Showing off their poetic form

In lieu of a skull, Larry Jaffe (whose business card actually says “poet”) held in his outstretched hand a bird of paradise flower. “Alas, poor Yorick,” he exclaimed, and giggled. A photographer was taking his picture and Jaffe -- a burly middle-age man -- was wearing just his underwear.

Along with a dozen others, he had come to a Newport Beach home for the “Poets of Southern California -- The Swimsuit Issue” calendar photo shoot.

Beefcake poets? Not quite.

“At least I have hair on my chest,” said M.C. Bruce, a 46-year-old portly poet and Orange County public defender who was, he said, “still trying to crack the New Yorker.”

Until then, the swimsuit calendar would have to do.

“Some of the younger ones have very good bodies,” observed Bruce.

As if to prove the point, Jim Natal, a poet and an executive editor at the NFL Publishing Group, adjusted his Armani sunglasses and corrected a stereotype: Poets can be athletic. He, for example, had been a football player. “We’re A-type personalities,” he said.

Jaffe nodded. “We’re tired of being seen as wimpy,” he said. “People have the wrong idea of poets -- that we’re academic, bow-tie types. We’re nothing like that. We like to get our hands dirty. And pose naked.”

Well, some of them do. Nearby, the event’s organizer, Sholeh Wolpe had to offer moral support to a couple of poets taking their clothes off. “We’re poets!” she shouted. “We’re invincible!”

“Doctors of the soul,” offered Lee Mallory who was wearing a red L.A. Marathon T-shirt and a medal around his neck. “We go to the ledger and record our feelings to lock up memories,” he said, poetically.

“And we’re cute,” Jaffe said.

Between 60 and 70 Southern California cute (and not-so-cute) poets will grace the 13-page calendar to benefit Tebot Bach, a nonprofit poetry organization based in Orange County. On the organization’s Web site (www.tebotbach.org) it says of the calendar: “You’ve admired their words, now marvel at the sheer beauty of their bodies!” The $12 calendars will be sold by the poets at readings.

“It’s more about poetry than about skin,” said Wolpe, who added, “this is a great way to put them out there.” Out there, too, will be David St. John as Apollo and Carol Muske-Dukes in a purple bathing suit.

A short while later, four poets and two photographers piled into a van and drove to a nearby beach cove.

As seagulls circled overhead and tourists on boats gawked, Richard Garcia stripped to his bathing trunks and got into the water, holding a fishing line between his teeth. Four poets held the rod, as if dragging him out of the water. Their laughter echoed around the cove. A resident got out on his porch with a camera.

“The poet has physical prowess,” Mallory almost alliterated.

Wolpe watched the poets in their swimsuits.

“They’re not models,” she admitted. “We’re wondering who’s going to go on the cover.”