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Joseph Stroud: Well that was Gone to Wonderland, and this is the Poetry Show here on KUSP. I'm Joe Stroud and with me in the studio tonight is our co-host for the show, Morton Marcus, and our very special guest for this evening, Nigel

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Roberts from Australia. And let me get Nigel's mic all set up here. Welcome, Nigel. Nigel Roberts: Hi, Mort. Morton Marcus: Hi, Nigel, how are you doing?

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Nigel Roberts: Okay. Morton Marcus: Welcome home, or to your second home anyway. Nigel Roberts: Yeah. I'm just off the bus, just off the Greyhound from Sonora, and I think I've got a poem that

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vaguely- as I was coming down here tonight, I thought it's about a similar trip through a similar country. It's called: THE LOS ANGELES AFFIRMATION I lit a cigarette and drove south, down the #1 to LA,

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through high tech dormitories of lettuce, through [unidentified] of the tomato, through the empire of watermelon, through fifty-seven varieties of cornucopia where such familiar corporate totems as the flag, Brand X and Rotary supervise

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everything. South, beyond Modesto, there were physical and metaphysical concordances with the West. From the stony plains and arroyos under the wind's attack, tumbleweeds drift, lope and bound. And the laissez faire philosophy of a bumper sticker,

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"Grass, ass, or gas, no free rides." At some point, the #1 and the Dire Straits casette become a test pattern. So you stop at the Harris Ranch for chicken, bourbon, and a piss, and three hundred yards out into the [unidentified] turn to see

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an America in part as you knew it to be, Los Angeles '94, Los Angeles '76, Los Angeles '53, and so on, by these imperatives to where the #1 runs out and the myth of Los Angeles begins. This place is the only place where if you drive at seventy miles per

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hour the highway patrol urge that you move on, and you do it because in this place the law is deferring, polite, and entitled with a gun to blow you away. Somewheres around here, hoppy for monogrammed pictures road in that canyon perhaps, a 1950

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Saturday avo flicks. Is that Fort Apache or a pizza parlor? Are those real log cabins or authentic track houses? Is this real estate the foreclosed frontier of illusion city, sold on the bottom line of investment. Land, Hollywood

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land. You can't go wrong with land, said the Indian, they ain't making any more land. The schedule is tight, unload the truck, beer, tacos, sleep and then the turnaround. The Strip, the corner of Hollywood and Vine and the cemented steps of a

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stair outside the Chinese Theater, forgotten like a promise to give up smoking. I saw none of it. I slept through. But I affirmed by Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson, by that registered in "The Day of the Locust," or scored in "The City

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of Night," by "Sunset Boulevard," and the mean streets of Raymond Chandler, by the burning of Watts, and the Helter Skelter of Topanga Canyon, by the women of Bukowski and the V8 songs of Tom Waits., by all that music, television, print, and

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cinema, I had been there, seamless, and done that. Magritte said, you experience a place by what you're looking for. And like that tourist you say, "Far out, doesn't that corner bar with the Schlitz neon sign look just like that in the

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Edward Hopper painting?" Joseph Stroud: Okay, "The Los Angeles Affirmation," that's about what ten years old, that poem? Nigel Roberts: About ten, yeah.

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Joseph Stroud: Have thing's changed since then and since you've returned to this country? Nigel Roberts: You have a mediocre saxophone player as president. I really think it would have made a lovely gesture

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if there had been a black jazz musician up on that stage that great day of yours, on his inauguration. There was a black poet, an excellent poet I think she was too, I've never heard of her before. And there was a lovely choir from Little Rock.

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The opera singer didn't do much for me. I would have loved to have seen a black saxophone player, a Sonny Rollins there. I mean, it would have been great. Morton Marcus: Right, this is your third trip to the United

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States, Nigel? Nigel Roberts: I'm a Yankophile, I think, or a Yankaphobe, which is it? Morton Marcus: Al Yankovic? {Laughter, cross talk] Then

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obviously, that poem is from the first trip, or it is from the second trip? From the last time here? Nigel Roberts: Sorry, from the first, from first, yeah. Morton Marcus: In case you people don't know, Nigel was a

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stellar part of the group of Australian poets and- Nigel Roberts: I was the one with the flu. Joseph Stroud: Mort, I don't think you were on. I don't think your mic is plugged in here and I know what the story is. No,

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it's not. Nigel Roberts: I'm hearing you over my phones. Mort? Morton Marcus: Yes. Nothing is happening. Joseph Stroud: Nigel, why don't you read a poem and we'll work

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out Mort's microphone problem quickly here. Of course, we don't have to hear Mort, we can just- you and I can just talk. I mean, that's a possibility. Mort's going to sleep. Nigel, why don't you read a poem or two and we'll work out Mort's

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microphone problem. Nigel Roberts: I think, okay, here's something I've written since the last trip. It's called, "Dig." DIG

