In 1981, a few culturally adventurous high school friends (Lisa Godfrey and David Keyes) and I bought tickets for an event called the Wholly Communion, a performance poetry extravaganza held at the Cactus Lounge in Toronto.
I didn't appreciate that this would be the most spectacular literary event I would ever attend. It was one of the 2 or 3 things I experienced in my teens, aside from reading books, that would open me up to poetry. For many years after, I would write poetry (badly for sure), become a small publisher, organize poetry readings, study poetry, review poetry chap books, and help out with small press events. Sometimes my interest went underground, or morphed into obsessions with poetry-inspired avant-garde filmmakers and the like , but poetry was always at the core, and this is thanks in part to the Wholly Communion event.
That night we saw a few poets that we already knew about from our own natural curiosity, several CanLit courses, and the beginnings of a network (hello Charlie Huisken and Dan Bazuin at This Ain't the Rosedale Library, where I bought the tickets). We saw some, or all, of the following:
Michael Ondaatje
Christopher Dewdney
Anne Waldman
Allen Ginsberg
Ed Sanders
Jim Carroll
Amiri Baraka
Jayne Cortez
John Giorno
Helen Adam
Robert Creeley
Ted Berrigan
Michael McClure
The event was produced as the primary content for Ron Mann's documentary Poetry in Motion. I didn't know that then, and I didn't know Ron, but he would become a very good friend and mentor. Also, Elliott Lefko put the actual event together: he became a good friend as well, and I would work with him for a few years helping to put on poetry readings and events, including two launch events for Poetry in Motion.
The thing is, Ron also shot in San Francisco (at another place called the Cactus?), at a sound stage in Toronto, other events in Toronto, the St. Mark’s Poetry Project in New York, and in the Sierra Nevada foothills, so I can’t really remember exactly what I saw that night and what I just remember from the film (and the “sequel”, Poetry in Motion 25).
It doesn’t really matter. I love this clip by Kenward Elmslie so much that whether I saw it live at the Cactus, or for the first time in Ron’s film is irrelevant. It’s so delightful, spirited and poignant that I’m certain it’s part of some combined experience (live/film/poetry) that defines Jim Shedden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH_vMVVZXQA.
And Bukowksi? I’d remember if I saw him in person, right? And clearly this clip isn’t from the Cactus Lounge performance, but close enough in time, and at the same time that I was reading everything by Bukowski that I could, that I take it to be part of that great moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ilmOZvpOa8
Helen Adam? I think I saw her, but this is clearly footage shot in a soundstage or at her apartment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WtNO4KKoAI. It was very inspiring at the time, very liberating.
How grateful I am that I was introduced to Ed Sanders’ recordings with the Fugs, without the Fugs, and his poetry and investigative journalism. What a great inspiration for an 18 year old? I also spent a certain amount of time chatting with him when we were shooting Brakhage in Boulder in 1997. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hkreT3J2ho
Amiri Baraka’s performance was clearly from the Cactus Lounge that night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoknZIf3HLs.
I guess what I’m getting at is at that Cactus Lounge night all these strains of poetic creativity came together over the course of about three hours. There was no turning back.
Thanks Ron Mann, John Giorno, Elliott Lefko, and many poets. Thanks Lisa and Dave for being adventurous enough to join me that night.
