Sporal Illage, 4 August 2006

A time out from my obsessing over alternative news sources and anguish over the desecration of Lebanon to look at the more romantic side of life...

There is a little bit of poetry in all of us. Some are brave (foolish?) enough to display proudly their wont in this regard, others are a little less forthcoming (more embarrassed?) about it. Nonetheless, the urge to speak, think, and express oneself in more less prosaic terms exists in each and every one of us.

It may come out in a song of dedication carved into a tree, on a cocktail napkin about the barmaid's cleavage, in our private diary complete with combination lock, or it might just be a catchy haiku we make up in our mind and never let escape.

Some poets are more gifted than others, still others gift us with their wit and humour. The poetry can be romantic, semantic, pedantic, frantic, or born of panic; it can political, hypocritical, social, lyrical, critical, or diametrical. Or it can just be...

Regardless, the world has become a more dangerous, more empirical place to live because people don't take the time for poetry anymore. Poets are deemed to be mentally unbalanced or nominally out of touch. Poets are often seen as untouchables or god(desse)s who are mysterious and unapproachable. Poets can be regarded with fear or condemnation because they dare to put voice to what the everyman or -woman actually feels or thinks about. Poets are intimidating because one never knows what a poet is thinking and/or if a particular time you've spent with him or her will end being the subject of a poem. A poet evokes a quickening of the pulse because when you see him or her lurking in the corner of a bar with a pen, drink, and piece of paper, you're unsure what it is he or she is doing, but you're dying to find out. When you hear a poem, you wonder was the poet near you when he or she wrote, reading your thoughts, accessing that private part of yourself that no one knows, because this damn poem could be about you, it could be about your life, your viewpoint, your fantasy, your forbidden fruit, your orgasmic dilemma.

Most of all, poets are the mystics in our lives, who can uplift us with magic or come down on us with rage and vengeance; they can make us want to dance or compel us to fuck with abandon; they can touch us with a single word that reshapes our thinking or they can invade us with a series of words that awaken our primordial urges or they can own us with the images they paint that dust off our dormant lustfulness and bring them to life.

Or, maybe, poets just bore the shit out of us.

Anyway, A few weeks ago, here in gangneung, at Bar Bumpin', the bar to end all Korean bars, the inaugural Gangneung Poetry Night was held. Originally christened "Oral Spillage" it metamorphosised, with typical poetic licence, into "Sporal Illage" and thus was born what might become a monthly--or so--happenstance.

Thanks to the fruits of Dylan Butler's and Gene Justice's labours, as well as to the hospitality of Bumpin' owner, Gyeong-sup Lee, a lineup of four poets was created: the aforementioned Dylan and Gene, Michael Hutley, and yours truly.

As a spontaneous addition to the madness, after some prompting from his original Polynesian shirt and a couple friends from Asahi or Sapporo, making the quartet a quintet, Melvin Palmiano stepped up and delivered a haiku of subtle beauty.

And what night of open mic would be complete with the incomparable Bryce Surbrug and his guitar, belting out his own tunes and covering some others in his typical hard-boiled, red-faced way...

melvin and the shirt of inspiration, serving up a little haiku action

michael in his smooth, classy way entertaining with humour and style

gene entertains us all with his song and dance and faux forgotten-line rendition

dylan and his "soju", but not before reading some verse off a trash bin and ignoring belligerent korean intelligentsia

yours truly blathering on, replete in undying support for the palestinian cause

bryce doing his thing and singing his songs

the poets/haikuists/singers had a splendid time sharing their words and thoughts and if, as it is hoped, those in attendance enjoyed themselves even the slightest bit, then it was a smashing success not to be duplicated again, but perhaps to be enjoyed on a slightly different scale , but nearly similar astral plane, sometime in the near future.