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One time I had a gig at the Black Hawk in San Francisco. When? When indeed, I forget when, but when Sonny stood who like me played alto, was touring and in town with jazz at the Philharmonic. He makes the gig and asks, can he blow? Sure,

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yeah, great, I say, what do you want to play? Cherokee, [unintelligible] says, let's play Cherokee. Now if a kid, some local uninvited kid came around, and wanted to jam with me, I would nominate a tune, one that had all kinds of very

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difficult code changes like Cherokee, and for the kid, I would count it off real fast. Well, that night at the Black Hawk I said, beat it off Sonny, 1-2-1-2, and Sonny was flying. We played the head, the melody, and then he took first solo. He

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played, I don't know, forty choruses for an hour maybe, did everything that could be done on a saxophone, everything you could play, everything Bird would have played if Bird had been there. Everything, and then he stopped and looked at me,

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gave me one of those, "All right, sucker, your turn," looks. My turn, I was strung out, hooked, and it was my turn. My gig, I was drunk and having a hassle with Diane, my wife, who in our hotel room next to the club had threatened to kill

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herself. My turn, I had marks on my arm and I believed there to be narcs in the club. My turn, where he Sonny had done all those things and now it's my turn to put up or shut up, to talk or walk. I forgot everything and everything came

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out. I played way over my head, different to Sonny. I searched and found my own way and my way reached the people. I played myself and they felt it, loved it, and knew I was right. I blew and blew and blew and blew until I stood there finished, heart

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pounding, shaking all over, and soaked in sweat. And as the crowd screamed, more, yeah, yeah, etc. and or whistled, clapped, and stamped. I looked over at Sonny, just kind of nodded, and Sonny said, all right. And that was it, dig,

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that's what it's all about. Dig, the above was taken from straight life, the story of Art Pepper, I pass it on. An appropriation? Yes in part but not in principle. All art is made from other, now that is an appropriation. Art Pepper's

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story not made but found and held up. Orchestrated, yes, but not appropriated. Why work this gritty mood and lyric and epic text to something else, to get it wrong, to be long in craft and short with art? Dig, I fixed myself and find my other in

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serving this: the story about Pepper stands alone, dig and pass it on. Morton Marcus: Well, yes, I'm on now. I can see the thing's ticking. And I was saying before, this is Nigel's third

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trip and these poems are actually from his first trip to the United States. For you people who did not know, Nigel was part of a stellar part of the group of poets and Aboriginal painters who visited Santa Cruz and the Southwest and

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San Francisco two years ago. And he is now back and going to spend some time with us. So we thought that we would talk with him tonight about what he's been doing since his return to Australia, and his return to the United States, some of his

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thoughts about what's going on, and get that bridge going between Australia and the United States again, and the common concerns we all have about humanity and the human condition and where we're all going as we keep advancing to the year 2000.

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Joseph Stroud: Well, before we get to these major questions of Mort's, I have a few simple questions! Morton Marcus: Joe, I have a motion for you, a gesture. Joseph Stroud: Yes, I can see it. I want to talk about that

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poem that Nigel just, read the Art Pepper poem. I mean, it really interests me- I mean, I've read, "Straight Life," too. And it's a fascinating story. It's an autobiography of Pepper's life, it's a devastating story about what

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heroin can do to someone. But I'm curious in terms of the poem itself. At least the first half of the poem was lifted directly from, "Straight Life," and then broken into lines? Is that how that worked?

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Nigel Roberts: On- the major sense of this, yes, I've orchestrated it. I've fed in little bits of necessary information, minute bits, but I mean, it sang so well to me when I read it.

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Joseph Stroud: Oh, yeah. Nigel Roberts: And I thought even just to pass it on, I want to work with it, and put it into a poetry magazine. I mean- and I wanted somebody else to read it. I mean, you put my text against

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the text, they are different, but the sense is exactly the same. I mean, I've reshuffled and- but the other thing about the poem is it's about, or it's not about appropriation. I hate appropriation. I mean, I'm an art teacher and the constant

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vogue in Australia now is appropriating something. Let's take the Mona Lisa, and do this or that to it, you know, that form of appropriation. And I mean, there's a lot of appropriation going on in poetry as well, and I wasn't

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appropriating, I was just orchestrating and passing it on. I wanted to say, this is an act of love and admiration, I don't want any of myself to be seen in this poem other than my love for the man and the experience. It was my duty to pass it on.

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Joseph Stroud: Well, you know, that's what Eliot did with, "The Waste Land," more or less, was to appropriate famous lines from, fragments from past history. But I know you're very much interested in the oral tradition, and because I

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understand the way that book was first written, the way Pepper did it, was that he would just lie in bed with his wife and she would tape record whatever came into his head and that's how the book came to be. It has that wonderful oral quality.

