Oregon poet David Barker has never been to Saratoga Springs, but one of his poems has.
He isn’t a Pulitzer winner, or an academic or a student. But he does write poetry.
This is the story of one of his poems, stuffed into a book, forgotten about, and then found.
A reporter at Spotlight Newspapers was browsing the fiction isles at Borders Books on Broadway earlier this month when he came upon Barker’s work.
He had picked up a copy of Big Sur and the Oranges of Hironymus Bosch by Henry Miller after being attracted to its cover art, and as he leafed through the pages, a small, stiff piece of paper, no bigger than postcard, fell to the floor.
Delicately printed on the card, in old-fashioned typeface was a short poem by Barker titled `Donut Shop.`
On the card’s reverse side there was a message that read as though it were ripped from some Marxian manifesto:
`This poem may be the last best hope for real literary art,` it read. `It is the cave wall where we record our passing.
All pretense is stripped away; art is being made because it must be made, not out of any hope for financial gain, but to further the human condition, to genuinely communicate with other living people and help all of us.`
The back of the card also asked the reader to `register this broadside online and join us at the Guerilla Poetics Project.`
As though he were doing something wrong, the reporter checked his surroundings for surveillance cameras and stuffed the poem into his pants pocket. He put the Henry Miller book back on the shelf and walked out of the store and back to his office in search of the story.
Secret society
blends old with new
The top members of the Guerilla Poetics Project call themselves `administrators` rather than editors.
It’s a curiosity that links the secret society directly with the Internet, where the community began nearly two years ago on a blog.
One administrator said that the group of poets, editors and friends had toyed with the idea of a subversive distribution of what are called broadsides, or small cards, for years.
But, it took a three-day binge of blog postings to create the GPP.
He said administrators remain anonymous because the idea of the GPP is to put the names of poets out into the world without having the focus be on `who’s in charge` of the organization.
He said the organization has grown from being regionally based, to international by employing what he calls a guerilla marketing strategy that serves to bring the poetry of the underground and small presses to a mainstream audience.
That marketing strategy is simple. Let people join the GPP and stuff thousands of broadsides into target books in libraries and bookstores throughout the world.
`We feel that a much larger poetry reading audience is out there. It’s just been either ignorant of, or denied access to, the work being produced today,` said the administrator.
`Maybe it’s just never occurred to many readers that poems were being written, in a readily accessible language, about things that just might be relevant to their own daily struggles here in the early 21st century. Our hope is that a GPP broadside opens a door to the poetry being produced today.`
The group also combines the classic and basic broadside with the new media of Internet social networking. Here’s how it works:
Administrators at the GPP ask for submissions of short poems from poets, many of them West Coast dwellers who have full-time jobs but publish poetry in a number of reputable journals and in small presses.
After selecting a poem for publication, an administrator designs and prints the poem on a broadside using an antique 1914 Chandler Price letterpress.
Then the printed poems are mailed to poets and members of the GPP, who go into bookstores and libraries and smuggle the broadsides into books.
The object is for an unsuspecting reader to find the broadside and then, after reading the instructions on the back of the card, register the poem online.
The folks at the GPP also hope that poem-finders will become interested and join their community of poets.
When registering the broadside found in Borders, the reporter found that a number of other poems had been registered in the Capital District.
According to an interactive map that charts found poems, several other broadsides have been found locally.
A broadside was found in Jean Paul Sartre’s `Nausea` in the Albany Public Library and other poems have been found in books by Kerouac at Borders in Saratoga.
An administrator for the GPP said that several of their distributors live in the Capital District.
Albany man employs
`poetic terrorism`
Dan Wilcox, an Albany poet, said he may well have been the distributor that hid Barker’s poem inside the pages of Miller’s work.
`I sort of just stuff the broadsides in the books,` said Wilcox. `I don’t always look at the titles.`
Wilcox is what the administrators at the Guerilla Poetics Project call an `operative.`
About a year ago, Wilcox said he found out about the project from a friend.
He paid a $25 fee to join, and now he’s periodically sent a package of broadsides. He gets to keep a special `operatives copy` of each poem and then disperses the rest, hiding them in libraries or bookstores around the region.
He said GPP has certain target books, especially authors favored by the hipster set, like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski.
Sometimes, though, Wilcox said, he’ll stuff a poem into a non-literary best seller, since the buyer `may be new to poetry, rather than someone already interested in literature.`
Wilcox said he thought the GPP was a good way to bridge the gap between print and electronic media.
He said that years ago, he remembers putting his own self-published chapbooks on the shelves in local bookstores and hearing stories of people who picked up the book and tried to buy it, only to find it wasn’t an inventoried item with a barcode.
A manager at Borders in Saratoga said she was unaware of the fact that several of the GPP broadsides had been found in her store.
`I don’t know what the corporate people would think, but I don’t think we have a problem with it,` she said.
Wilcox said he’ll continue to serve as an operator, even if he has to look over his shoulder to make sure he isn’t going to be arrested for tampering with the store’s merchandise.
`I’ve been doing acts of what I call ‘poetic terrorism’ for years,` said Wilcox, who is in many ways the street poet laureate of the Capital District. It’s a rare day, said Wilcox, that he doesn’t show up at a poetry open mic.
In many ways, David Barker, the Salem, Ore., poet who writes for the GPP, is like Wilcox’s long-lost brother, living a similar life in the West.
During the day, Barker works as a database manager and at night he attends open mics or readings. Every day, Barker said, he rages with the page, churning out poems that mirror the work of his literary idol, Charles Bukowski, the bard of the barroom. Barker’s work has been published by Bottle of Smoke Press, which has also published some of the late-Bukowski’s broadsides.
Barker said he actually met Bukowski when he was a student at California State Long Beach in the 1970s. He said he asked the acerbic Bukowski for an autograph and the writer of such cult-classics as `Post Office` spit in his face.
Still, Barker cites Bukowski as an influence. Like Wilcox, he likes the attitude of the GPP because of its anti-academic irreverence. Barker said that poetry by the common man for the common man has always had a place in society.
`I can’t relate to much of it,` Barker said of academic poetry. `I like reading from the small presses, and I like the poets that write for the GPP.`
Wilcox compared the poetry of the GPP to the work he hears at the open mics that he adores.
`You might hear something that is terrible and then the next person comes on and you’ll say, man, I wish I had a copy of that,` said Wilcox.
Barker said that the GPP is a way to get his poetry out into the world. And, he said, it’s a way to continue to participate within a community of poets. He said he doesn’t care that he isn’t getting paid for his work by the GPP.
`In the small press world you don’t do it for the money,` said Barker. `You give your stuff away, it’s all free.`
For information on the Guerilla Poetics Project visit www.guerillapoetics.org.
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