The New Jersey Poetry Renaissance if you have been living under a fucking rock is this totally wild working class poetry movement that has blown up in Dirty Jersey and has rapidly proliferated through the state from the brick tenements of Newark down to the bizarre summer lands of Tuckerton and Atlantic City. As for poetics, it's defined as in a “Jersey Sound” the high/low/ high delivery that comes from our speech. Per aesthetics, its members could have easily emerged from a punk or emo show, covered in flannels, tattoos, and ripped jeans. The movement’s base is profoundly millennial, another generation of romantics in another industrial revolution shaking their fist at the ivory towers of institutions and empire. Doomers who find community and truth beneath the fluorescent lights of the dive bars, sing poems on the street corners of damnation. And this whole fucking thing began as a mistake on a cold October night last year.
After running the largest poetry reading series in the state, after playing a fat Jack Kerouac and bouncing around the country, after the wild living year of Missouri and being kicked out of the residency, after landing back in the wilted Garden State during the global shit-storm of the pandemic, I thought I was all spent. Thought I had traded any talent and hope I had to get high and chase adventure. I came back like I had been in exile. I had a small poetry open mic in New Brunswick that barely saw over ten people. I would work all day in the meat department, take two trains to New Brunswick and try to grow this thing. Following one of the shows, Ras Heru, a poet from Newark and I were throwing down beers at the bar across the street and we talked about a poetry renaissance. About after the pandemic, we needed an all hands on deck push to get the boulder up the hill and bring the poetry scene back.
That felt like a distant goal, especially when I found out the venue was closing down. Chamber 43 was this dope record store and coffee shop right on George St and it was now probably going to be a Starbucks or a yoga studio. All of it stung on the train ride home. From the first train transferring in Rahway and cursing the sky, I was contacted by three venues to host poetry readings within ten minutes of boarding the second train. I said yes to all of them. Figured one would be good and the other two would fall into the shadows that collect the rest of my failures.
No one thought it was a good idea to host multiple poetry shows. I wasn’t even sure. The originals Bards off Broadway in Long Branch, Puff Puff Poems in Red Bank, and the resurrection of Poetry in the Port in Matawan laid the foundation for what was going to happen next. All three worked. More than worked. Soon I found myself in a weird situation where I was hosting three successful shows. I would work all day long and then host at night. Soon, I was hosting nine separate series and other hosts had entered the scene. Sometimes when you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to look up and see what’s happening around you. Hard to see the crowds growing. I looked at it and I still do as a work. Each show is a destination. Each show is a job. Keeping my head down and just doing what needs to be done.
I remember we used to have to battle the bar crowds when we first started and I would have to march around the bar, standing atop stools and screaming the words to my poems to silence the room enough for the poets to be able to do their thing. It happened quick that we became the bar crowd and have been filling venues to the sidewalk. I think the trick is, is that we stopped calling them poetry readings. Instead they’re shows. We are bringing the word to the people. Driving it into the places where the real people are. Readings are so 20th century man. They are poetry shows. For the people.
We’re a year past now, what we’ve accomplished can’t be questioned or doubted, PBS shot a TV series on what we have done and that’s airing soon. Every night of the week you can find at least one poetry show happening and usually 2 to 3. We have built an amazing community that grows every single show and has inspired movements in other states. It’s been a wild ride. Sometimes when you think you’re at the end of a hallway, you can find another beginning if you open enough doors.
I opened the door. I’m looking up now. This is just the ground floor.
First stack was so dope even DuVay Knox turned out
the hustle is inspiring.