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Greetings from New Jersey! It's december and I could use some outside excersize. And so could you- so get your coat and come with me and Outsider of the Month : 
Osage Avenue -1- (The Pilgrimage) Crossing the bridge from Center City
Gleaming Schuykill beneath me.
Past ivy league towers of privilege.
Where it borders poverty.
Where it touches the ghetto. I am walking,
Deeper into the belly of the beast.
First sign of my arrival,
Kids playing makeshift basketball.
Tossing the ball into
A milk crate with the bottom cut out.
I feel the cold, hard bite of poverty.
I walk on.
There are more stories to tell.
Michael Grover:
It is an honor and a privilege to be your first Outsider Of The Month. You can ask me anything you want. We all have different visions of what the underground should be and what an outsider should be.
Kathy Polenberg:
I'd like to start by questioning your opening statement. Your choice of words is interesting . . . "what the underground . . . an outsider . . . should be." You didn't say "should represent" or "should write." You seem to imply that you equate your writing with your very being in the world. Does writing, in fact, define who you are?
MG:
Yes. I am a poet. I have always been a writer. An outsider is supposed to be writing outside of the system, and not mimicking the machine with cliques, blacklists, backstabbing, competitiveness, ect. . . These are ugly things that should not be brought into something pure like writing. But humans corrupt everything they touch don't they? But no job will ever define me. I will always be a Poet. When I was a punk rock kid I was writing zines. My dad gave me some of his old books because he saw my interest in writing. That included The Beat Reader and Ginsberg's Howl.
So that was my first exposure to Poetry. He also gave me some pretty heavy political books like The Communist Manifesto. My first girlfriend Rachel gave me Rimbaud's A Season In Hell. That was my second exposure to Poetry. I really took off and started soaring when I packed everything I could in my car and drove from south Florida to Los Angeles. I was heavy into reading Bukowski then and it was intoxicating to walk the streets of LA after reading Bukowski and Fante. Michael Grover: It is an honor and a privilege to be your first Outsider Of
-2- (Osage)
The revolution was not televised!
It was burned down before it could speak.
His-story books dont talk about it.
But this is a piece of american history.
This is the american history they don't want told.
Like smallpox blankets, or buffalo kills,
Or a bomb dropping on Osage Avenue.
Now what stands here are new brick homes.
Like nothing ever happened here.
New brick homes,
Because they let the whole block burn down.
As the fire trucks sat and watched,
Flames jumping from row home to row home.
No evidence left
Of this crime against humanity.
New brick homes,
In this oldest city in the country.
I was somewhere in Florida finishing high school.
It never made the news.
It was not newsworthy,
Bomb dropped on american soil.
Locals say smoke it filled the sky.
It could be seen for miles.
Now this is a quiet street.
Almost an eerie silence.
The locals look at me,
Know what I am here for.
They turn their backs
Like in denial.
KP:
Your driving to LA and walking in the footsteps sounds like pilgrimage in the literal sense (and literally) and I hear a spiritual reverence in your description (as well as childlike enthusiasm.)
How important is pilgrimage to the making of an outsider writer?
MG:
I stumbled across Larry Jaffe's Poetic License reading while it was still in Pasadena, before it moved to Hollywood. That was the first time I ever saw Poetry performed with passion and enthusiasm. I ate it up and started shitting it out. Before I knew it Larry was giving me my first feature.
KP:
Is it essential for an outsider poet to do the live readings? Does live reading breathe more life into the work?
MG: I started working hard on that feature- and got my performance tight. I had friends that said I needed to memorize my poems, so I did. I moved to Philly and I started hosting my first reading there. That is pretty much the story of the love affair between Poetry and me. It sticks around longer than any woman I've ever met.
From a road trip to Lake Okeechobee:
Lake Okeechobee
Small southern farm towns
Way out west of civilization.
Right on the edge
Of mighty Lake Okeechobee.
Hidden behind
Huge artificial hill.
Confederate flags, plantation houses.
Hate mixes with heritage.
Injecting venom
Into his-stories bloodline.
Mighty dark Okeechobee
Looming behind artificial hill.
Everyone knows this part of Florida
Tends to be pretty flat.
Don't know why they hide it there
Why not share it with the world?
Not just those in the know.
If you pull off into Canal Point Recreation Area
Narrow road leads you over the hill.
You see the mighty dark lake in front of you.
Endless dark water on the horizon.
Feel the breeze off of the lake,
Breaking stagnant Florida air.
You see the hawk skim the lake
You hear the rhythm of the water
Mixing with the breeze,
birdsong filling the air.
KP: Thanks for the exercise Michael, and for sharing the following poetry and manuscript excerpts:
Indiantown
-1-
As I crossed the bridge
Into Indiantown,
I saw a poor man walking
On the side of the road.
Tattered clothes,
Stressed face,
Weight of the world
In the backpack on his back.
Something in my head
Told me to turn back.
-2-
Birdsong fills the air,
Hawks circling the sky.
It's just another day
In any small town america.
Trucks pass on the highway,
Commerce moving through.
Cars passing, people walking,
Churches, american flags flapping,
People,
It seems like any other
Small time american town.
Sitting in the grass in the park,
Watching the walking man pass by.