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Nigel Roberts: It is the most verbal chap- it is the most oral chapter in the book, I mean, it's the epilogue and- Joseph Stroud: Yeah. Okay, Mort, now you can ask your world-shaking earth meaningful questions.

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Morton Marcus: I forgot them. Nigel Roberts: Okay, what has been happening in poetry in Australia. Well, Billy Marshall Stoneking and myself have been involved in two projects: one, making a play out of sixty

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poems, we brought nine poets together, we all- and we created a bar and an environment, and we created a dialogue, a beginning and middle and end, out of sixty poems. We had you know, first, nine poets writing and constructing a play based on

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their work, okay, that's one thing- Morton Marcus: And that was performed once in a pub? Nigel Roberts: No, no, no, no, we- the premier space in Sydney, the Wharf Theatre, it was gone dead for a week so they they

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allowed it- for ten days, so they allowed us and gave us the use of space and- Joseph Stroud: Was it scripted or was there much improvisation going on?

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Nigel Roberts: It was scripted in that the poets are reading their poems in an order. Yes, there was a modicum of linking dialogue written. I mean, essentially, it was a rainy night. And nine characters find their way into the bar, and we

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find out who they are. And in the end, we find the reason that they're all there is that they're there for a poetry reading. This happens in every pub in Australia, I'll have you know, dear listeners.

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Morton Marcus: And it was a huge success, right? Nigel Roberts: It drew and drew until the last three nights. Yeah, it was sold out. Morton Marcus: That's great to know that. And are there plans

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to- there are plans in fact to do it on TV? Nigel Roberts: Yes, when I left a video was being cut, yes. The other thing we've been doing is, strangely enough, publishing a magazine about performance poetry. It may seem ironical,

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strange. It's called, "Off the Page," and it's a magazine about performance poetry, about getting the work off the page. And we're still divided, you know, but the basic idea is very old, it's just that the page will be the score. But then the

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best medium for the poem is the poet reading it. Joseph Stroud: Do you know the "We Magazine" in the States that- which is strictly cassette magazine? Absolutely- Nigel Roberts: Out of New York?

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Joseph Stroud: No, Santa Cruz. Morton Marcus: I think I gave- Nigel Roberts: Yes, you gave me one. Morton Marcus: You introduced me, we introduced you to the

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editor and everything like that. Nigel Roberts: That's right, yeah. Joseph Stroud: Now there's also a big thing with video, doing video.

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Nigel Roberts: There's an "Of the Page" video magazine from N w York, yes. We were firs Morton Marcus: It did start in Australia, performance poetry? Nigel Roberts: Of course, of course!

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Joseph Stroud: No, no! I beg to differ! Nigel Roberts: As we're talking to our sheep [laughs]. Joseph Stroud: Vachel Lindsay was doing it in 1921. Morton Marcus: Oh, yeah, with his- when he was doing it he was

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really preaching. But I mean- Joseph Stroud: "The Congo," is not a preaching poem. Morton Marcus: Boy, he's sharp tonight, isn't he? I didn't think you'd be this sharp, you got me on my heels. I'm not

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ready. I didn't wear my Nikes. Joseph Stroud: How about some more poems? Nigel Roberts: Mort, you got a poem? Morton Marcus: Oh, no, no, no, no, he's talking to you. He's

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just looking at me, wants to make sure he knows where my hands are all the time. Nigel Roberts: William Carlos Williams has been, you know, an undeniable influence upon parts of my generation in Australia.

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"The Red Wheelbarrow," offers itself up for parody, and it has been parodied many times, this is my parody: Carlos- oh, it's called: FLOSSIE'S VERSION

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Carlos, how many times have I told you to get that barrow and those chickens in out of the rain? That's a bit of Australian irreverence, folks. Morton Marcus: It's good.

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Joseph Stroud: I think William would have liked that actually. Morton Marcus: He would have liked it a lot. For those people who don't know, the person who's written the poem is Willie's wife and he's asking for it to come in. That's great.

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Nigel Roberts: Can I have a small [inaudible]. Joseph Stroud: Well, do we know the original William Carlos Williams poem? "So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens."

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Morton Marcus: In fact, since you did that, why don't you do that again and then have Nigel do his parody again, which may make more sense to listeners out there. Okay? Joseph Stroud: I'll try it again.

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, okay, Joe first. Joseph Stroud: This is the the William Carlos Williams poem as This is the original poem. I remember it, I don't have the script here in front of me:

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So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens. Morton Marcus: And- Joseph Stroud: Flossie says:

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Nigel Roberts: Carlos, how many times have I told you to get that barrow and those chickens in out of the rain? Morton Marcus: [Laughs] It's nice. Joseph Stroud: Now, Mort you have to come in with Willie's

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new response. Morton Marcus: Flossie, why don't you stay with the cooking pots and let me write the poetry. Joseph Stroud: Very good.

