Beat Poetry Reading

Back in 2012, Christopher Carmona and Chuck Taylor approached Austin Community College about being the host of the Second Annual Beat Poetry and Arts Festival.  I was then serving as Dean of the Arts and Humanities Division and I was happy to partner with them. Over two and a half days (November 1-3), a great number of really cool and talented people gathered at Resistencia Bookstore, ACC's Rio Grande Campus, and Austin Java Coffee Shop for tributes (to Raul Salinas, Albert Huffstickler, and Kell Robertson), classes, readings, and performances.  Here are two poems I read on November 3 at ACC--"This is something I've been wanting to tell you, and "290 West."  This video is from a longer documentary recording the events of the festival filmed and edited by Philip R. Fagan. I am hesitant to post the proceedings as I am unsure about permissions and such.   Carmona and Taylor soon after published their anthology The Beatest Statewith Lamar University Literary Press.  Everyone should get that book.  

Just as a note:  I don't really think of myself as a "Beat Poet."  I have always been much more conventional, but, as most people, I have read many of the Beat Poets, and have included elements of the beat poetics in my poems, especially my poems from the mid-90's, which these two poems are. Here is the link.