MICHAEL PARKER. Born 1944.

TRANSCRIPT of OH 1482V

This interview was recorded on October 15, 2007, for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program. The interviewer is Pat Cypher. The interview also is available at the Carnegie Library for Local History, in video format, filmed by Ann Gillis. The interview was transcribed by Cyns Nelson.

NOTE: The interviewer’s questions and comments appear in parentheses. Added material appears in brackets.

ABSTRACT: Poet Mike Parker, who serves on the Board of Directors of the Ward Public Library and as Grants Review Panelist for the Boulder County Arts Alliance, discusses the creation of the Ward Public Library in the early 1970s, the Ward Artist-in- Residence Program, and the art and poetry scene in Ward, Colorado, from the 1970s until 2007. In this interview, he reads several of his poems about Ward, discusses Poetry/Literacy workshops at the Boulder County Jail, and also talks about Hazel Schmoll and her relationship to the young hippies who moved to Ward in the 1970s.

[A].

00:00 (Today is October 15, 2006 [2007], and my name is Pat Cypher. Today I’m interviewing Mike Parker of Ward, Colorado, who is a published poet and has been very active, involved in the Ward poetry scene and also the [Ward Public Library] Artist-in- Residence program. This interview is being recorded for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program, at the Boulder Carnegie Library, and today the interview is being filmed by Ann Gillis.)

(Okay, Mike. First question: Can you tell me when and where you were born?)

I was born April 17, 1944, in Waterbury, Connecticut. Factory town, which produced a lot of brass.

(Okay. Tell us a little bit about your early education, your family.)

Well, I grew up in a very working-class family among an entire population of working- class folks. Left my hometown when I was about 17, went to college—went to a community college, University of New Haven. It was called New Haven College, then. It was kind of the beginning of my poetry career. I met some—a few—really outstanding poets and teachers that turned me onto a lot of stuff, and so began my life as a poet.

(Was there any one particular person who was a major influence in your life?)

Yeah, there was a guy named Bertrand Mathew, Bert Mathew, and he was a literature professor. I met him my freshman year—I didn’t actually study with him for a couple of years, but we became great friends. We were both interested in a lot of the same poetry, specifically Beat literature, which was still quite alive and happening in the Village [Greenwich Village], which was only a couple of hours away by train. He really befriended me and turned me onto a lot of poets. He was a great guy. He had a great influence on me. And he was just a great person.

(So you traveled frequently into the Village to kind of hear the Beat poets?)

Yeah. I started going there when I was a kid, because you could take the train from my home town—it was two hours by train down to Manhattan. When I was younger, and I used to go to the Village, I couldn’t really get in anywhere, because I wasn’t old enough, and I had a real baby face. So I would just walk the streets. You know, jazz was happening then, so you could hear jazz everywhere. The scene was really interesting; I was just a kid. And later, in college, when I went down there as much as I could, mostly I went there to buy books. Because there were a lot of great bookstores happening in the West and the East Village then, and there were a lot of small presses, and the Beat scene was hot. During that period was the first time I met the poet Allen Ginsberg, in New York.

I was in a bookstore really early in the morning, like nine o’clock in the morning—I had taken the train there—and I was buying a book by Ray Bremser, who was a friend of Allen Ginsberg’s. Bremser had spent a lot of time in prison, and he had this first book out called Madness, and I was buying that. Somehow Allen Ginsberg was in the bookstore at the same time and saw me buy that book and asked me why I bought it. And that began a—you know, a friendship. Allen was one of the most well-known and influential poets in the world, and also a very nice person. It was just the beginning of a—it’s hard to use the word friendship, but a relationship with Allen over the years. That period was just a period that helped form me; the Beats were definitely a great influence on how I saw things.

(Also during that time when you were in college, it was also the time of the Vietnam War?)

Yeah. There were big things happening then, historically, because you had a segment of the country who were tripping their brains out and really raising their consciousness. That segment of the population that was expanding their mind was also refusing to go to Vietnam, and it was the beginning of a great anti-war movement.

04:46 The conscientious-objector thing was a huge event in my life, because my politics were forming; my politics were influenced by what was going on. Vietnam was a horror show. It was a class war. If you went to college they couldn’t draft you, so you were exempt, so you had this really, generally, white-skinned privilege. So that was radicalizing a whole segment of the population. Plus, people tripping and being unafraid to deal with authority. It was a very strong period. I applied to become a conscientious objector. I based—the whole premise of my getting that status was based on the poet Kenneth Patchen, some works by Dostoyevski and Gandhi, and mostly being influenced by what was going on and able to take a stand. Basically, we just were not afraid to say “No.” The threats of putting us in jail, or doing anything to us—we could care less. People were strong, it was a strong time.

