Poetry in New Haven: the beat goes on

• From the McDougal Center to Perry's on Whalley, poetry's oral tradition refuses to die.

By Meredith Gordon

"I think poetry is stronger in spoken word than in written form. It has more bearing," Cecilie Roaldset, a junior at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), said. Roaldset has regular readings at Perry's Coffee House on Whalley Avenue. "It presents objects and figures and people in a way that you don't see when you read it silently," she continued. "You get pulled into the expression, you really fall into the words of the person speaking, whereas most of the time when you read it on paper, it's just on paper, there is no voice connected to it, so you don't hear the pauses at the ends of the stanza or the line." Natasha Le Bel, SM '98, one of the Connecticut State Poetry Circuit's Student Poets of 1998, agrees. "There is definitely something to be said for listening to poets read their own work no matter what, because only they know how it sounds to them, and they are going to be the people who've got the best chance of expressing the way that sounds to someone else," she said. She admitted, however that sometimes the poet's "voice [will] interfere with [one's] processing of the poem," if a great poet is a less-than-great reader.

When it comes to traditional, old-school, Yale-affiliated readings, New Haven certainly has its fair share. The Yale Literary Magazine holds readings once a semester, complete with bottles upon bottles of Chardonnay and fabulous hors d'oeuvres. Dozens of snazzily dressed English majors turn Pierson's common room into a perfect venue for the few, the brave, and the published--as well as the drunk, the foolish, and the unpublished--to read their work before a relatively receptive and open-minded audience. There's also the Yale Graduate Student Poets, a group of writers that gathers in HGS. Although not a literary "school" by any stretch of the imagination, the group has been surreptitiously organizing readings every semester for almost three years. Most of its publicity has come via word-of-mouth. The group used to hold readings in various masters' houses, HGS 211, and the Whitney Humanities Center. This year, however, the creation of the McDougal Center has given the Graduate Student Poets a space to hold events on a regular basis, cutting down on their nomadic tendencies. Readers have included graduate students in the English and Comparative Literature departments, law students, junior faculty, and even a few "grown-up poets," including Rachel Wetzstoen, PC '87, John Burt, SM '77, GRD '83, April Bernard, and Mary Jo Bang.

Some McDougal Center members, including Isaac Cates, GRD '00, collaborated with the Yale University Press and the English department to organize the Yale Series of Younger Poets reading last week, an event which celebrated the publication of The Yale Younger Poets Anthology.

Past winners include John Hollander, the famed and fabulous English Department professor; George Bradley, SY '75, editor of the Anthology; Pamela Alexander, "relaxed poet" and writer-in-residence at MIT; and Daniel Hall, former Amy Lowell Traveling Scholar, 1997 National Poetry Series Poet, and current resident of the Merrill Estate. They read before a mixed crowd of intellectual types, ranging from the lowliest undergrads to the uppermost (read: tenured) echelons of the English department. Once again, white wine and hors d'oeuvres were in attendance.

The list of Yale affiliated readings goes on: the Yale Review holds readings every semester or so, and brought Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jorie Graham to campus in early December. And as if the Graduate Student Poets weren't enough, a clump of Law School poets is rumored to be staging a reading later this month, and apparently has more in the works. The proliferation of on-campus poetry seems to be getting out of hand.

But New Haven poetry is not now--nor has it ever been, just about Yale. From 1977 until its dissolution in 1993, Phoenix (also known as the New Haven Poetry Reading Series), existed in the city as an independent organization that raised money to bring poets from across the country to read here twice a month. Founded by Donald Faulkner, a former Yale professor, Phoenix began meeting in a now-defunct coffee shop on Crown Street, and moved to the New Haven Historical Society in 1979 when Vincent Kay took over the organization. In 1982, they began receiving grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and the NEA to cover the costs of honorariums, receptions, and overhead. For over 15 years, Phoenix "was really Connecticut's only forum for writers which was independent from a university," Kay explained. "[The readings] happened every season, and [Phoenix] was not affiliated with any organization other than itself. It was a nonprofit organization, and totally independent, which is very unique."

Despite the demise of Phoenix, there is no shortage of poetry in New Haven for the more alternative and anti-establishment connoisseur. The Daily Caffe, the well-known watering hole of the multiply pierced hipster, holds poetry readings on the second Sunday of every month. In addition to the bands, the coffee, and the ultra-comfy seating, the Daily's poetry readings give its loyal crowd one more reason to keep coming back.

Perry's Coffee House, a tiny-yet-fabulous café way up at the SCSU end of Whalley Avenue, holds open mic nights on the second Friday of the month and is always packed. The rows of spectators sitting on the floor usually reach all the way to the door, and "standing room only" is an understatement.

Even Atticus, the bookstore-slash-coffeeshop famous for its not-quite-vegan Black Bean Soup, is hosting a series of readings this April, in celebration of Poetry Month. Artspace (the ambiguous and enigmatic home to plays and concerts), The Never Ending Bookstore, and Café Diesel are a few more places where any inspired scribbler and speaker is sure to have an audience full of caffeinated and/or painfully literate listeners. Some "poets" have even showed up at Toads; last week, well-known poet, artist, and all around nice guy Henry Rollins came all the way to New Haven to perform his own personal brand of spoken word. Word has it Rollins performance was unlike anything previously seen this side of Mars.

"I would be hesitant to say that poems which cannot possibly be read aloud are real poems," said Professor Hollander. Though he acknowledged the importance of the written form in the history of poetry, he felt that "the oral dimension of poetry is tremendously important." Hearing "a poet read a good poem well can be a treat," he said. Cates noted that, if nothing else, attending a poetry reading is "a free and easy way to get exposed to poems by people [whose work] you wouldn't normally get to see. For contemporary poetry, there's not the strong sense of a canon that there is for even stuff that is 20 or 30 years old. So if you want to read what is being written right now, you almost have to go to readings, because there is almost no other way to find out who is writing stuff that you're interested in, who's writing stuff that you like."

Graphic by Karen Rosenberg.

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