November 13, 2002
Night Out poetic event
Area writers read works at annual Poets' Night Out
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
While Chris Bzdoc may rank high on the creativity scale, nobody could call him prolific.
A sometime poet who has presented a poem in each of the past three Poets' Night Out gatherings, Bzdoc said these offerings represent the sum total of his work in that time. Writing at a one-poem-a-year rate may not make the Traverse City attorney famous in literary circles, but that is just fine by him.
Sharing the stage Friday evening with other poets at the sixth annual Poets' Night Out, held at the Traverse Area District Library, was reward enough.
"This is not a regular thing for me, but I really like poetry, kind of the same way that a teenager likes pop music: I don't necessarily understand it, but I know when it's got a good beat and I can dance to it," said Bzdoc, who frequented poetry slams in the Detroit area before moving to Traverse City.
Bzdoc writes for the rhythm of it, composing his works in his head mostly based on real life experiences. The poem he presented Friday evening, "Your Call is Important To Us," merged the impersonal plague of automated telephone answering systems with spiritual striving.
"They are all mostly true stories, because I don't have a lot of imagination to make stuff up," he noted.
His distinctive presentations shade into performance art as he uses inflection, gesture and expression during his recital. Bzdoc noted that his style stems from humble origins: stage fright.
"I get nervous speaking in front of people and I turn that into energy," he said. "I think it kind of goes back to that I like the poems that have beat I can dance to, so if a poem has that it is really easy to remember it and really easy to internalize."
Bzdoc illustrates that poetry is an equal opportunity devotion. Some of the nearly two dozen presenters at Poets' Night Out this year included a nanny, a physician, parents and teens. Ages of entrants ranged from 12 to 86 and juror and poet Ann Bardens of Interlochen, an associate professor of English at Central Michigan University, winnowed the entries for the show.
"It was wonderful to judge this contest because there were so many really fine poems," Bardens said.
Topics of poems during the show ranged from nature and winter ("What is the sound of one wheel spinning?" asked one poem) to grieving and love. Prizes included a high school prize and trustee prizes as well as awards sponsored by Horizon Books and the library. The audience prize was voted to Susan Gilbert while the Charles Opal award went to Emily Walter.
Sam Reese, 17, was one of the younger presenters and a recipient of a high school prize. A senior at Traverse City Central High School, Reese's poems are lyrics to music written by friend and classmate Elizabeth Gentry. Reese counts women and sex as his inspirations and determinedly avoids writing about typical teen laments.
"No teen angst, I hate that," he said. "I hate being trapped in stereotypical topics."
Poets' Night Out co-founder Chris Bazzett flew in from her job in suburban Washington, D.C., for the event. Before reading some of her poems, Bazzett reflected on the Poets' Night Out and the its contribution to the artistic community of northwestern Michigan.
"I just think that this is one of the most important things, the community here," she said. "Poetry doesn't belong in the hands of marketers, it belongs to the people."
Bzdoc agreed that the energy of the poetry events in the area, including the new monthly Open Mic Poetry at Horizon Books, benefits the community.
"I think that the people who are putting on Poets' Night Out and the people who are putting on the readings at Horizon and the people putting on Stone Circle are heroes because we need more and more of that stuff," he said. "They are trying to build a critical mass for that kind of thing and I think that's awesome."