Young Poets Hope for Break at Old Jail

The ghosts of those who have tangled with the law are not all that haunt the Old Venice Jail.

Punkishly dressed youths swarm into the Art Deco-style building every Tuesday night to listen to the words of local poets. They come to the old jail at 685 Venice Blvd. for what Victor Noel refers to as a “verbal sentence.”

Describing himself as “The Warden,” Noel, 30, has put together a weekly poetry series showcasing local and minority poets. Readings begin at 8:30 p.m.

“The major concentration is on younger poets and being able to offer a place for them to read and grow as poets,” said Noel, a jovial man with a pixie face and long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“I don’t like poetry to be elitist, I like it to have more soul to it,” he said.

Participants have included Latina writer Marasella Norte, Henry Rollins, lead singer of the South Bay punk group Black Flag, and 1960s LSD guru Timothy Leary.

But black poet Lynn Manning complained that, despite the focus on minority artists, few blacks show up for readings.

“This hasn’t changed much from when I was a kid. We saw poetry as something intellectual whites did to please one another, to demonstrate their superiority,” Manning said.

A painter until he was blinded in 1979 in an accidental shooting at a Hollywood bar, Manning says he stresses visual images as a way to grab the reader.

“What I want to do in my work is to get the person involved. I want a reaction--whether positive or negative,” Manning said. “I don’t want to leave a person saying ‘Hmmmn, that’s interesting. . . .’ I want to get past the initial barriers of rationalization. I want them to be hit by the work on a gut level.”

At a recent reading for about 30 people, Manning, 31, recited eight poems from memory. Dressed in jeans, a short-sleeved plaid shirt, sneakers and dark glasses, he spoke in a strong, steady voice even when describing the pain of coping with his mother’s imprisonment.

Much of his work centers on racial prejudice and its effects on the psyche.

In a soft voice, he recited a poem entitled “Outward Appearances” that described his experiences after he moved to the Wilshire district, “where blacks were not a common sight.” He wrote of his anger when an elderly woman crossed the street to get away from him and concluded: And I smiled to keep from dying .

Manning has also written about losing his sight:

Old habits cause me to look skyward in order to judge the weight of the clouds

But there’s nothing to be judged . . .

I can no longer run in the rain

So I cry before my typewriter.

A poem about street gangs, titled “We Bad,” calls upon humor and violence:

You look at us funny and we’ll blow you away

Clint Eastwood himself couldn’t make my day.

Noel says that the popularity of poetry is growing in Los Angeles, as many stars of the underground punk scene turn to verse to express the alienation and anguish they formerly sang about.

“Musicians are laying down their instruments and picking up their pens,” Noel said. “That’s what’s causing the young generation to pay attention to poetry, because their peers are writing it.”

Punker rocker Rollins recited poems that, like his songs, were filled with violent images and black humor. With his shaved head, Army boots and arms lined with red and green tattoos, Rollins, 25, looks both menacing and playful, like a military schoolboy gone AWOL. He sways rhythmically while he reads, as if listening to some musical accompaniment:

I wish I could kick my own head in

I couldn’t scream, I wouldn’t think

Turning his attention to the streets around him, he has written:

The palm trees here make it all look like such a lie

His view of relationships is equally stark:

She called it rape

He called it enforced love

She called it marriage

He called it minimum security prison.

Aware of his obsession with nihilism and bleak images, Rollins moans, “If I could somehow breathe life into myself instead of death all the time.”

Although espousing no political position, Rollins also comments on the society he sees around him.

The Mexicans on their bikes

They always ride 10-speeds, even the old guys

Sometimes I look into their eyes and see that dull, hard glaze that hours of hard labor ground into them.

Poetry readings have been offered at the 63-year-old jail for eight years. When the organizer of the previous series left for New York, Noel decided to start another one.

“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, you can’t stop doing poetry there, it’s kind of a tradition,’ ” Noel said. He persuaded the Social and Public Arts Resource Center, which leases the jail building from the city, to allow the new series.

Noel, a poet who supports himself making candles, spends his own money to publicize the events but uses the $3 admission fees to offset the costs. Forty percent of the money collected goes toward publicity, with the remaining 60% going to the poets, he said.

Manning and Rollins received $25 each at the last session. “It bothers me to pay so little. It’s hard to get the attention that poetry deserves,” Noel said.

Noel, however, accepts the series’ lack of revenue philosophically. “Poetry has a tendency to be more sincere (than other art forms) because there isn’t a lot of money in it.” What’s most important to Noel is exposing a new generation of poetry fans to poets whose work he says has relevance and immediacy and defies traditional poetic restraints.

Loyola Marymount student Scott Palmer, 18, who attended the readings, said he writes poetry “as an expression of existential loneliness.”

“People are coming out of the closet and saying, ‘I can express this loneliness,’ ” said Palmer, a tan youth with long, blond surfer-style hair. “I’m not into all kinds of little verse rules. I like writing what’s on my mind.”

“I bet there isn’t a person alive who hasn’t written a poem once,” said Noel, whose taste ranges from Keats to Rimbaud to Langston Hughes. “Poetry is such an intense form of expression, to give it to the public can be hurting, but at the same time it’s freeing.”

The series will run through December.