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Nigel Roberts: This is a poem that we- that we had in that poetry show that we were mentioning earlier. SCRIPT The producer's personal assistant, a major production of

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blonde, escorts me from this suite to the lift. Her t-shirt reads, "Forget dialogue, let's blow something up." "He wants," she says, "a script that starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax." "Does he want it good," I asked, "or does he want

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it Thursday?" "Attitude," she says, "you should work on your attitude. A scriptwriter's 50% poet and 50% shoe salesman." I worked on my attitude in the lift. The shoe salesman wanted to do lunch, the poet to mess with that t-shirt. Forget

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dialogue? Did she say new writers or neuritis? Did she say all work and no plagiarism? Did she say the first cliche in LA is, "I'm writing a script," the second, "I'd love to read it?" Maybe, but on the ground, I recall her farewell riff on

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structure. "A script," she said, "has a beginning, a middle, and an end." "Plot point to plot point," I thought and in that order. Fade in, exterior, street, day. I've- at the behest of my comrade and colleague, Billy

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Marshall's thinking I have attempted to- "Gene, you should- you should write, you know. Come on, mate. There's plenty of money in script-writing." And I've tried and I just- I just cannot bend. I cannot compromise myself. I'll never be a

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script-writer, you know, you've got to be adaptable to be a script-writer in Australia. Joseph Stroud: So, how about you, Mort, are you going to go into films?

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Morton Marcus: You know, that's the only kind of writing I haven't done. And as you know, you know, I teach film and I'm a film historian and critic, and I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in writing a script, absolutely no interest

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whatsoever. I'm just- I'm not moved slightly towards it. Joseph Stroud: Well, you are tuned to KUSP, serving Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Salinas. And I'm Joe Stroud and Mort Marcus is here, the co-host of the show, and our guest this evening

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is Nigel Roberts, a poet from Australia who is originally from New Zealand. Is that right, Nigel? Nigel Roberts: That's right. Joseph Stroud: But how did you get from New Zealand to

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Australia? Don't tell me by boat, but I mean- Morton Marcus: That's what he said the first time we met him, remember that? Nigel Roberts: I was seeking to cut the ties from home. I

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discovered poetry and I thought, hell, I can't do this with my parents looking over my shoulder. I mean, it's just the- one of those young man things and young person things. I mean, and you know, I become a poet. I was drawn to the profession --

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vocation, whatever you want to call it -- but I've been hanging out in this bar, this pub rather, and the conversation was always so much better at one end of the pub that, you know, I found myself drawn, and the conversation was so much richer

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and it was just wasn't about football and the races and the sheilas, as we call them over there. And I mean, I love football, races, and sheilas, not in that order, but there was just this extra element. And I asked around about who are these

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people and it turned out to be New Zealand's finest poets -- James K. Baxter, Peter Bland, Louis Johnson, and on and on. And I said that, you know, if that's what being a poet is, that's for me, you know. And I mean, it was just- I didn't know

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them from a bar of soap initially, you know? Joseph Stroud: So have you ever- I mean, do you see yourself as an Australian poet or as a New Zealand transplant, what's- Nigel Roberts: I've been published in the New Zealand

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Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and most Australians, but I guess I'm an Australian poet, yes, but I like walking the fence. Morton Marcus: But what would you say is the difference

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between a New Zealand poet and an Australian poet? Nigel Roberts: A New Zealand poet's poems will usually have a greater ease and recognition of the multicultural aspect of its country, the New Zealand white poet and the New Zealand Maori

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poet. I mean, both stalk work with each other. I mean, there is- Australia hasn't advanced that so much where the [cut-off]. New Zealand poets' poems will usually have a greater ease and

00:26:16.000 - 00:26:39.370

recognition of the multicultural aspect of its country, the New Zealand white poet and the New Zealand. Maori poet. I mean, both stalk work with each other. I mean there is- Australia hasn't advanced that so much where the few Aboriginal writers

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there are -- Kath Walker, Ben Johnson, and two or three others -- do not work easily yet with the white writing community. In New Zealand, both communities coexist and, you know, so on. Joseph Stroud: Well, we're about halfway through the program. I

00:26:59.230 - 00:27:15.910

think we'll take a short musical interlude, listen to some Art Pepper as a matter of fact. Nigel just read recently a very wonderful poem about Nigel- I mean about Art Pepper, so we'll listen to that and come back and hear some more of Nigel Roberts.