(And, were you granted conscientious-objector—)

Yeah. I worked two years—a scene which totally changed my life—I worked—a place called Judson Memorial Church hired me. I was having a hard time getting a job, and I would’ve gone to jail unless I got a job pretty soon. I couldn’t really find a job; they offered me a couple of jobs in, like, psych wards and state mental hospitals, and I wasn’t going to put up with that. So, I was kind of getting into trouble with them, and I had to get a job right away. And I walk into Judson Memorial Church, which is in the middle of Greenwich Village—very radical, political scene there, much more than a religious scene there. It had a famous theater that was happening there, famous art gallery. So they hired me. First they hired me as a printer, and then I moved to working—they ran the first runaway house, for runaway kids in the United States. Totally against the law, funded by a man name Stewart Vogt; had like a 30-room house that was a Civil War hospital, right in the middle of Greenwich Village at Washington Square Park. So it was in the heart of this great cultural melting pot. The park was a wild place: a lot of stuff, a lot of history, a lot of literature, a lot of radical things. A lot of cops, fighting with people those days, in the anti-war movement. So the church had a very strong leftist political stand, and took me in. So I worked in the runaway house for a couple of years. Very radical experience. It was a psychedelic era. Great musical, cultural era in New York City. Things like the [Human] Be-ins were happening one day, and then monstrous anti-war marches at the United Nations the next day. So it was a very live time.

And I worked with runaway kids for a couple of years, some of which I have maintained friendships with to this day. That’s where I met Ronnie Sayer. He used to visit the runaway house when he was a 15-year-old kid from New Jersey. So I still have ties with that period. It was a formative period in my life.

(And Ron Sayer was mayor of Ward.)

Yeah. He was one of the recent mayors of Ward. A phenomenal martial artist and a great human being. Him being mayor of Ward lent a really nice touch to a very difficult period we were going through. It was nice.

(Speaking of Ward, when did you first come to Ward?)

It might have been 1973. I came here to visit Sandy Cruz with a friend of mine that I was traveling with, and just stayed for a few days. It was very windy—I believe it was in October—it was windy and cold, it hadn’t snowed a lot yet, and then I returned and went back to my cabin. I had a cabin in the Catskill Mountains in New York where I lived with a group of like-minded folks, kind of in a, somewhat of a communal situation. A very radical, political group of people. People who I developed friendships with while working at the runaway house, and we left New York City. So we lived up there, and I returned there. Then I passed through—I did a lot of hitchhiking around the country, then, going from coast to coast and reading poetry, wherever I could.

09:42 Ward—the second time I came to Ward, there was a poetry reading. Of course I didn’t really know anybody here, and I was only going to be here for a week or so—I was headed for the West Coast—and Gregory Tebrich [see also, OH 0730] was kind of running the reading. The reading was all set up. He had two poets he was going to read with. I immediately found out who he was and went and asked him if I could read with him, and of course, he said, “Well, no. I don’t even know you, I never saw your poetry, and this is, like, a thing that’s all set up. But, you know, another time.”

And I was having pie and coffee at The Depot [Café], and there was a great poet working there named Muriel Lawrence. And she wouldn’t hear of it, that I couldn’t read. She had only met me for a couple of minutes, but she went and hounded Gregory until he invited me to read. So, I got to read poetry with Gregory Tebrich and two other poets, I believe, that were from—one was from Denver, and I’m not sure who the other person was, but. I met Gregory, and Muriel. It was a great reading. It was just a few of us, and it was in The Depot, and a small group of people there, but it was HOT. The energy was hot, and it was really fun, and there were no rules. This was Ward. So I had a great experience then.

I left again, and I finally came back here to live—I think it was, perhaps, 1974. I think that was the year, ’75 maybe. Made great friends. Came back to do poetry here, really. At that point, Gregory Tebrich was in the beginning stages of building the library, with Jean Pless. And there was a hot little vibe—poetry vibe—in this town. I’d been traveling around the country, reading a lot of places, but this was a great little scene, you know. In its early years, Muriel was pretty wild and Gregory was totally wild. It was nice. And he was building a library, right where it is right now. It was just a big, empty room. There were no books, and there was nothing in there. So he built the library, with nobody’s permission. Made it a public library—it’s called the Ward Public Library. It’s one of the only public libraries left, anywhere, where you can go in and just take a book, and write your name, and bring the book back when you’re done.

Gregory was really the heart and soul—the organizer—of the culture in this town. And, Carol Lamela [see also, Carolyn Lamela, OH 0721] was happening. There was a great scene of art happening here that I just was lucky enough to become a part of. People really took me in; they were warm. So it felt like home, you know. I came and went many times, but it’s a grand place—always was. And the early scene was great. And then finally Gregory built the library, and that really—that was one incredible poetry scene. Naropa University was just starting in Boulder; the Beats were there, you know. Anne Waldman, Allen Ginsberg, that was really his school. I still maintained a relationship with Allen then, and he turned a lot of visiting poets there onto the Ward library. And so the library scene was great because we had GREAT local poets, it was the most welcoming scene in the world, plus we had the magic ingredient to make things happen: we had a GREAT audience. Audience was composed of people in the arts and, you know, just mountain folks, and the scenes at the library were wild and there was always a lot of [pause] refreshments. And there was always great food. It was a pretty wide-open anarchistic scene. And nobody was afraid to do whatever they felt like, and the audience was a major part of the experience. A great audience and LOTS of great poets.

14:25 (Now, in your first book, I believe, Don’t Fall Off the Mountain, you wrote a lot of poems about Ward: about the creation of the library, about the firehouse, about what it was like to kind of begin to live at a high altitude with rough weather where you had to cut your own wood to keep warm, and so on. Would you like to read us some of those poems at this point?)

