Group photo Saturday
Photo by Chris Dean
My husband and I are born and raised Hoosiers who've never done a lot of traveling outside of the state, but Labor Day weekend, we found ourselves in Connecticut for the 2024 National & International Beat Poetry Festival.
We weren't there just to hear great poetry read by some amazing humans, but because I was on a mission to be a better poet and find ways to help my local community grow. I'd been assured by U.S. National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate Ron Whitehead that the festival was a good place to start.
Friday's festivities began with a dinner hosted by Deborah Tosun Kilday in the back room of the Crown & Hammer. I tried to hide in a corner and quietly people watch, but this wasn't a crowd that let anyone hide for long.
One by one, the poets found me, introducing themselves and drawing me out of my shell. Mark Lipman, newly inducted National Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2025), was kind enough to give us a tour of his Big Red Poetry Bus, talking about his plans for an onboard poet's library, web series and cross country poetry tour next year. (His excitement was nothing short of contagious!)
A little before 7:00 pm, the group that had formed beside the bus wandered towards the Canton Town Hall Auditorium for an evening of readings from the current Laureates.
I wasn't expecting stuffiness from the night, but I wasn't expecting what I got, either. The poems were a mix of fire, passion, joy and a call to rise. They were life! As was the music that accompanied Paul Richmond, Tony Vacca and John Sheldon's “Do It Now” with Tommy Twilite joining in on percussion from the audience. The entire night hit me like a heartbeat.
Before we went back to our air b&b for the night, we were invited to arrive early Saturday for breakfast at the gorgeous home in Barkhamsted that was hosting Saturday and Sunday's events, as well as housing many of the Elder Statesmen of the weekend. Nerves be damned, that's not an invitation anyone could say no to.
Which is how I found myself sitting at a table Saturday morning with Tommy Twilite (US National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate), Paul Richmond (US National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate) and Bengt Bjorklund (International Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate of Sweden) discussing organizing and hosting open mics and poetry festivals.
These Poet Laureates were kind enough to take the time to talk about what had worked, what hadn't and good places to start. These conversations, which popped back up over the course of the weekend, were my favorite part of the festival!
None of them were concerned about how big or small our group in Columbus, Indiana was or if they'd heard of us. It was about, to paraphrase Tommy, sharing the gospel of poetry, each in our own way.
The rest of Saturday was a blur of more poets arriving, open mics before and after the Induction Ceremony and conversation.
I read at each of the open mics that weekend, not just because I'm a poet and there was a mic and an audience, but because there wasn't a poet in attendance that wasn't “encouraged” onto the mic at least once.
Despite another morning spent with Paul Richmond sharing his knowledge with me and another open mic in the afternoon, Sunday was hard. (And not because of the flight delays getting back to Indiana.) It was hard to leave.
I know it's cliche to say, “I found my people,” but I did. It wasn't just the love of words. It was the fact that Chris Vannoy (National Beat Poet Laureate 2019) can hold entire conversations quoting poetry and music lyrics. It's that I gave Claire Conroy (State of Maine Beat Poet Laureate 2024-2026) a crystal point and she didn't think it was strange. (And was gifted one of her bracelets in return.)
It's the fact that Beat poets seem to be a breed of Magpie and I wasn't the only one with a pocket full of found feathers. (I have eyewitness testimony that Ron Whitehead had pockets filled with buckeyes and stones.)
It's also, more than anything, the shared belief that we can use poetry to make the world a better place to be.
As for that crystal point? It was placed at Jack Kerouac's grave by Claire Conroy, thus rendering me a small link in part of history’s chain that never would have been forged if I hadn't stepped out of my comfort zone, bought the ticket and taken the ride.
The festivities kicked-off Friday, August 30, at the Canton Town Hall Auditorium in Collinsville, CT with an evening of readings from Beat Poet Laureates from around the world. Founder and President, Debbie Tosun Kilday, opened with the poem “When Twilight Comes,” followed by Chris Vannoy, Ron Whitehead, Linda Bratcher Wlodyka, Tommy Twilight, Lee Desrosiers, John Burroughs, Sandra Feen, Annie Petrie Sauter, Virginia Shreve, Chryssa Velissariou, Joe Kidd, Bengt Bjorklund, George Wallace, Carlos Raul Dufflar, Patricia Martin, Lily Swarn and Clive Matson.
