Australian by birth, Thorn "World Poet" uses his literary gifts to elevate the arts
in his adopted hometown, Austin.
Since arriving there in 1992, he has planted seeds of poetry like Johnny Appleseed by reading and improvising at coffeehouse venues, or anywhere people will listen with interest.
Years later, he still diligently encourages a lively poetry scene especially during April, National Poetry Month.
One could say that his pilgrimage to Austin began with a cult-
Thorn recalls, "I saw the film Slacker at the Melbourne Film Festival. I thought, I can talk to these people. They're my people."
The paradox therein is that Thorn is no slacker. He is the historian for the Austin
Poetry Society, a co-
"I like the idea of free festivals and people gathering in a volunteer way to make a community where otherwise we'd just be disparate groups," Thorn explains. "We're bigger when we work together and even bigger when we play together."
On the subject of Slam Poetry, he is succinct. "I don't slam, I jam."
"I like improvising with musicians, which is what I do with Poetry Karaoke on Tuesdays at Ruta Maya. Any musicians that turn up, I improvise with them. That's what makes it fun because you never know what will happen next. I've worked with a lot of individual musicians, particularly acoustic artists," Thorn says.
Throughout the '80s and into the '90s, he toured with different bands in England and the United States. His first CD, Roses, is a compilation of Thorn's original poetry and several of those bands.
However, the life of a poet is not all rhymes and roses.
His poet life began in 1972. He recalls, "I started improvising and people told me they don't listen. So, I handed out poetry on the streets of Melbourne as people went to work, up to 5,000 sheets a day. I'd work and turn my money into poetry and give it away," he explains.
"Then, I handed out poetry outside of shopping centers, and people said, 'Well, you know, people don't keep sheets of paper.' So, I started making little books. I've made 185 books of poetry.. .someone' s got them somewhere."
Thorn says, "Poetry has to exist, so it needs spaces and bases and places for people to gather. That's the idea. That's the next thing I do, run venues. Most nights of the week there is a place to go for poetry, which is safe, which is what we want, a place that is not threatening, isn't loud or alcoholic or dangerous. People can bring themselves, their poetry, and their music."
Most of the venues are located in south or east Austin. "I run about two or three a week and assist at two or three others a week just to make sure free speech does keep open and not get closed down in the rush towards fear. They're totally different masters, fear and poetry. You can't make poetry if you are afraid. It just doesn't work."
Bravery is a central theme in another facet of Thorn's crusade to keep poems and
poets living-
Each year, he travels abroad to workshop in England in the fall. Closer to home, this spring alone, hehas conducted workshops in Kerryville!, Oak Hill, and is scheduled for Wimberley in July.
"I'm not working for poetry, I'm working for the people who want to be poets, who want to honor the poet inside of them. I'm working with them so we can all honor the diversity of verse," he shares.
"My point is," Thorn explains, "poetry belongs to everybody and that's a simple, basic rule, there's a home for every poet and a home for every poem. There's no right or wrong, it is just what is appropriate in the context. A cowboy poetry gathering may have 20,000 people. But, the academics may not regard that as authentic poetry.
But, 20,000 people do. And the cowboy poets may not like the academic poets but someone does, at least their wives do."
Although he has collected and memorized favorite verses from classic works, Thorn is not a member of a dead poets' society.
"I believe that the best poem is the next poem," he says. "I' d rather there be a continuous conversation in verse, preferably improvised and spontaneous. Don't need to write a poem, but you can live it by living harmonically, aesthetically, beautifully."
"A dancer is a form of liquid poem. An artist is a form of visual poem. There's metaphor in every art form. The main thing to do is be aware, conscious, connected, and employ the incredible twos of poetry, simile and metaphor, in your life and find how everything changes."
FYI-
Volunteers are needed for the April 2009 Austin International Poetry Festival. For more information, visit www.aipf. org. Even more information is available at www.forrestfest. com and www.worldpoetry.org.