00:33:17.820 - 00:33:33.900

Joseph Stroud: little bit of Art Pepper here on the Poetry Show, which comes to you every Tuesday night from 9 until 10. "Selected Shorts" Wednesday nights at nine on KUSP presents the popular pairings of Oscar and Tony Award winning actors with short

00:33:33.900 - 00:33:48.600

stories by acclaimed contemporary and classic authors. "Selected Shorts", the results are magic, and can join us and see if you don't agree. That's "Selected Shorts" Wednesday nights at nine, here on KUSP. And tomorrow night it

00:33:48.600 - 00:34:03.810

will be, "Bingo," by Davida Kilgore, read by Haiti Winston. And the following week will be, "Pet Milk," by Stuart Dybek, who is a wonderful short story writer and that will be read by Keith [unidentified]. And then, "More Life," by Mark Strand,

00:34:03.810 - 00:34:18.660

read by Isaiah Schaeffer. And, "My Soul Is A Witness," by Don Belton, read by Gloria Van Scott. Well, I'm Joe Stroud and with me in the studio tonight is our co-host for the Poetry Show, Mort Marcus, and our special

00:34:18.660 - 00:34:41.270

guest is Nigel Roberts, the poet from Down Under. Nigel, what do you want to do? Nigel Roberts: Okay, here's a poem: Go, dark sea, go and be gone. Go beam her up, Scotty. Go, I will

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sleep in the arms of poetry. Go as I didn't treat you mean to keep you keen. Go as you came, you came in through the bathroom window. Go find stuff dreams are made of, keep this for yourself. Go, the door slam, the house rocks seven points on the

00:35:00.350 - 00:35:22.580

Richter scale. Go. Go temp, go with the flow, go mate of perfect match, go curriculum vitae jukebox, go your face and lost in the crowd. Go, love strokes the balls of mine enemy. Go, no profit grows where no pleasure is taken. Go, and until

00:35:22.580 - 00:35:45.500

you find a place, stay with Joe Stroud. Go, don't let six Indians beat you up if one will suffice. Go, strike the set, hold the moonlight, and fade in the dialectic. Go. Go, and the cat, go who gets the cat? Go, I get the cat weekends. Go, but

00:35:45.500 - 00:36:05.720

you said only last night- Go cue the speech that begins with "if." Go, man the pump, deja vu, flag hit the vibrators. Go, "art is refuge" will replace "art is revolution." Go, you told the sun to wipe its feet before it came in. Go, that is my regret

00:36:05.720 - 00:36:24.860

chagrin and amazement that the sun obeyed. Go, here's your trench coat, who would recognize you without your disguise? Go, go guest visage(?). Go pick up the goons, go the check is in the mail, go we will not meet your like again. Go escapee of

00:36:24.860 - 00:36:43.580

the Valium prescription gang. Go, girls come, girls go talking of TattsLotto. Go, you wouldn't live with anyone who would live with you. Go, dinner for one please, James, the madam will not be dining. Go to your future, after trotskyism there

00:36:43.580 - 00:37:06.950

is only real estate. Go to a seance, don't doddle, don't speed, just strike a happy medium. Go, go, go, go ASAP. Go Madam Ennui, go. Go listen to ants fart. Go, act locally and think globally. Go, and who ate the plums on the icebox? Go,

00:37:07.130 - 00:37:24.770

what are your feelings on scientology? Go, today you're leaving but you left me a long time ago. Go to the West Indies, Jamaica- no, she went on her own accord. Go, beneath that flattie(?) exterior there is an enormous lack of character. Go,

00:37:25.430 - 00:37:46.550

go pilgrim, go cheescake Teresas(?), go. This lexicon includes piss off. Go, don't put all your basques in one exit, go find place for the erotic in the domestic. Go, love fades faster than the paintwork of cars. Go, the party must be [unidentified]

00:37:46.580 - 00:38:03.740

dancing near the door. Go, my heart is full of heartache, suitcase is your middle name. Go, a last fact perhaps and then away the next planet awaits. Go, but how? In this world, you can never get a taxi when you need one. There is someone at the

00:38:03.740 - 00:38:27.590

door, a driver knocks. Go. Danny challenged thousands of lines then, so I ordered that pattern by making each line sequentially longer. Joseph Stroud: I've got a line- I have a line for that poem.

00:38:28.850 - 00:38:42.410

Morton Marcus: What is that? Joseph Stroud: How can I miss you if you don't go away? Nigel Roberts: Yes. Yes, I was able- I mean- there was a song around the time, Paul Simon's, "50 Ways To Leave A Lover." Oh,

00:38:42.410 - 00:38:53.450

yes, I wrote that. Morton Marcus: Well, I love what you did with Jamaica. Nigel Roberts: One of the oldest puns in the book. Morton Marcus: It is? Jesus, not in my book. It will be now, but-

00:38:53.480 - 00:38:59.150

I like that. Joseph Stroud: When is it coming out? Nigel Roberts: Jamaica? I didn't make- Joseph Stroud: Book.

00:38:59.420 - 00:39:06.860

Morton Marcus: Oh no, no, you know, the book that is the book of puns. Joseph Stroud: Oh. Nigel Roberts: I read a gorgeous book this- of Mort's. It's

00:39:06.860 - 00:39:16.940

Mort's book of poems about walking in the hills around here. Morton Marcus: "The Santa Cruz Mountain Poems." Nigel Roberts: It's great, listeners. If you haven't got

00:39:16.940 - 00:39:23.960

it, get it. Joseph Stroud: You can get it at your local bookstore. Bookshop Santa Cruz has copies. Morton Marcus: Capitola Book Cafe.