Yea, I’ll read you a couple poems from that time.

(Okay, and so this is Don’t Fall Off the Mountain: Collected Poems 1968-98. And that was published in what year?)

Oh, I don’t remember. It was about six years ago, seven years ago.

(Okay. And I think—okay.)

This was published by Phil Dubitsky. We’ll talk more about Phil Dubitsky, because HE became the center of a lot of culture in Ward. He published a lot of the poets and he published this book. He published Franklin Folsom [see also, OH 0393], he published Pat Marrocco [see also, OH 0720], he published Muriel Lawrence; he published some of his own work, published Carol Lamela. He published lots of newspapers; we had lots of wild newspapers in Ward, and it was really a very free scene.

But I’ll read you a couple of poems here. Let’s see. So we were— “Creation of the Library.” This is just a poem about the—about the library. It’s just a wonderful place, and Gregory Tebrich’s idea of starting it and just making it happen; he and Jean Pless did most of the physical labor, and got the books, and put them on the shelves, and just made the place come alive.

Anyway, it’s called: “Creation of the Library.”

An average day of columbian tops & mexican beer the literature section stacked like a tight sweater bulging with milk of newly shelved porn & beat poets zen graves—the amerikan journal of insanity radio blares—jimmy hoffa dead the denver weather is 94 the scuff of a heavy box of cookbooks orchestra of a 20 oz. hammer hand saw/orbital sander beer zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom—sawdust & dope cleanings the bite of larkheads on aspen rail anchored to the guts of an old . . . a song of carpenters lust for old beams inlaid with old imperialist school maps of asia still smelling kid dreamy & the willed remains of almost dead barry levaas heaved—shoved—carded stacked cordwood waiting on winter fangs warm up with desage & reage & ginsberg masturbating old geographics . . .liber-gregorian poet serving expresso & flowertops to the multitudes undressing december to radiator clank periodically – the horn section hangout cemetery for the living dead o’ winter – kinda backseat freefeel sci-fi lullabys of returnables anticipating your fingers new shelves eye sucked handsawed easy space stacked tite easy numbered definitely the hottest addressbook in town just waiting to be had…

#

(Wonderful—)

[Pause or break in recording.]

(—And you mentioned Barry Levaas?)

Yea, Barry Levaas gave us a huge, first collection of books. And that was the core—that was the core library. And then we just got books anywhere we could. And still to this day, lots and lots and lots of people still show up in the foyer and leave books. Great books. So—yeah, the library was a hot little place. Lots and lots of poetry readings happening there, you know, with poets from all over the world. Certainly all over the United States. And it was great. The readings were PACKED, you couldn’t get—you had to get there early to get a place to sit. And it was very, it was very wonderful.

You know, it was a romantic time. We were living our own history; we were making our own history. And in Ward, people were physically making their own history. This town, in the ‘60s, had six or seven people left in it. Great people, but it was a town that wasn’t populated. And Hazel Schmoll [see also, OH 0005, OH 0029, OH 0042] was still here, and when all these hippies came through and needed a place to live, Hazel just saw them as people, and some of them [were] people with children. She was great.

I met Hazel when I was in the [Ward] Artist-in-Residence [cabin, Dos y Media]. I was one of the early people in there, after Gregory Tebrich [see also, OH 0073]. And we had an Artist-in-Residence program; we had a house [for the artist] that we still have. And I was living over there and Hazel, you know, came over there wearing her big, long, suit over her body and banging on my door. And I opened up the door, and she said, “Who are you?”

And I told her who I was. And she said, “Well what are you doing here? You’re a criminal.” And I thought, that’s interesting. And she said, “Criminals always lived in this house,” you know. “One of the last criminals that lived here was John Molfese [see also, OH 0726], you know him?” And I said, “Sure.” But she was, you know, joking about John, kind of.

20:11 But—there had been some bank robbers that lived in there in the ‘50s, and some other criminal-type folks that lived there in the ‘40s, and Hazel knew them all, because she lived right across the road here. It was wild. But people were making their own history then. And I’m going to read one more poem.

We have this monstrous firehouse in town, which is a log cabin, so people—back then the fire department was brand new. And Norm Bowers was kind of in charge [of] it. And they had a fire truck that they kind of put together out of boxes, that was a surplus fire truck they had to put together themselves. And they really—the town needed a firehouse. It was repopulated, and people were living here—all kinds of people—and the town had already burned down a couple times before in the old days, so they needed a firehouse. It was really something that was gonna make this community survivable. Of course there wasn’t a lot of money around for that, so these—this group of people that were building that particular firehouse went and cut down a lot of logs and just built it. It just got built. People were young, and strong, and willing to work, and had a sense of community, and had a buzz, and were just living their life and creating their own history.

This is poem called “The New Firehouse.”