The night ended with “Do It Now” featuring Beat Poet Laureate Paul Richmond, percussionist Tony Vacca and guitarist John Sheldon.
Saturday began with an open mic in Barkhamsted, followed by the Induction Ceremony for the Beat Poet Laureates and readings by each one.
Tommy Twilight New Generation Beat Poet Laureate (2024-Lifetime)
Danny Shot State of New Jersey Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026)
Mark Lipman US National Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2025)
Angel Martinez State of New York Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026)
Sheila Lowe-Burke State of Michigan Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026)
Ron Meyers State of California Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026)
Jeff Weddle State of Alabama Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026)
PW Covington State of New Mexico Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026)
Claire Conroy State of Maine Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026)
The evening ended with an open mic and celebration.
Deborah Tosun Kilday presenting Tommy Twilight his US National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate award.
Photo by Sandra Feen
Ron Whitehead reading “Shootin’ up Poetry in New Orleans” at Friday night at the Canton Town Hall Auditorium
Photo by Jeff Weddle
Chris Vannoy
Friday Night's event
Poems I read
wild child
Wild hair
Wild eyes
Wild heart
You were born
To be wild among the trees
Wearing leaves in your curls
With ivy pants
And thistle down shirt
Sipping nectar from honeysuckle
Speaking the language
Of trees
And stealing songs
From the birds
But we'll teach you better
How to speak without singing
Sit up straight
And say please
We'll put socks on your feet
Cover your paws with
Shoes and gloves
And your wildness
Will become a memory
That only speaks to you
In your dreams
And you won't even remember
Why
Because we are a civilized people
Who eat the poor
And cater to the rich
And there's no room
For wildness
Or birdsong
Or trees
Only for the polite predators
That hunt
In boardrooms
We'll teach you to call sir
5am on a couch in rural Indiana
Frigid fingers of wind slip through
the cracked window behind my head,
tickling the hairs on the back of my neck.
I smell Spring, just around the corner,
the way you could smell dinner from your room
before mom called you to eat.
I ignore my neck growing colder,
lost in the thought that some small part
of this morning's wind
could have blown through the years,
collecting particles and cells
from everything it touched.
How many trips around the globe
could it have made
just to come through my window
at this place in time,
trading molecules of history
for a little part of me?
I turn to breathe in as much of the air
as my lungs can hold
and think I'm inhaling tiny pieces
of everyone I've loved,
bits of people I've never known
and every single event
that's happened in between.
I’m shivering now,
but open the window wider,
allowing the world in
to chill my coffee and numb my toes.
It’s 5am and the last of Winter's wind
is keeping me company on a couch
in rural Indiana.
And I am the least alone
I will ever be.
whimper
Mine's a generation
of youth-worshippers
playing Fight Club
with middle age.
Hidden and haunted,
we work to find a way
through our anger
and make peace
with our lives
or adopt the mantra
“I deserved more,”
and drown the disappointment
in apathy, dollars or hate.
So welcome to Gen X, y’all,
the shit-show generation,
bottle fed fear of the bomb
mixed with neutral neglect.
Armed with MTV attention spans
and mad latch-key skills.
Raised with the push
to “be more”
in a repressed
50's kinda way.
We're the pickpocket gen
who found our truths
in rockers and peers,
lifted individuality
from the 60's
and stole our values from
Madonna and John Hughs.
We are the recipients of
trickle down theory,
economics, trauma and pain.
So don't talk to strangers.
Don't ask and don't tell.
Suck it up and keep going,
because boys will be boys
and that's just how it is
if you're gay or a girl.
We are overachieving
“you can have it all”
Dance Moms and Soccer Dads.
We are plastic
“love is all the things”
because time equals money
and the lines became blurred.
We are wine with friends
and complaining
that they never come home
while we laugh about Glory Days
and wonder if a “side dick” or “chick”
would make us feel
just a little less alone.
We are the lost and the lonely
still trying to figure out
who the fuck we are,
ignoring the mess
the greatest gen left
and an environment the boomers
forgot they wanted to save.
We became or raised
the monsters hiding under the bed
and the only legacy we'll leave
is Kurt Cobain, more debt
and hollow, self centered greed.
And if Ginsberg's
Beat generation
cried out
with a HOWL,
then this is the sound
of generation X
standing in the back
with a whimper.