00:39:23.960 - 00:39:30.860

Nigel Roberts: Great illustrations, but great poems. Morton Marcus: Thank you Nigel. I will give you the twenty after Nigel Roberts: I expect it. the show.

00:39:32.720 - 00:39:47.400

Joseph Stroud: This is called payola. Morton Marcus: There, he is looking for a poem called, "Payola." You don't want to confuse him! Nigel Roberts: I believe now it is required that if there is any

00:39:49.110 - 00:39:58.850

offensive matter I should want to let- warn the listener, there is suggestions of sexual material in this poem- Morton Marcus: Next one you're going to read? Nigel Roberts: Yeah.

00:39:58.880 - 00:40:17.540

Morton Marcus: Okay. Yes, we are required by the FCC to tell all the listeners out there if you are offended by graphic language description, just tune to another channel for a little while. Nigel's next poem will be a little graphic, in fact, maybe

00:40:17.600 - 00:40:27.080

more than a little graphic. Joseph Stroud: You can always turn the volume up. Morton Marcus: You can always turn the volume up, that's true. So we've done our duty. Tell us about the poem.

00:40:29.790 - 00:40:49.650

Nigel Roberts: I was totally amazed when we came here on that trip last year, I mean- We go back to the motel and turn on the television and the college co-eds sort of urging us if we want to have a romantic conversation, you know, there

00:40:49.650 - 00:41:10.890

was a number and it was all- could be paid for by our- Visa or Diners Card, and I began to sort of see, you know, looking at the back pages more and more samples of this, well, phone sex I suppose one calls it. Anyway this poem's called:

00:41:11.330 - 00:41:28.820

CALL Action speak louder than words, talk is cheap at 25 cents a minute. Call. Call the best as chosen by the Adult Telephone Association of America. Call Mistress Helga for the obedience

00:41:28.880 - 00:41:50.810

you deserve. Call Anal Alice. Attention all you slaves and submissives, call. Don't keep your mistress waiting. Hey, ever wanted to be a fly on the wall? Well, here's a chance, call the Peep Show Line for the hottest sex. To hear the Bitch Goddess,

00:41:50.810 - 00:42:10.280

you call the Bitch Goddess Direct, you hear? Linda's Lip Service, friendly, personal, unhurried, call. You make the choice when you call the Gay Bay Area Network to be discreet and to ensure your privacy. Call Black Magic for men of color and

00:42:10.280 - 00:42:39.440

men who love them. Call The Institute, The Institute knows what's good for you. Call, sometimes the best man for a job is a woman. Call your ears will- [cut-off]. Me and my friends are regular girls looking for a man like

00:42:39.440 - 00:43:03.080

you. Call, call Jack Along Recordings. Call, we get hot just knowing you're listening. Call and talk to a warm human voice and not a cold tape. If you don't call me, I can't call you. Call He Said, it is comparatively inexpensive, has

00:43:03.080 - 00:43:21.440

maximum fantasy potential and contains no risk of arrest, disease, or ripoff, and perhaps, best of all, there are few formalities. Call. I went through the formalities. Hi Steve, the voice is gentle, sweet, much nicer than I had

00:43:21.440 - 00:43:44.270

expected. That was one hot call. In parting she told me ours was the steamiest call she had had all evening, and that I could call her back anytime. Call between 7am and noon, Eastern Standard Time, and save $10. Ask for our morning special. All

00:43:44.270 - 00:44:03.410

those who responded to my ad for a short, white, muscular, versatile male, please call back. My answering machine malfunctioned. Call and help Columbia College co-eds with their education. Call, get personal. For the hardest

00:44:03.410 - 00:44:24.500

domination allowed by law, call. Raquel Darien is conducting a personal stud search by phone, give her a call. Tired of thinking sex equals death? Has masturbation become just another household chore? Jim, if you're still hard for me after all of

00:44:24.500 - 00:44:44.210

these years, prove it. Call and be my love toy, pure ecstasy in high heels. Call, attracting your fantasies now summons reality. Heather is hot, Heather is honry, Heather is available. Call Heather and Heather will fantasize with you at a time and

00:44:44.210 - 00:45:02.270

number of your choice. Bizarre phone psychodrama, and crossdress now, call. All our girls are drug-free, they give great phone call. Morton Marcus: It is very-

00:45:02.270 - 00:45:16.740

Nigel Roberts: The phones are ringing. Morton Marcus: The phones are ringing. [Laughs] It is very interesting. The listeners out there should know that Nigel, whenever he had a free moment, when he was over here, was

00:45:16.770 - 00:45:35.850

stripping newspapers and magazines and everything he could get his hands on by the way of media and media language, and putting down in notebooks whatever he was listening to and hearing. So, it has been very, very- I mean, I've been waiting

00:45:36.030 - 00:45:51.270

for what the results of this would be, and what you've just heard was one of the big results of this, in which not- Even more creatively than the Art Pepper thing, you're actually taking not just the quotes themselves, but the puns and the

00:45:51.270 - 00:46:04.650

suggestions, and then the showing the conjunctions of different ideas, which shows satire and width, and really shows us that part of the society. Would that'd be an accurate way of talking about that?