The new firehouse is naked to the waist 7 logs high chainsaw chewing end butts Dovetail surgery judo lock & chink – floyd knocks the knots off Giant log heave & haul Mixlevel rock wall hand laid statement of floyd & steve & mackie grasping heaving hugging granite hot sun beating down sweat & sand mackie naked to the waist -mixing mortar- wall rises “working on a buzz . . . baremuscle swank of carpenters pouches naked to the waist stripping bark lifting – heaving walking blueprint Vale, set & chinks great electric screw in stevens hands bores dowel holes slam & handsaw 7 logs high Normans dream of a great vaulted ceiling before winter chainsaw shriek dowels slammed hacking adze sawdust beat of brushes on a snare sudden rock soundsplat pickup bouncing with ralph throwing rock naked to the waist and 7 logs high a dragon vault o’firefighters building a lair where quietly lay the great grunt trucks open-cab upfront gutrub with the forces of fire . . . a dream yearning pole chinking dues meeting smell of coffee brewing benefit breakfasts same folks chewing up fire line with pulaskis & spade drawing the line collectively dealing with horror of black trees and smokey remains same folks peter & fuzzy sunday morning seeking donations yellow hardhats & showy truck same folks here tonight dousing out the hot vibes o’ feds the new firehouse collective revolution working on a buzz people muscle matthew-floyd-bill-steve-ralph-mackie-mark 7 logs high & naked to the waist the poetry ends the dance begins rubbing til we ignite get hot now spontaneous combustion up goes the firehouse. . .

#

That was a poem I read a long time ago in the library—

(Wonderful—)

—when we were building the firehouse.

(Wonderful, wonderful. And the firehouse is still being used today?)

It’s a great place.

(It is. It’s a wonderful place. You mentioned Hazel Schmoll, and I believe Hazel’s aunt [Emma Fairhurst] owned the Columbia Hotel, way back at the turn of the century. At some point Hazel was hoping to reopen it as a museum?)

Yeah. She used to let us crawl around in there. When we all first lived here, everybody went into the Columbia. Somebody [would] take you in there and it was like, there was a lot of stuff from the old days still in there. It was a very ghosty scene. Hazel didn’t live there anymore, she lived down the road. But it was hers and it was full of valuable, wonderful memories when the old days were—it was a mining town, and so the Columbia was that, you know.

24: 46 Yeah, Hazel Schmoll was great. She became part of our lives; we became part of her lives. She was a very interesting woman, an incredible botanist. She grew up here, returned here. She had a great effect on us. Plus she opened her heart and made it possible for people to rent places fairly cheap—really cheap, actually, compared to now. Real estate was not in Hazel’s mind. Repopulating the town and opening her heart was a great thing. Lots of people had places to live because she didn’t charge them much money and if you had a family she really liked it. She was great.

And she loved it that we built the library. That blew her mind. That totally blew her mind. She was a very educated woman and, you know, she thought we were a little wild. And she knew everybody was smoking weed and taking some kind of substances, but she was a botanist so nothing was too foreign to her. She was a Christian Scientist, but she had a little different take on things. Plus she lived at this altitude all her life and she WAS the living history here. She and people—other people like Dave Warren [see also, OH 1472V], and Ed Warren [see also, OH 0727], who totally befriended us. You know, we just kind of—I say “we” because I came at a much later time. But, you know, a lot of hippies just descended on this town because it was a beautiful place, and it wouldn’t have worked unless these people opened their minds and hearts to us. There was a continuation of tradition. The library became part of it.

(Speaking of the library, you were also involved in establishing a group of poets called the Ward Area Rural Poets?)

Yep. The Ward Area Rural Poets was—you know, it’s a wonderful illusion, because it’s a union of poets, there’s no dues, there’s no membership. In a way, you don’t even have to read a poem. But you do have to be part of the cultural scene and heritage that, you know, was born here, reborn here, reborn over and over here, and is still developing here. And if you’re part of the audience you’re part of the—WARP is a real thing. All we are is a group of people who try to open their arms to other poets and tell them, “Now you’re a member of WARP. Ward Area Rural Poets: There’s no membership, [no] dues and no rules. You can read anything you want here. It was just our way of welcoming people, there’s no organization except the mutual smile we all put on when we meet each other. Been a lot of great poets; a lot of great poets live here.

(And there are also a lot of artists who were kind of involved, as well?)

Like painters, you mean?

(Uh-huh.)

Oh yeah, phenomenal. Annie Gillis, Carol Lamela—a collage artist—Carol Jenkins [see OH 1484V], you know, one of the most—a very quiet person, but a great stimulating influence on the arts here, and an impetus. She did a lot of work, beautiful, beautiful work. And I remember, Phil Dubitsky and I coined the term “Jenkins Blue”; her skies were what was happening here. So, Jean Pless—a phenomenal painter and poet. Yeah, there was a big scene of artists here, all kinds of artists. Some of them were mechanics. Pat Marrocco: he mixed up women’s parts and car parts in beautiful poems. So there was a great scene of people here, all kinds of artists.

(And at some point some of the poets in town were involved in doing volunteer work in the prisons?)

Yeah. Before I lived here, when I lived in the Catskills, I got involved with some people serving long sentences in prisons in upstate New York. And Allen Ginsberg actually helped me to work with some of those people—helped me to raise some money. And he and Pete Seeger helped do a benefit for these folks I was working with, one night. When I came out here I still kind of wanted to be involved, and there was a scene of poets and musicians and stuff here that was really hot. So a friend of mine, Bonnie Schulman, who was a great poet here, was also a Naropa student, had heard there was the possibility of doing some poetry workshops at the Boulder County Jail; our entrance into that scene was through the librarian at the jail. Bonnie and I did some readings there, and pretty soon we had an ongoing weekly—it was kind of a literacy workshop, some people couldn’t even read and write and created poetry.

