gwynnega

I found out this morning that the poet Scott Wannberg has passed away. He was a kind and generous man, and an expansive, uproarious poet. He worked for years at Dutton's Bookstore in Brentwood (now gone). He'd left Los Angeles years ago, but in recent times I'd enjoyed seeing his poetry and his commentary about film and politics on his Facebook page.

I've been trying to remember the last time I saw him in person. It may have been as long ago as 2000, when I did a poetry reading with him at a little space that used to be next door to Rockaway Records in my neighborhood.

Here is my favorite poem of Scott's. I remember him reading it at Beyond Baroque many years ago:

Cassavetes

He'd walk us outside
into the large yard of
the world's story of
people and their
relationships with
one another

He'd talk to us
in his films
about men and women
and their odd
rivers of wondrous
idiosyncracies

A lot of people with nervous blood
and no time
labeled him
self indulgent
but

I never heard it
or saw it

rather vulnerable people
trying to learn each other's
songs

He would let the scene work itself
to a peak
rather that get caught in the
MTV fast cut

he would let his people slowly
burn to
an energy that would
reach out to you and get at you
and shake you and say This is
how we dance

He'd act in mediocre movies
to make the money
necessary to make his films
the films that sang

He died yesterday at the age of 59
I said his films sang

They sing today
tomorrow
next year
they sing in your blood and
the song is of the skin and what
plays there