00:46:05.020 - 00:46:18.160

Nigel Roberts: Yes, I hope so, Mort. Very, very! Morton Marcus: Nice, that's wonderful, wonderful stuff. And certainly one thing that you are is a poet of wit and tremendous wit, very contemporary wit at that.

00:46:18.000 - 00:46:36.450

Nigel Roberts: What- god damn, laughter I mean helps. I want- I mean, I'm one of those people who like to sort of have a go at something and sort of say it shouldn't be so, it should be so. I mean, I'm an old fashioned person in that sense, and I

00:46:36.660 - 00:46:52.390

think laughter is one of the best weapons that one has. Morton Marcus: Your sense of language and your ear is just amazing. You know, I was putting this into American ease and I mean to have an American read it would be very, very easy to do.

00:46:52.390 - 00:47:05.680

You do have that great oral sense, that real terrific ear, you know, and a lot of Australian poetry I can't hear, but I can hear yours, and I could right from the beginning. Nigel Roberts: Well, you're right, Mort. I mean, I've been

00:47:05.680 - 00:47:20.630

here five weeks now and I filled one notebook with road signs, reports in newspapers. Rush Limbaugh, my great discovery, do you know this man? Joseph Stroud: I'm afraid we all do.

00:47:20.630 - 00:47:29.210

Nigel Roberts: Oh, God, I love him. [Laughter] Morton Marcus: What a field. Nigel Roberts: I got to spring Rush on Australians.

00:47:29.270 - 00:47:34.260

Morton Marcus: Well, Dame Edna, you know, has been sprung on us now. Nigel Roberts: Oh, so it's a trade off? Morton Marcus: Might as well trade off.

00:47:34.310 - 00:47:47.190

Nigel Roberts: Okay. Morton Marcus: And I think we got the best of the deal. Nigel Roberts: Okay, so there's Rush, magazines like the American Spectator, have you seen that magazine? No, okay,

00:47:47.190 - 00:48:03.960

you haven't. And then conversation, you know, thousands of High Sonora conversations. I was about to typify it a bit by sort of saying redneck, I won't say redneck but you gentlemen said redneck.

00:48:04.800 - 00:48:21.390

Morton Marcus: Not me. It must have been Joe. [Laughs] What we should say is that Nigel for the last five weeks has been up in the Sierras in Sonora, and he's been just taking part in the daily life there with friends and just got down from the

00:48:21.390 - 00:48:31.340

mountains within the last three hours, actually. Nigel Roberts: Roads weren't fixed, that's my excuse. Joseph Stroud: We have time for a couple more poems. Morton Marcus: Great.

00:48:31.580 - 00:48:40.130

Joseph Stroud: Are you up to it, Nigel? Nigel Roberts: Okay. Morton Marcus: Or do you want to talk? Or anything you're up to. Nigel Roberts: It's called:

00:48:40.130 - 00:48:54.200

THE HOUSE SPECIAL Bellino, of Dynek International, has ordered a Whiskey Sour so I punt on a Banana Daiquiri, the house special. "It's a fag‘s drink," declares Bellino as he moves to check out a chick, with

00:48:54.200 - 00:49:12.860

whom he's established some eye contact. "Hold the daiquiri, Chuck, a gin and tonic," and I follow. "This is Nigel from Australia." "Hello." "Hi." But I don't catch her name as Bellino is hustling the conversation on from the who are you to the who

00:49:13.040 - 00:49:30.740

she wants to be. And she is telling him of a spotlight ambition to be a singer, a variant of Roberta Flack, and in time, a piano bar, or a small club somewhere. The sometime and somewhere schedule sets Bellino's index pecking at her

00:49:30.740 - 00:49:48.440

left tit as he believes in Target Setting, Assertiveness, and Self Maximization to which, he puts his wallet on the bar and asks her price on ten Carnegie Hall tickets in a year's time because if she wants to, that's where she could be.

00:49:49.610 - 00:50:09.530

"Well," the singer demurs, and as I go for new drinks, apparently, I miss something for when I return Bellino is stabbing at that breast again. "I told you I don't eat garbage and you're feeding me garbage, crap and garbage." “The way it

00:50:09.530 - 00:50:29.510

goes“ she says, “the way it goes. Thanks for the advice and drinks but I've got a vocal coach in the morning.“ "Win some, lose some," says Bellino who then pays his tab and goes. So I'm cut loose in the Valley Bar and Grill, just on closing.