30:13 We published a book from there, each year we were there. There was a really amazing scene there, because every Wednesday night, for two hours, I would show up at the jail with Bonnie. And, it was either us for two hours; and then it became us plus them for two hours, because they began to write and perform and stuff. But they were in the joint, and they needed some more stimulation to grow. So we started bringing in people from Ward. So on Wednesday nights I would bring some guests in and the people at the jail were very free in allowing us to, pretty much, say what we wanted, portray any kind of poetry we wanted. We developed a relationship with the people in the Boulder County Jail. We brought LOTS and lots of poets and musicians, and we did some outrageous things around the Christmas holidays, once. I would have to—Bonnie and I would have to kind of tell them a few weeks in advance what we were going to do, what people we were going to bring in. The only poet that they wouldn’t let in was the poet Gregory Corso—was going to do a workshop and arrived pretty loaded on downers and smoking weed and had a lot of alcohol in him, and was already telling them he was going to burn the place down before they opened the door, so they sent him home.

But everybody else—you know, we got away with a lot of stuff. At one point before the holidays we wrote down that we were going to bring in a modern Middle Eastern dance troupe to help celebrate the holidays. And on paper it looked very innocent. So we brought in a number of poets that night. We brought in a seven-piece, kind of, jazz band to perform with the poets. And we brought in a troupe of belly dancers, who were all women from Ward. It was a pretty wild night in the jail. It was great.

[Chuckling.]

(Speaking of music. You are not only a poet, but you are also a musician. And at some point you left Ward and went back to New York?)

Yeah. In 1979—I’ll preface this by saying how I left, because I was ready to go do something else; I had been the artist-in-residence and, you know, it was time for a change, and it was a very incredible summer here. There was a big martial arts scene happening, and we had poets from all over the country. It was a really HOT summer of readings in the library. And we wanted to kind of make a statement and do our own poetry festival. So we had a kick-boxing and poetry festival that went on for a week, with a lot of musicians involved. And we built a boxing ring down where the children’s playground is now. We had some really incredible martial-arts events; a lot of—some great fights and some great demonstrations, dance ones [demonstrations] and laying on a board of nails and somebody breaking a big piece of granite on his chest with a sledge hammer—just great events like that.

And then we invited poets from all over the United States to come and perform here. Local folks would take a poet in for a week, put them up and give them what they needed. It was kind of an expensive deal to run, because you needed to have some money to feed people and stuff. Of course, in those days, a lot of the idea belonged to Phil Dubitsky and I. And Phil was already publishing a lot of poets. But, we somehow managed to come up with enough funding in a brief period of time to pull this thing off. Everybody had whatever they needed. They were here for a week, they were from California, they were from New York state; they were local, they were poets, they were kick boxers, they played music. The festival went on for a week; it opened up in front of The Depot [Café], we built a stage in front of The Depot, we had a band up there, we had an incredible reading. And it was wild. We had kick-boxing matches down in that little amphitheater in the center of town, with large groups of people sitting on their cars on the road watching these fights. It was cool. And at the end of that week I packed up my stuff and moved to New York City. I left here with a few friends, and we headed east. I wanted to, somehow, connect with more people—for my work. This was great but it was time to try something new and move to New York City.

35:19 (And what did you do there?)

Well, in the beginning I just wanted to have some sort of transitional period. I didn’t know whether I wanted to stay there or not. I stayed with some friends and then needed another place to stay. A friend of mine told me, “I have a friend that lives on the Bowery where he has a big loft, there’s room for you to live there, if you want to stay in the City for a while.” I wanted to do some poetry. My friends were working in the night clubs; my first job in the city was working with a carpenter—Craig Murray. And we basically repaired nightclubs after people partied in them all night. One of the things that allowed me—because I was working in a club—allowed me to get into the other clubs for free. So I went out and saw a lot of music. I could go anywhere I wanted for free, pretty much, at night. I became part of another cultural event that was just really being born. It was the punk, new-wave music scene was happening. CBGB [underground rock club] had already been happening. I got to meet a lot of new people in my life, then, and got to do a few poetry readings. One of my first big readings was on a rooftop, in New York. And it was fabulous, just screaming off a rooftop with a bar set up and a big audience of people sitting—great people sitting out. And people being able to hear your poetry from the skyscrapers that were rising above the building where you were reading was great.

So I got to do some great readings, and I got to meet some people. One of the folks I was staying with, a guy named Mike Horenik, had a band and the band had split up and he had already, kind of, had a gig booked and asked me if I wanted to try and put a few poems together with, with him. He was a player. And a friend of ours who moved to New York also at the same time fit—Jeff Freund was a player and a bass player. And he joined us. Then we picked that we needed a drummer, we picked up a drummer, a guy named Rich McClesky who I had always stayed friends with. And he was Ronnie Sayers’ best friend, and he ran away when he was 14, 15 years old, lived in the streets and became part of the runaway house where I worked and always stayed friends. And so, he was back living in New York with a friend of mine, and he said, “Yeah, I used to play the drums.” So he—we picked him and we had a lot of luck. We put poetry to music. It’s how we started out. I wasn’t really a musician. I always thought of myself more as a poet. But I got to sing my poetry, and learn how to do that, and play with some incredibly great musicians.

