By Rose Albano-Risso

City Editor

Nov. 29, 2010

The name Michael C. Ford will probably ring a bell to not just a few Manteca Unified School District students who were in elementary and high school during the mid-to-late 1980s. Those were the years when the award-winning spoken-word artist did stints as a poet-in-residence at Brock Elliott School, Manteca High and other campuses in the district.

Chances are, some of the students he taught probably still have in their possession today copies of an anthology of the youthful verses they penned in the classroom which was “published” at the end of their poetry lessons with the Grammy/Pulitzer Prize poet.

Ford was actually the resident poet for San Joaquin County area schools as well as language arts consultant for the California Poets-in-the-Schools program at the time, so he touched the lives of hundreds more would-be young poets than just those he mentored in the Manteca Unified School District.

Fast-forward to November 2010. Some 20 years after his poetic perambulations in The Family City, the poet, teacher, recording artist, critic and playwright who passed up a golden opportunity to become The Doors’ bass player to pursue his poetic muse, is back to his old haunts in the San Joaquin Valley – at least, poetically speaking. His latest book containing his musings on the bread basket of California is about to come out of the press around the end of the year. Photographic illustrations showing some scenes in the local area are expected to accompany this anthology.

Through the years, Ford has made appearances at various venues in San Joaquin County including a recognition dinner for the late Hollywood actress, Janet Leigh, under the auspices of the Stockton Arts Commission, and a more recent guest appearance last year in Stockton which, he was excited to say, was attended by retired Manteca High drama and English teacher Dorothy Mulvihill and her former student Erica, with whom he worked while being a poet-in-residence here. In honor of the late actress Janet Leigh, a former Stockton resident and an alumnus of the University of the Pacific, Ford wrote the poem, “A Landscape Entitled Janet Leigh.”

“If she could have lowered the San Joaquin Delta/Like a canvas on a slant towards downtown/Hollywood, she would have. In our own slanted/memory, we remember somebody’s Westwood/Village grandmother pointing at an apartment/building on the corner of Wilshire and Westholm,” reads part of his ode to the late actress.

Most recently, Ford has been involved in such poetic presentations as “Waiting for Jack” in Los Angeles, described by the L.A. Weekly as “a 90-minute, partly scripted, partly improvised re-creation of the historic 1955 Six Gallery poetry reading” featuring Doors drummer John Densmore. Ford is one of the producers of this “poetry theater event.”

He is also among the noted poets included in the L.A./Land of Poets group featuring online videos of 250+ poets performing at various Southern California venues. You can watch them in action at www.Poetry.LA.

Ford also continues to appear and lecture at various school campuses. Just last week, he was at Napa Community College.

He earned a Grammy nomination in 1986 with his debut spoken word vinyl titled, “Language Commando.” In 1998, his book of Selected Poems: Emergency Exits was honored by a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

As a playwright, Ford’s plays have been staged internationally. Currently in production is his screenplay version of a West Coast production of Blondes Don’t Bother to Knock.

He may have turned down a golden opportunity to play with The Doors, but Ford has continued his collaboration with Doors member John Densmore. The two recently wrote a piece together entitled “Drumming.” Ford described it as a depiction of drumming in the history of the United States. In the video, Ford recites the prose while Densmore “exemplies the reflected styles on his drum set.” You can watch the video by logging on to the web site of Hen House Studios which produced the videos, at www.henhousestudios.com.

In the meantime, while you’re watching his latest poetry-in-action project, you can wait for the publication of his latest poetry book about the San Joaquin Valley.

Baba Alade performed songs off his album Unified and One

Ellyn Maybe introduced us to a Poetry Rodeo. Many thanks to the incredible band and the rest of the poets!

Read more about the event from:

by Michael C Ford

My initial thought was to decline an invitation to comment on these 49 spoken word tracks. As an associate producer at Hen House Studios, during the gestation period of this recorded document, there might have been some danger that the subjective nature of my prose would take on the PR complexion of a pinch of low grade salt. That being said, however, as someone who studied the important facets of the creative process with Kenneth Rexroth, Kenneth Patchen and, later, with the poet and translator Jack Hirschman at UCLA, I have better chance of identifying with what’s concerned the Robert Peters compendium of five decades of literary contributions than, perhaps, most anyone. And I/m really talking about gifts which comprise his prolific catalogue, and how his many works have been assimilated into realms of the World Culture.

