Bruce Whealton: Existential Writing

This past Saturday, in Carrboro, near Chapel Hill, NC, poets Jean Arthur Jones and David Capps read some of their poetry for about 30 minutes each and the performance by both was stunning! Before I review that, let me tell you about the open-mike portion of the event, which came first.

We had poetry by David Grinstead, Jane Penland Hoover, Ricky Garni and Margaret (I forget her last name). We also had the music of John Fallon. We each read twice with about 3 poems each. I read a one or two new poems and some poems that had been picked up for publication as well as poems from my collection “What Really Matters,” which is awaiting final edits and introduction by Thomas Childs. We do have some video of this section of the event as well.

We then had a great performance by David Capps. I hadn’t seen too many David Capps readings and so I was glad to be here tonight. David is a very dynamic reader when presenting his poems to a crowd. I also enjoyed the discussions that David gave behind the different poems, their meaning to him and his inspiration. It was also nice to hear some history about David Capps, as well. Very enjoyable! Look for videos of this event that I will present. I’ll keep you posted on this.

Jean Jones read a variety of poetry as well. While Jean did offer less of a discussion than David did in his portion of the reading, Jean did provide us with some interesting stories and background behind some of his poems. Jean read from a few of his collections. He read from “The Birds of Djakarta,” published by St. Andrews Press and published by Bruce Whealton on Word Salad (Word Salad Publications is here: http://wsmagazine.net/zine/word-salad-publications.html). He also read from his Angel of Death series, which has been published by Scott Urban as well as by Bruce Whealton on Word Salad Publication.. Lastly, he wrapped up with some poetry from his latest collection “Post Mortem: New and Selected Poems.” This latest collection is also featured on Word Salad Publications, with editing and an Introduction by Scott Urban.