(Chicago) Poet's Identity Revealed to Be Escaped Killer

[Up2Late]

( the talk here has been Sooooo Boring here the last few days, due to all the Shivo hand wringing, I though I'd pass along this Whaaaaaa? type story from yesterdays All Things Considered (NPR)

Poet's Identity Revealed to Be Escaped Killer
Click link to go to audio link

All Things Considered, March 23, 2005 ·

Nearly 20 years ago, a convicted double-murderer escaped from prison, moved to a new city, and assumed a fictional identity. He became a published poet and a beloved member of the city's poetry community. Now, he's been arrested in Chicago. NPR's Michele Norris talks to Lisa Donovan from the Chicago Sun-Times about the man known as poet (and anti-war activist) J. J. Jameson.

Turns out he's and Double Murderer, who escaped from prison in 1985, and then assumed a new life in Chicago.

[Zuni]

1. weird

Sometimes people aren't who they pretend to be.

[HereSince1628]

2. Ya gotta watchout for guys with iambic pentameters

they'll throttle your trochee.

[Up2Late]

4. LOL

That's Funny, even though, I have NO Idea what you're talking about, other than those are word I learned, but have forgotten the meaning of.

[TahitiNut]

3. Onomatopoeia on the loose, threatening communities everywhere!

Followed closely by alliteration. :silly:

[Withywindle]

5. I posted about this in the Illinois forum...

...it's messing with my head big time. I used to be pretty active in the bar-poetry scene in Chicago, and he was a good friend of mine. None of us had a clue.

[Up2Late]

6. So what was he like at the Poetry Bars?

Was he like any Hollywood Movie cliche' Poets? Or like any movie characters (like from "So I married an Axe Murderer") or Bob Denver in the 1950's T.V. Show "Dobie Gillis"?

[Withywindle]

7. very, um, literary

Thick New England accent, very gentlemanly, but could also be a very harsh critic (and usually an astute one). Quite talented. Links to some of his poems here: http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=72&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0



Back in the 90s, tons of bars in Chicago had poetry night every week; many still do. It was really one of the most diverse little "countercultures" I've ever been part of, in terms of race, class, age, gender, style, etc. (we had 15-year-olds with fake IDs all the way up to heavy-drinking guys in their 70s and 80s). The poetry slam phenomenon was big then, but I never liked the competition aspect or the way it locked people into trendy styles trying to win. My little crowd stuck to straight-up readings and open-mics, no energy wasted "keeping score."

The only people remotely like any Hollywood movie poets were the ones in their 20s who'd seen too many movies. The good ones outgrew it pretty fast.

[Up2Late]

8. Have you ever read or heard Billy Collins? He's really good.

Here's a link to a few of my favorites:

On Turning Ten

Another reason why I don't keep a gun in the house

Here's another one I heard on Garrison Keillor's "The Writers Almanac":

"To A Frustrated Poet," by R.J. Ellmann, used by permission of the poet.

To A Frustrated Poet

This is to say
I know
You wish you were in the woods,
Living the poet life,
Not here at a Formica topped table
In a meeting about perceived inequalities in the benefits and allowances
offered to
employees of this college,
And I too wish you were in the woods,
Because it's no fun having a frustrated poet
In the Dept. of Human Resources, believe me.
In the poems of yours that I've read, you seem ever intelligent and decent
and patient in a way

Not evident to us in this office,
And so, knowing how poets can make a feast out of trouble,
Raising flowers in a bed of drunkenness, divorce, despair,
I give you this check representing two weeks' wages
And ask you to clean out your desk today
And go home
And write a poem
With a real frog in it
And plums from the refrigerator,
So sweet and so cold.