We got a recording contract with “Beggar’s Banquet” from . Then we did some work with RCA and sent [?] from London. Got to play lots of clubs and bring poetry to lots of people. We were political and edgy and one of the first electronic bands in New York City. We were using new instruments and it was a groove. A big change.

(What was the name of your band?)

The band was called the Ballistic Kisses. Some of the first stuff that really got us known and got us a following and we got to record were some poetry that I used to do without any music in the Ward Library. Maybe I could read one of those now.

(Love to have you read.)

So this is a different part of the book. It’s kind of the center of the book, when I was with the band, and this section of the book is called “Pavement Dweller Poems.” Actually, I conceived of this poem out in San Francisco and I wrote this as a poem, and did it many times in the Ward Library, and it was a poem about a bag lady. So, when we went to New York we took this bag-lady poem and we set it to music. And we set it to the music—it had taxi cab horns beeping in the background. It had that Puerto Rican bodega drum beat. It had the feel of the city. But it was about a bag lady. And I always saw this bag lady in San Francisco, and she was an old lady. You know, I can remember many times walking by her with Bob Murray, and we would give her some cash. She used to hang out down near the post office. So we put this to music, and it kind of became an anthem. When we often played this song in New York—somebody had actually done an animation of this song, so there was a big cartoon of this playing behind us while we did it.

40:35 I’ll read it as a poem, but maybe you’ll get a sense of the music. It was called “WHOSE MAMA IS THIS.” whose mama is this whose mama is this whose mama is this whose mama is this she eats her lunch facing a brick wall down by the hamburger stand rain has stopped & begging’s been fine whose mama is this whose mama is this why is this happening old bags of crying rags she sits on one and fights with the other this ain’t ronald reagan’s mama this ain’t bush’s mama uh uuuhhhhhhh not your mamma sleeping in an alley shitting over a sewer getting older & older she’ll never get newer feeling like a sewer getting older & older she’ll never get newer feeling like a sewer she’s sixty-five years old and she smells like piss whose mama is this she’s looking for a doorway in the rain the cops don’t even check her out she got nothing just secret hiding places and bags full of rags whose mamma is this whose mamma is this your mama ever slept out on the street well, how come? dog food madonna ya’ll blow more on dope than she’ll have forever ain’t the truth ugly it’s too insane not to feel her pain whose mamma is this whose mamma is this somebody gotta claim her somebody gotta name her whose mama is this whose mama is this mama mama mamamamammmmmmmmaaaaaaa whose mamma whose mama whose mama whose mama whose mama this ain’t ronald reagan’s mama not a BUSH mama Not a CHENEY mama not your mama not my mama whose mama whose mama whose mama whose mama whose mama whose mama whose mama whose mama is this?

#

(VERY powerful. Very powerful.)

That’s a fun poem to read.

(And I can hear the music.)

The music was great. The music brought that poem alive. You can imagine people dancing to that in the night club. Our lyrics were definitely different from most of the other bands in New York. They were poetry inspired. It was a great period; it was a good time. We had great friends, got to play music with just great people, great artists.

(And, did I understand that you said fairly recently that your band has again become popular in Europe?)

Jeff Freund sent some emails saying that some DJs in Europe had picked up an old song, a song called “Domestic Servants,” that had a very street sound to it and had—it was a song full of politics. I’ve taken that song and woven it into a new poem many, many different times. I wrote a poem about Elian Gonzales, using that poem as the basis of it. That song was in the movie Crossover Dreams that stared the great salsa musician, Ruben Blades [said with Spanish pronunciation], or Ruben Blades [said with English pronunciation]. And we got to perform that in that movie Crossover Dreams. It was a great little movie, independent movie about music, won some big awards that year. Started a new career for Ruben; he got picked up by Robert Redford when he saw that movie. Redford picked him up and put him in a movie called The Milagro Bean Fields [The Milagro Beanfield War] and that was the beginning of a new life in the movies for Ruben. Great musician. We were lucky to be chosen. They looked at a lot of music groups in New York, but they were looking for somebody that had some politics and some grit to them. And it was fun. We got to do some fun things.

44: 58 (At the end of that period you came back to Ward.)

At the end of that period, in New York, my dad was dying of cancer; my mom was elderly, somewhat crippled, had some health problems. The music scene was winding down. I left New York and returned to my hometown, which I had been away from most of my adult life. It was a really tough place to go back to. One week I got to see myself at the Museum of Modern Art, you know, dancing and singing in Crossover Dreams, and a couple of weeks later I was working on the docks in New Haven, unloading trucks. It was a big change, but my dad was dying. I got to back and hang out with him and spend nights in the hospital with him while he was dying.

