Where Poetry Remains a Passion in the Valley

By PATRICIA WARD BIEDERMAN

April 21, 2000 12 AM PT

Hey, poet T.S. Eliot may have been right, and April is the cruelest month.

But it also has been, since 1996, National Poetry Month, a celebration of writers who practice literature in its most condensed, least lucrative form.

This year, a book of poetry has made it onto national bestseller lists--a happening as rare as a fit of candor on the part of a political candidate.

As a result, Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney is everywhere in the media, talking about his artful new translation of “Beowulf,” which has had the remarkable result of prompting discussion (albeit on a modest scale) of Grendel and Grendel’s mother, something that hasn’t happened since scop was a job title, not an answer to a clue in a crossword puzzle.

But in the Valley there are a couple places where poetry is celebrated year-round, not just in the month of Shakespeare’s birth (Sunday marks the 436th anniversary of his birth and the 384th anniversary of his death).

One such is Exile Books & Music in Sherman Oaks, where paperback books of poetry are as prominently displayed as the items your local supermarket is pushing. Another is the Cobalt Cafe in Canoga Park.

Exile owner Tom Ianniello used to run the Iguana Cafe in North Hollywood, a popular throwback to the poetry-seeped coffee shops of the 1950s and ‘60s. A year ago in January, he moved to a pleasant space at 14925 Magnolia Blvd. Now, poetry occurs there on a regular basis.

Among the poets who have read at Exile are Elliott Baker, who wrote “A Fine Madness,” a very funny novel about a very crazy poet; actor Viggo Mortensen, who writes as well as paints when he isn’t being attractively menacing in films; and musician Exene Cervenka.

Exile sponsors readings every other Thursday, featuring a couple of poets, followed by an open mike. Organized by Robert Modiano, the biweekly events begin at 7:30 p.m., and next Thursday’s will showcase poets G. Murray Thomas and Jenny Bates. And every Wednesday evening at 7:30, poets, songwriters and other artists of various degrees of talent and polish are invited to sign up and do what they do on Exile’s small stage, surrounded by bookshelves.

These aren’t poetry slams, that recent phenomenon in which poets try to outperform each other in the literary equivalent of a gladiatorial match.

At Exile, “it’s about the writing,” Ianniello says. “There are poets who are horrible at reading their work, but their work is good so it’s worth listening to.”

At Readings, Anything Can Happen

Running a part-time poetry venue may seem like quaint work, conjuring up a time when young women in black and the men who fancied them read their work in smoke-filled coffeehouses. But Ianniello insists that poetry is happening everywhere. Locally, he says, much of the best work is published by puckishly named Sacred Beverage Press, which operates out of a post office box in Burbank.

There is also an enormous amount of self-publishing going on in poetry circles, just as there is in music ones. As Ianniello notes: “You can do it on your computer at home and take it down to Kinko’s and make a book.”

Exile often books entertainment on the weekends and charges a modest admission fee. But the poetry readings, which sometimes bring 80 people into the shop, are free.

“You can’t charge people to perform and you really can’t charge people to attend an event where you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he explains.

What could happen at poetry readings, which have provided little in the way of controversy since Allen Ginsberg shocked San Francisco officials when he first read “Howl” at City Lights in 1956? Some pretty bad poetry can happen apparently, although Ianniello puts it more politically: “Some of it’s really good, and some of it needs work.”

Asked who his own favorite poets are, he once again demonstrates his tact by saying, “I’ll just name people who are dead.”

The first to come to mind are Walt Whitman and Robert Frost. “But I read everything,” he says. “I have a store full of books, and I’m slowly working my way through my stock.”

‘It’s Just Kind of What Goes On’

Unlike screenwriters, poets need patrons, which is, in essence, what Ianniello is (he doesn’t write poetry himself).

He pooh-poohs the notion that he may be serving the language by treating poets as if they were as important as, say, electronic entrepreneurs. After all, nobody ever got stock options for writing a villanelle.

“I’m no hero,” Ianniello says. “It’s just kind of what goes on.”

Maybe, but you just know that Shakespeare is smiling.

Spotlight appears every Friday. Patricia Ward Biederman can be reached at [email protected].