Free Beer, Free Poetry

You can’t go wrong with free. Particularly in these economic times. The organizers of Poetry Time at Space Space hear your pain: free beer and poetry is the signature of the Ridgewood-based monthly reading series, which, this past Saturday, hosted their first reading of 2010. It was a fun, entertaining night, and a great start to a new year of poetry.

As the audience of fifty or so made their way onto couches and blankets and quilts placed on the floor, the night began with a series of short videos by Brandon Downing, a San Francisco-based poet and video artist whose funny and unpretentious amalgamations of grainy video clips, Bollywood songs and absurdist poetry are a staple of the series. The first reader of the night was John Sakkis. Sakkis read from a long narrative poem about rave kids in Northern California that included the representative line: “It’s 1996 and my balls are dropping 4/4 to the floor.” The next reader was Niina Pollari, who during one poem with a large amount of dialogue, incorporated the use of a brightly colored sock-puppet to humorous effect. The last reader was John Coletti, who read from his new poetry book Mum Halo. Coletti’s writing was both whimsically inscrutable and disarmingly direct: “I like my little secret. Only hurts myself.”

Founded in 2008, the series has quickly grown into a consistent spot to hear some of contemporary poetry’s best and newest voices. The readings are held once a month at “Space Space,” a sprawling four-bedroom apartment that functions as a performance space. Located at 390 Seneca Avenue on the Ridgewood/Bushwick border, four blocks off the Dekalb L stop, Poetry Time admittedly a bit of a hike. Which is where the free beer comes in.

“I think we all just decided that to get people to come out to Ridgewood we had to give something away for free,” said Ben Gocker, 30, who along with his wife Lucy Ives, Brandon Downing and Rikke Dau, organize the event. “And everyone loves beer. And yes, we lose tons of money. But what we lose in money we gain in friends.” It’s this attitude, of friendship and free alcohol, which makes Poetry Time special, which is to say, decidedly different than the usual bookstore or classroom setting, but also different than the typical bar setting.

“I hope Poetry Time feels more like a house party to people rather than a reading,” said Gocker. “Just fun, normal, human. Also, when we started Poetry Time, we had just moved to the city and we really only knew a handful of people—so we decided that running something like this would be a good way to meet all of the poetry nuts. And it worked.”

If the term “poetry nuts” is one way of thinking about fans of poetry, then the community of nuts that has sprung up around Space Space could be accurately described as “mixed.” The crowd at Saturday’s event—young, hip and friendly, the type you would expect more at a show or an art opening—was impressively diverse. Attendees included many Brooklyn-based writers like Zachary German and John Dermot Woods, indie bookstore owners, zinemakers, even Christian Lorentzen, who is an editor at Harper’s. Such an audience speaks to the quality of the programming and the comfort of the environment. “There does seem to be a sort of community of people who come to Poetry Time, and it does seem real and strong,” said Gocker.

An accomplished artist and poet, Gocker incorporates the vibe at Poetry Time as one of his creative projects. “When I think about poetry I think about a sort of billowing mirror that both absorbs and reflects everything,” he said. “It’s an article of clothing and some kind of food. It’s empty and thin and huge and tough. If I’m making a drawing, I’m thinking about poems. This idea of the poem. If I’m arranging objects in a room, I think about stanzas. I think: poems and stanzas. I think about the objects in a poem, the things on a shelf. I think about the person who is the poet sitting at the desk writing the poem. Poetry Time is just like another drawing. It’s also a sculpture. It’s also really happening in time and space. Poetry is a small-scale art. People talking to each other and listening to each other. Little books. What it’s like to be alive on the planet.”

The next Poetry Time is February 27th at 8pm with Lawrence Giffin (author of Get the F*** Back Into That Burning Plane), Chris Martin (author of American Music) and Lucy Ives (who just had her first book, Anamnesis, published), as well as more videos by Brandon Downing. “Looking in my crystal ball, I see more costumes, sets, curtains, and lighting effects in Poetry Time’s future,” said Gocker.