00:50:30.320 - 00:50:51.590

"One on the house?" asks Chuck, "What will be?" And without hesitation I say "A Banana Daiquiri." "One Banana Daiquiri coming up," says Chuck. Morton Marcus: And that is an older poem and it's one from

00:50:51.590 - 00:51:07.940

your first trip to America. A not too happy experience in San Francisco, right? Joseph Stroud: How long did you stay at that bar? Nigel Roberts: In the name of research, Joe, about three weeks

00:51:07.940 - 00:51:13.760

through. Joseph Stroud: Yeah, okay. Nigel Roberts: So that's why you never got to a jazz club in San Francisco.

00:51:13.810 - 00:51:30.790

Yes. I hate traveling by myself, if only there was a beautiful woman who would accompany me on these journeys, you know, somebody that I could take photos of, somebody who could take photos of me standing in front of this or that and

00:51:31.810 - 00:51:45.010

looking proud and happy. Morton Marcus: {Chuckles] Joe? Joseph Stroud: You're listening to the Poetry Show on KUSP, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Salinas and Larry Blood is here

00:51:45.520 - 00:51:50.830

and he's queuing up something. What are you queuing up, Larry? Larry Blood: Nothing yet. Morton Marcus: Nothing yet, isn't that Sunny StIpp? Joseph Stroud: Nothing yet.

00:51:53.930 - 00:52:07.130

Joseph Stroud: Sunny Stipp, no. I think we're going to- we've been talking with Nigel Roberts, a poet from Australia, originally from New Zealand, and with Morton Marcus, our wonderful co-host, and Mort is going to be your host next week.

00:52:07.130 - 00:52:18.000

Mort, what are you going to do next week? Morton Marcus: Wait, wait, wait a minute, this is my show tonight. You're going to be the host next week. This is my show tonight. You're- What are y u gonna be doing next week, Jo

00:52:23.000 - 00:52:31.170

[Laughter] Joseph Stroud: I'm going to be sitting at home, grading papers probably. Morton Marcus: Well, we've got to talk about this because we've

00:52:31.170 - 00:52:50.370

been switching- well, let's not do this on the air. At any rate, we have been talking with Nigel Roberts, and Nigel, what about some final words? Well, you know, I can ask you something. You have been going with a generation of poets now who

00:52:50.370 - 00:53:05.670

really are between forty and fifty at this time, some of them of course are older. What do you see with the young twenty to thirty year old poets coming up in Australia? What is happening with them? What is the difference? What are some of the

00:53:05.670 - 00:53:25.170

influences? Nigel Roberts: Well, are there any twenty to thirty year old poets coming up? Everybody seems to have gone to those more technical art forms, everybody wants to be filmmakers, video

00:53:25.170 - 00:54:00.450

makers, actors and so on and I- you know, we were an explosion and now there seems to be- there seems to be quite a gap in the under thirties. There are sort of bad copies of rap happening, very bad. Let's see, publishing is dying away in Australia.

00:54:03.480 - 00:54:31.620

Several reasons, mainly the cost of mailing out, the mails are quite prohibitive. Imagine I put out a magazine and it costs me more to mail it than it does to produce it so publishing is dying away there. And yet all those other ideas of publishing

00:54:31.620 - 00:54:54.630

by cassette or CD or video publishing, nobody's taken them up. I mean, poetry's broken through here, you know, but it hasn't broken through in Australia. It's still something that happens in the corridors of academia or at one pub in every

00:54:54.630 - 00:55:08.020

major city in Australia, you know, be one sort of art pub. Morton Marcus: Well, we were there, Joe and I were there, it was about four years ago now, I mean, there was- it was tremendous pub audiences. Have they continued or is that- ?

00:55:10.570 - 00:55:19.330

Nigel Roberts: I have a feeling it is starting to die down as well. Morton Marcus: And that's why it's surprising that no one is there from the twenty to thirty group because a lot of those

00:55:19.330 - 00:55:33.150

people were very young who were in the audience. Nigel Roberts: They haven't gone through, they haven't continued on though to publish. Where is there for them to post but they haven't. They haven't got the energy up to go out and make

00:55:33.150 - 00:55:44.620

their own magazine. Morton Marcus: Interesting, wow. That's a heck of a note to end on, but it's been really great to talk to you again. I'm sure that the American audiences feel the same.

00:55:44.620 - 00:55:56.880

Nigel Roberts: Thanks, Joe. It's been great. Joseph Stroud: Our pleasure. That's the Poetry Show for tonight, KUSP Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Salinas. Stay tuned for "Out Front, Outback," a very fine jazz program with

00:55:57.570 - 00:55:59.640

Mr. Larry Blood.