One has only to listen to Peters, on tracks like Father, Son, Cousin, Country-Western Band or Home-Made Saw-Rig. With a combination of rhapsody and lament he invites us to experience the rural landscapes, as well as the interior terrain of the years of his Wisconsin youth. Then, as with cuts like Memory Loss In A Parkinglot, we’re hearing him go onward, into an undeniable poetic maturity. It should be noted that executive producer Harlan Steinberger is responsible for the competently composed, engaging and thoroughly complimentary musical backdrop.

As a hyphenated American poet-playwright- essayist-critical analyst, Peters has been continuously, acknowledged as an author of evocative, imperious perceptions, generally, involved with the whole of international literature.

Now, this 2009 set of aural genetic poetics, in their entirety, are every bit the perfect recorded companion to a Peters volume of print entitled Familial Love and other Misfortunes: certainly an indicative collection produced by Red Hen Press, in 1999, and still available via their website.

Since, 1974, I/ve been aware that Robert Peters, as an artist who, through his differentiable talent, possessing both an illustrative image mind and the sense of dynamics to interpret character lives in one-man performances of his staged monologues, has proven time and time again all deserved accolades for the wide and “evocative” nature, on so many levels, down the long years of his transcendent career.

The voice on this CD/MP3 reminds one of how grateful so many of us should be that Peters has never allowed his dark, poetic vision to lose sight of his writer/s integrity. The scalpel he’s used to probe into the, occasionally, vile body of University-sanctioned poetry never got dull, Nor did he ever drop the sutures covering the wounds of warrior poets he, more than once, went out of his way to encourage and defend.

He accomplished his literary goals without chasing after tainted poetry prizes, so often achieved by too many of the mainstream clones beating drums for the Yuppie poets of distinction. It now, seems to be a perfect time, indeed, to put Robert Peters between your ears, harvesting your very own hay and evoking any necessary personal transportation container to oblivion.

Friday July 23rd 7:30pm

By Falling James

Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts is a “traveling poetry supershow” of spoken-word performers and musicians that started in San Francisco in 2008 and is finally making its debut in L.A. The series presents adventurous modern-day poets in bars and venues where the early Beat poets used to hang out, in the hopes that the lingering spirits of the elders will inspire their progeny’s new work. Given its long history as a SoCal literary vortex, Beyond Baroque seems to be an ideal setting for “tapping the mystic voices and drumming the Beat haunts from their tombs in Los Angeles.” This seventh edition of the series features the longtime local poet Ellyn Maybe, appearing with a band (!), and veteran wordsmith Michael C. Ford, whose “arsenal of commando language” blows apart every last standing irrational political pie-ball cowboy who continually threatens National Nirvana.” Meanwhile, former Ringling Sister Iris Berry (Two Blocks East of Vine, pictured) leavens her tales of heroin misadventures and gangster boyfriends with a punk rock perspective and gallows humor. The show also includes Jim Bolt, Mike the Poet, Rachel Kann, Brenda Petrakos, Gary Justice, host Mani Suri and special guests known only as the Mystery Poets. (Link to LA Weekly Events)

“A new DVD released by Hen House Studios in Venice, California. Curated by Michael C Ford, the DVD is a feast of memories of poets, their friends and two members of the Rexroth family who also read from the works of Kenneth Rexroth. The passion and feelings of the poet are mirrored through the voices of the participants. Several of them gave credit to Kenneth as a personal mentor. His widow, Carol Tinker, and his daughter, Mariana Rexroth, a spark of fire off the old genius in her performance, was there. Michael C Ford did a marvelous job hosting this fast-moving, entertaining and engaging program. The program is a panorama of a passing scene of poets and memories that would have been lost had this wonderful high quality DVD not been produced. Our thanks to Hen House Studios and Michael C Ford for its production.

The DVD features Morgan Gibson, Kerry Tomlinson, Lewis MacAdams, Philomene Long, Eloise Klein Healy, Aram Saroyan, Bonnie Tamblyn, Sprague Grayden, Bob Brandts, James Cushing, Doren Robbins, Uri Hertz, Ruben Guevara, Carol Tinker, Brad Dourif, Mariana Rexroth and Michael C Ford.”

Look for Upcoming Programs of PoetsWest at KSER.