Ponies, Cyborgs, and Health Insurance: The Bay Area Poetry Marathon Is Back

Sis de la Perriere

Donna de la Perriere curates the Bay Area Poetry Marathon.

​The Lab was full of folding chairs and poets last Saturday night as the Bay Area Poetry Marathon kicked off its eighth summer of very long readings. Donna de la Perrière, the curator of the reading series, opened the evening with a brief introduction of the poets, and then retired to the back of the gallery.

Over the course of the next two hours, nine poets entered the spotlight and read from their work. "I love the idea of mixing and juxtaposing styles and voices and aesthetics -- of creating an evening with that good, generative kind of tension," de la Perrière said. A poet herself, she has curated the event for more than a decade, starting in Boston in 2001.

De la Perrière got the idea to pack so many poets into one reading event from fellow poet Aaron Kiely, who ran a similar reading series in Boston. Kiely's concept was to fill one weekend every summer with as many poets, snacks, and drinks as possible, and when he canceled the series in 2001, de la Perrière and her husband, Joseph Lease, took charge. The only change they made when they transplanted the series to San Francisco in 2004 was to spread the event over the entire summer, with monthly readings instead of a single-weekend event.

Coffee House Press

Joseph Lease's book of poetry, Broken World.

​If listening to poetry for two hours seems dull, think again. Saturday's reading captivated the audience with the "generative tension" de la Perrière promised. Each poet maintained the energy of the first reader, Lindsey Boldt, who read from her long poem, "Do Me Dreamlife." Other standouts included Joseph Lease, Nathan Hauke, Samantha Boudrot, and Tom Comitta. Lease read from two of his books, Broken World and Testify. Of his first poem, he said, "This is called, 'Magic.' It's about magic. It's also about health insurance." He also read "America" and closed with his haunting calling card, "Broken World (for James Assatly)."

Samantha Boudrot took the stage in a leather jacket, bearing a ukulele, and sang two songs. The first contained every letter of the alphabet and was intended for use in a sound-text program created by Tom Comitta (more on that in a moment). The second debated whether or not the word 'people' could legitimately be rhymed with 'hill.'

Comitta followed her performance with a piece called "Warm Up." It entailed him reciting various tongue-twisters over and over at high speeds. At the end of his reading, he repeated the word 'when' roughly 100 times. Comitta is the creator of soUNDtext (pronounced "sound und text"), which he calls "a word processor/cyborg sound poet." His voice is the first "sound-font" and Boudrot's will serve as the second. He invites others to contribute their voices to the program on his website.

The evening was rounded out by readings from David Kent Highsmith, Nick Johnson, Kirsten Jorgenson, and Linda Norton. Take de la Perriere's advice to "go out to hear language at work the same way you'd go out to hear a band or see a film. It's generative; it's moving; it's fun; it makes you think." The Bay Area Poetry Marathon is back next month with more fascinating poetry on July 30. The event begins at 7 p.m. at The Lab, 2948 16th St. (at Capp).