollar.
“We would get housewives, accountants, mechanics, young people, old people - it was all over the map,” Stewart says. Sometimes the poets were still in junior high. One man was almost 80.
Another parallel but disparate poetry scene began at Kumba Cafe on South Main Street and later moved to a Hillcrest gallery called Mediums. Patrick Oliver, an educator, founded Kumba Cafe “to promote black literature and culture,” he says. In the mid-1990s, a group of poets called Sankofa held readings there. One of those poets was a young Philander Smith College professor named Jimmy Cheffen.
After Kumba closed, Cheffen and the others formed a roving reading series called Tongue Lashing.
“We used to do a lot of poetry events at Juanita’s,Sticky Fingerz, but the only thing about those places … if a band came around, they would cancel our event,” Cheffen says.
So in 1999, when a friend offered to sublet her art gallery, Cheffen jumped. “We’d tell them, just get on Kavanaugh, keep straight, look to your right, you’ll see white people, white people, then boom! Black people everywhere.” This was how Cheffen gave directions to Mediums.
Mediums hosted readings each Friday. Poetry was supposed to start at 9 p.m., but sometimes things didn’t get going until midnight and didn’t end until 5 a.m. About 75 people would cram roughly 800 square feet, with the overflow spilling down the hall. Cheffen provided a complimentary wine and whiskey combo he called “poets punch” and nearby restaurants donated leftovers. Touring poets, including some Def Poetry veterans, performed for the cover charge and slept on couches.
“We were not like Kumba Cafe … talking about black history, black power. But we did talk about the news, how the news affects us, not only as African-Americans, but the youth of our generation as a whole,” Cheffen says.
He would occasionally perform at the Little Rock Poetry Slam, but Cheffen didn’t think the Vino’s scene was “urban” enough: “They all recited their poems the same way. I wanted that Def Poetry jam, Apollo … at Vino’s, there was a lot of depression, suicide and sadness. I wanted that powerful rhythm poem.”
Around 2005, Cheffen closed his Hillcrest venue and later took a job at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
THEN AND NOW
In 1997, Hot Springs’ current open-mic host, Chuck Dodson, was featured on a 60 Minutes segment filmed in Chicago at the National Poetry Slam. “I have this crazy poem about Satan, money and religion, and at the end, I jumped off the stage. Team San Francisco caught me, and they were wearing devil horns,” he says. “Then I was getting HBO specials offered to me as a slam poet.”
But not long after that, Dodson quit slamming and opened an art gallery. “When you get to that point where you have a coach, and you’re always rehearsing, it just kind of steals your joy,” he says.
The Poet’s Loft changed managers a few times, and the Spa City Slams died off. In 2011, Kenny took charge of Wednesday night readings again, but attendance was low. In March 2012, he decided to close the Loft. Four hours before what was to be the last reading, Kenny got a call from Dodson. “Would you mind if I took over the readings?” Dodson asked. The readings moved to Maxine’s, where about 30 people showed on a recent Wednesday.
The Arkansas Grand Slam was retired in 2011, after Tucker began to have health problems. But poet Houston Hughes plans to revive the Grand Slam next year in Fayetteville.
Despite the loss of key players - Martinovic returned to the San Francisco Bay area in 1999 and Moossy died a decade later - the Ozark poetry community is bigger than ever. In 2012, the town hosted an official PSI tournament, the Individual World Poetry Slam, with 72 champion poets competing. And while Moossy is gone, her poems are still performed by Fayetteville poets at Ozark Poetry and Writers Collective readings, and PSI named an international award in her honor.
The Little Rock Slam changed hands and venues several times before being taken over in 2001 by Amoja Sumler, 38, better known as “Mo’ Man.” As a University of Arkansas at Little Rock creative writing student, he frequented the Vino’s slams in the late-’90s and has been a professional poet for the past decade. He tours as a performer and teaches poetry workshops through state arts programs.
Sumler says the Little Rock Slam, now called Rocktown Slam, is better situated than it has ever been. For the past two years, Rocktown has been held at the Arkansas Arts Center, which puts up a $1,000 prize for the annual Ekphrastic Slam, where poets perform pieces inspired by visual art.
Foreign Tongues, founded in 2010 by Marquese “Apollo” McFerguson and four other public school educators who are veterans of the Mediums scene, planned to organize slams and bring in feature performers. Those plans changed when they began leading workshops in schools. In November, they held the first Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece event at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. Each Little Rock high school was invited to send a delegate poet. The students participated in writing workshops and performed before an audience of 400.
Today, Foreign Tongues holds weekly business meetings and has applied for nonprofit status.
“Our next thing is branching out and creating more programs like Speak Now but doing stuff on a larger scale,” McFerguson says. “There’s nothing wrong with doing a workshop for 12 to 15 students, but if we can touch the lives of 300 students, that’s amazing.” McFerguson isn’t sure what these programs look like, but he envisions a free, regular series that attracts hundreds. “When we travel [to slams], we see these poets, but we want to bring them here so the whole community can be exposed.”
On April 6, 17-year-old Little Rock Central High School student Dasha Pettis takes the stage at the third Speak Now.Her pulse races as she talks about her learning disability and the people who told her she wouldn’t make it. “No hard feelings/’cause this girl with this disability/ will proudly smile and wave/Because May 23 she’ll be walking across that stage/hands held high/ ’cause Lord knows she tried.”
She finishes. She grins, steps away from the mic. But she takes her poem with her.
Hear poetry in Arkansas Ongoing poetry events: LITTLE ROCK
Rocktown Slam/Open Mic, 7 p.m. second Wednesday of each month, $5-$10 admission, Arkansas Arts Center, 501 E. Ninth St., facebook.com/rocktownslam, (501) 541-0681
Awkward Slam, Little Rock, monthly, rotating venues, $5, facebook.com/awkwardpoetryslam, awkwardpoetryslam@gmail. com
Foreign Tongues, Little Rock, rotating venues, facebook.com/ theforeigntongues, (501) 416-4902 HOT SPRINGS
Wednesday Night Poetry and Open Mic, 7 p.m. Wednesdays, free, Maxine’s, 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs, facebook.com/WednesdayNightPoetryatMaxines, (501) 321-0909 FAYETTEVILLE
Ozark Poets and Writers Collective Open Mic, 7 p.m. last Tuesday of each month, free, Nightbird Books, 205 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville, ozarkwriters.
wordpress.com, masullo.[email protected] or [email protected]
Howl: Women’s Open Mic, 6:30 p.m. third Sunday of each month, free, Nightbird Books, nightbirdbooks.com, (479) 443-2080
Ozark Poetry Slam, 8 p.m. third Tuesday of each month, free, 18 and older or with adult, Rogue Pizza Co., 402 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville, facebook.com/OzarkPoetrySlam, (417) 818-8748
High on Words radio show, 10 p.m. Fridays, KXUA-FM, 88.3, Fayetteville EUREKA SPRINGS
Poetluck (potluck), 6:30 p.m. third Thursday, free with dish, The Writers’ Colony, 515 Spring St., Eureka Springs, writerscolony.org, (479) 253-9859
Style, Pages 47 on 04/28/2013