And when he died I did a lot of jobs—worked in a bakery, baking bread. Bartended, unloaded trucks, took care of my mom for almost 10 years. She lived in a little apartment house that was mostly elderly people, they were preyed upon by crack addicts; it was a very tough scene, that town. Since I had left as a kid, the factories closed that had a work force of 30, 000 people—all out of work within a couple of years. Crack hit that town, crime hit the town really heavy. It was a really tough place. I stayed there ‘til my mom died. Talked on the phone with Celeste Marrocco [see also OH 0728] all those years I was back there. So there were some pretty down years there. It was just a necessity and, not so bad.

One of the things I looked forward to all the time I was back there was every New Year’s Eve, Pat and Celeste Marrocco with [children] Mickey and Keith and Pete would come and spend the whole day with my mom and I, go out and get some Chinese food; Pat would bring me a little present from back in Ward. We’d spend the day together. So I always remained great friends with them. They were great allies in my life. During the music scene in New York they would come and—at Christmas, when they’d go back and visit their families, they would come. One of my greatest memories is: it was Christmas week, my band was doing really good, and we had a really hot gig on a Friday night at the Peppermint Lounge; huge audience of people. We were the feature event that night, and the Marroccos were coming. Except, Mick was with them. And Mick was not going to hear about not going to see me play music. Because Mick—you know, when I was artist-in-residence I used to watch Mick Marrocco drag a guitar and a piece of string up the road behind him, and I’m singing Ramone songs to me on the roof. So, you know, rock-and-roll is in Mickey’s blood.

We were playing, and I couldn’t figure out how to get Mickey into the show. I had worked at the Peppermint Lounge and it was kind of a mafia run joint, and I went and talked to my boss and I told him, you know, I need a guest. He said, “Sure, whatever.” I thought, Well, my guest is nine years old. And he was like, “What, are you crazy? You can’t bring a child in here.” But he relented. So Mick was on the guest list. And we were about to play and Patrick and Celeste and Mick were down in the dressing room. And that night we played, and Mick sat on one of the speakers on stage during the show. At it was, like, rockin. He had all these punk, punk girls with blue Mohawks just screaming at him. It was a great memory in my life, just a funny little side story. But Mick and I are still friends. And we both still remember that night, it was great.

(And you see him frequently?)

Yeah, I do. As often as I can. I always wanted to come back to Ward, all the time I was taking care of my mom. I talked on the phone often with some friends out here. Phil Dubitsky and I stayed great friends while I was away. And it always still felt like a life light; I had great memories of it. And after my mom died, Celeste Marrocco said: “Come on.”

I jumped on an airplane, I came back out here, just changed my life again, totally. Lived with Pete Lawrence—took me in, gave me a place to live. The Artist-in-Residency Program was opening up again. Nobody had ever lived in there twice, but I was lucky enough to be granted the opportunity to live there again for two years. Produced this book, Don’t Fall Off the Mountain, got all the old poems together with Phil, put them in this—so this is a collected book of poems for 30 years. Got to be the artist-in-residence again, got to do some great poetry readings and introduce some great new poets to the town. The art scene was very hot here again.

50: 30 (Can we just take a step back?)

Sure.

(You’ve mentioned the Artists-in-Residence program several times. And I know you’re still involved in that. Can you explain what that is?)

Yeah. We [Library Board, Ward Public Library] just picked a new artist-in-residence last night. A guy named Roy Burkett, who’s a wonderful songwriter, is going to move into Dos y Media [Artist-in-Residence cabin]. Artists-in-Residence program: Many years ago, a friend of the library and the family [Freeload Mining Company] gave us a house . So we have a house to put an artist up for two years, and in that two years we just ask them to have an impact on the town, our kids, some aspect of our culture. We put an artist in there. And I was an early artist-in-residence and got to live there again for two years when I came back here. And that’s basically our program. We put people up for a couple of years, and they live there, and they get the town for an audience and they get the library to use a venue in any way they want. It’s a great opportunity.

(And in the past there have been musicians, and stained-glass artists—)

All kinds of artists. Incredible artists. A lot of great painters, a lot of great writers. My wife, now Mary Johnston, was an artist there. And we’ve had great artists over the years, there, all kinds of artists. It’s a very alive program.

(Wonderful. So the new artist will be moving in, shortly?)

November first. We’re going to clean up the house, patch a few things up. That cabin’s old. It needs a little work all the time, especially after somebody leaves. So we’re going to fix it up a little bit and he’ll move in November first. We’ll get him a little bit of firewood, introduce him to some people, and then he can just make a life here for a couple of years and get it on.

(And that’s part of the Ward public library?)

Yeah, the library—that’s our house. And it was given to us as an artist-in-residency. So it’s to be perpetually used as that. It’s a great program.

(Wonderful. So you came back to the mountains, you got back involved in the art and poetry scene, and there was a new group of poets?)

Yeah. Lots of new poets. Kayanne Solem [see also OH 1483V], you know, Sandy Karng [see also OH 1481V], they had stayed here all these years. Carol Lamela—a lot of the older poets who I knew when I had lived here 17 years earlier were still here and still producing great work. So the poetry scene was still very much alive. It was great coming back into the—you know, the warmth of this community. There was a great poetry scene happening again. Or just, it had never really stopped. I had left but it had continued. So it was nice to come back to some great poets here.

