I have so many fabulously talented and awesome friends, one of them is composer/musician/producer Joseph Minadeo aka Patternbased. He’s currently on a massive tour across the country, collaborating with musicians/artists/designers… planned, but mostly kind of spontaneous. He just left Ashville and is now in NYC/ Philly/NJ area…and is open to collaborating in cities near there.

If you’re a musician on the East coast…hit him up and collaborate. Ever patient, professional, flexible and with a great ear, he’s honestly a great producer/musician to work with!

Check out his website for details on what he’s worked on, his projects, style etc….

http://www.patternbased.com/pb/

And one of several things he and I worked on was this piece he just published on his Soundcloud. It’s a little prosaic excerpt-infused-melody taken from the beloved Jean Baudrillard’s philosophical treatise “Simulacra and Simulation.”

Yesterday I lied and said I can't write about him.
His strong fingers still holding onto fragile memories.
I want to protect him, keep him from the hurt that can surface 
when words pour over an open wound.
So I lied again and told him that all I want to do is write about how I'm crossing my delicate fingers, 
waiting for memories to let go
and for me to slip in. 
And I lied again. And again after that.
And then it happened 
That version of him disappeared. And all that's left is truth. 
Sitting together, as words fall on wounds that will take forever to heal, if at all. 
We stare at them, and each other. 
And let us happen. 
And learn that harmony isn't found in the letting go of our long-lived memories,
instead it's found somewhere in the letting go of the fight. 
Love needs room to grow, and there's no room left 
in a space filled with war.

Hemingway once wrote,  "He defends [his friends] when they are attacked, he gets them into magazines and out of jail. ... He writes articles about them. He introduces them to wealthy women. He gets publishers to take their books. He sits up all night with them when they claim to be dying ... he advances them hospital expenses and dissuades them from suicide." 

T. S. Eliot declared that he "is more responsible for the twentieth-century revolution in poetry than is any other individual." 

Donald Hall remarked that he "is the poet who, a thousand times more than any other man, has made modern poetry possible in English."

He gave birth to Robert Frost. He introduced Joyce to Harriet Shaw Weaver and then invited him to Paris, changing everything. 

As a writer, Ezra Pound was aware of the inside, as a human...he was aware of the outside.

This was important enough for me to pause the futbol match...write...and share. 

This blog is in response to a lovely thank you I just received from a girl who goes by the name of Billimarie, I call her the Typewriter Poet. She also wrote THIS blog about the recent Poesia Para La Gente Metro reading we all did. It includes the awesome poem she typed up along the journey! 

I forgot exactly how we met but I do know it was on Facebook. After looking her up I invited her to join us on the poetry train, because she embodied what Poesia Para La Gente is all about.

Here's the thing, the Typewriter Poet doesn't need to perform a poem, she doesn't need to be heard (in the conventional way), nor is she interested in promoting herself. She only wants to type poems for people, for free. Spending time with her on the train made me think that maybe she wants to form a road of communication between symbols and her internal voice that's already communicating with our collective conscience. And then I realized she's already been doing that. And isn't that the nature of poetry? You meet her and realize how calm, collected, peaceful she seems, not exactly your everyday poet. (relax, it's a generalization!) There doesn't seem to be a struggle, but I could be wrong. But then again, she doesn't need a struggle, she's found her purpose, or so it seems. Imagine doing what you love, doing it day-in and day-out. Now imagine if what you're doing happens to be a ritual of non-verbal communication in a language of symbols, with your community - as an act of altruistic, free expression. Imagine if what you're doing is praying...with the community, free of doctrine and with a smile. Imagine that. 

The Typewriter Poet carries her pink typewriter just about everywhere and writes for free, for anybody, at anytime. She's even taken her typewriter on "tour" throughout the Pacific Northwest. She does this for the love of poetry. And maybe for the love of people. I'm not quite sure yet. She has nothing to sell, only to save, though she doesn't know it. She's saving the art and spirit of the voiceless word freshly strung together by ribbon and ink onto paper, spoken-less, accessible and free...

On behalf of typewriters, and those who choose to redefine what it means to have a voice, thank you Ms. Typewriter Poet. 

follow her adventures at http://www.typewriterpoetry.com

RIGHT NOW will never happen again, so we compose our memory with snapshots of life's better notes. The melodies of what we hope for are forever stamped onto records, playing through the chirping of birds and the sounds of waves embracing us.


(photo Ventura Beach)