(And who were some of the other new people who were involved?)

Well, there’s all kinds of new people now. Like I say, Kayanne was a major influence on things, she kept a lot of things going. Carol Lamela did. Phil Dubitsky did, over the years. There were lots of new people: Leo Goya and Gene Hatherly, great poets. We had lots of visiting poets; a poet Andy Clausen, one of the greatest living poets in America, loves to come here, and he always makes a few bucks here, and he does an incredible show. Recently we had Mike Wochuk and his family here, a whole family of poets performing. There’s a great, great new poetic asset in our community, a poet named Roman Sanchez, who’s really on fire and [pause in sound] there’s all kinds of great poets still happening here. We still bring in a lot of visiting poets; we have great poets living here. The scene is alive.

(And at some point, also, the Ward poets got involved with a senior center in Boulder?)

Yeah. Some of that happened without me. But there was a great poet named Camilla [Beck] and she had been working in Boulder; she was an ex-Naropa student and she worked with older poets. Some of those older poets were great friends with Sandy Karng and had been on her radio show. So between her and Sandy we got to invite four woman poets who were in their eighties [including Melissa Sanborn], came and performed. It was a Sunday afternoon; it was just phenomenal. The library blew their mind, and the audience blew their mind. And they, in turn, just unveiled their lives to us. It was wonderful. Great, beautiful, strong women. Old.

(In their eighties.)

So much experience. In their eighties, yeah, and just alive. It was a great day.

55: 30 (Since you’ve come back, recently, you’ve had quite a change in your personal life. You’re now a father!)

I am. I fell madly in love. I made great friends, for many years, with the poet Mary Johnston. She and I have been friends for many years without being romantically involved; that was kind of the farthest thing from either of our minds. But over the years we got closer and closer and just fell in love. We have a daughter named Francesca— Frankie Parker. So I have a whole new wonderful life; I have a great wife. And she’s a wonderful writer. She recently won a film writing award last year, and she produces her own work. And Frankie produces her own work.

[Laughter.]

(Your newest book, Wallflower Sutra. Would you like to read us some of your poems—)

Yeah. Maybe we can kind of end this with a couple of poems, or find a way out with it, okay?

(Wonderful.)

I’m not sure how much time we have left. Some of them are long. About five minutes? I’ll try and get a couple of poems in. I’ll read the title poem, “Wallflower Sutra.” After I was the artist-in-residence I didn’t really have a place to live. But I needed a place to live, at least for some months. So Fred, who used to live here, Fred Synnestvedt, and Derrick Paulsen offered me the opportunity to move into a little building, and I mean little. It was six-foot-six by eight feet. And it was this little building up, way above town, next to an old gold mine. And I spent a summer up there, and I wrote this poem, “The Wallflower Sutra.” I was reading a lot of Tibetan literature. And this is just pretty much a poem about compassion. It’s about Ward, too.

It’s called “The Wallflower Sutra.” high high high oh yes I’m high watchin eyelids as prayer flags fluttering in the winds of change dry lightening rages on the bare hillsides of these pages been pullin on the buddha’s ears trying t’ calm the world’s fears high high high oh yes I’m high sitting on a goldmine painting sky with eyes pullin on the buddha’s ears echo of the life below friendships keep me in tow keep me in tow watch thunderheads climb mountain backs moan heavy breathings down on my shack— up with emptiness cast your future to the breeze let beauty kneel you on your knees drink starspit & bathe in meteor showers let change devour delusions of power reducing the number of parts eases the cost of what’s won or lost sitting on a mine dump brailling the bumps with boots on the bite high high high oh yes I’m high sitting on a goldmine painting sky with eyes listening to waterfalls of gossip pass think I’ll ask myself to dance blowing smoke rings to leap through it’s edgy with echo nighttime perfume of bear piss in berries air thick with bats flying on ghostmines sit without moving breathe without grasping sip deep the quiet soothe the heart full of riot nourished by pulsebeat suture the future butcher your flaws & stirfry our sighs bite the silence when it gets loud you’re sitting on a goldmine dig it now—dig it now waving hands & weaving clouds juggle water on the way to slaughter the fabric of eternity at best a shroud saving face collecting dust bones & promises will rust bardo’s bop & rebirth’s trot moonlight fades & banquets rot old gets cold & cash won’t last your’re sitting on a goldmine dig it now summer storms anoint the calling to stretch your legs instead of begging munch garnets in granite for lunch on a Sawtooth listen to the thunder coming hanging glacier mind eraser look over the edge & dance up the ancient geo—upchuck sittin on a goldmine high high high oh yes I’m high ever & never the leg traps of denial’s disguises the fireweed has gone to seed let beauty put you on your knees the long sunlight has done its deed let change of season spice your reasons light butter lamps in lover’s pants listening to this echoed trance think I’ll ask myself to dance high high high oh yes I’m high pullin on the buddha’s ears trying to calm the world’s fears high high oh yes I’m high

#

(Thank you very much, Mike. It looks like we’re out of time now. I think Ward has a wonderful future, with a new generation.)

Yeah, it sure does. Things are alive here.

(I want to thank Anne Gillis for filming this interview.)

Thanks.

60:56 [End of tape A. End of interview.]