One local sits at a picnic table
Wondering why he's never seen me.
A man plays basketball on the court.
I am sitting here writing.
Local men gather in a circle
Around picnic tables,
Talking like they do the same thing
It's just a different day.
-3-
You could pass through this town
In the blink of an eye.
Surely you would not be missing much.
A couple of gas stations,
A burger king,
Circle K,
And a Mexican restaurant,
If you were counting.
Okeechobee
-1-
Stuck in the past
Afraid to advance.
Okeechobee sits there
Like a ghost town.
It's monuments of war
Guns and a torpedo
In the middle of the town.
In front of the war memorial,
Names of its dead on a marble wall.
Like the guns were
Guarding it.
-2-
Spanish man on the corner
Heavy cross over his shoulder
Head to the sidewalk classic martyr pose.
We all have our burdens to carry.
-3-
A car full of punk girls,
All of us looking at each other
Like we don't belong here.
Sadly I get the feeling they live here.
They drive off,
Anything to get out of here.
-4-
Bumper sticker in the window
Of the local gun shop.
Vegetarian an old Indian word
For a lousy hunter.
-5-
Just outside of the city limits,
Six turkey vultures sit in a parking lot.
One of them checking the contents of the dumpster
Across from the Rootin' Tootin' Whiskey store.
MG: The stuff at the end is from a future manuscript. I've been sending it out. It's good stuff. Someone will publish it.
From Michaels' book
"Transmissions From Third World america"
#3
University city,
An upper class menagerie
Of ivy leaguers,
Future world leaders.
I walk out of third world america
Onto Walnut Street.
Try to assimilate myself
With these perfect happy zombies.
I come out of third world america.
A place where their dreams go to die.
I am invisible here.
I walk unnoticed.
I walk into the bookstore
This is where they kill culture.
A graveyard of pretentious mediocrity.
Because if one of us broke through that glass ceiling
These ivy leaguers would have something to sweat about.
So they leave academic watchdogs at the gates
To keep us from crashing their party.
Back in third world america
Poetry it flows from the streets.
It hisses from the cracks in the sidewalk
Grows untamed like wild weeds.
Often taking on a beat.
Sometimes it flows like it's got a mind of its own.
But this could go nowhere in a corporate world.
It can't be labeled, or tamed
It's just what it is.
Unless they capture and tag it with some Def Jam label.
Marketing and advertising smoke & mirrors.
Water down and discredit any real culture.
I say we shoot down the vultures.
Take art back to the streets.
None of this will matter till I'm dead anyway.
I've studied the migration of struggling artists.
I know how the movie ends.
Script was poorly written anyway.
Soon they'll try to charge me admission
For watching my own life unfold.
In the end I'll walk off into the sunset alone.
I know I gave away the ending.
But don't miss the show.
The following is from Michaels' book "Hydra"
Hydra: Resolution
They look down on people with hate,
Pawns in their twisted game.
Manipulated through secret societies,
Sealed by blood ties.
Can a cold blooded creature
Feel beauty or pleasure?
Can it pull us into it's hell hole
Stripped of humanity, feelings, or soul?
What if I told you
Is it trying that right now?
I urge to cling tight to the beauty, all you love in life.
Let go of media induced hopelessness, hate, and strife.
This road gets us nowhere,
But farther into that hole.
If you really want to free yourself,
Love is the only way out of here.
From a future manuscript
"The Man That Lives In The Park"
(6)
"Ride my bike
All around the park at night,
When it is closed.
Rules do not apply to me.
I am invisible to america.
I guess I'm better off that way.
No one really bothers me.
I haunt the grounds of the park
Like a ghost.
It's night time,
This is my kingdom."
(10)
Sitting facing the river
Wind blows through gray hair,
Gray beard on face.
Watching dark water turbulent,
Dark turbulent sky
Storms on the horizon.
Under a pavilion,
Sitting on a picnic table.
This is shelter from the storm.
What if the rain blows in
From one of the sides?
I guess he'll get wet.
I see the rain
Just across the river.
First drops start to blow in
Sitting in the pavilion next to him.
I will go,
Get in my car and drive.
Buy some beer and chips,
Watch the rest of the games.
He's not going anywhere.
(28)
Here he comes
Blowin' into the park like chaos.
Crazy hair blowin' in the wind
He rides through the people.
Pulls the bike up
To his pavilion
Parks it like a garage.
He looks up and sees me.
Gives me a crazy wave
With his Mickey Mouse tie-dye.
He sits down to drink beer.
Offers me one as I walk by.
I tell him I'm good,
He gives me the thumbs up.
Michael D. Grover is a Florida born poet who went to Los Angeles in the 90s and really found his poetic voice. He also found a poetic movement in Larry Jaffe's Poetic License where he learned most of what he knows about poetry and performance. Michael then moved to Philadelphia and started the series Uni-Verse-All Voices with poet Natalie C. Felix at the world famous Five Spot, which ended two years later at The Friends Meeting House.
Michael has featured and read his poetry all over the country and has been published in print by: Citizen 32, Alphabeat Soup, The San Gabriel Poetry Quarterly, Mad Poets Review, Philadelphia Poets and the anthologies One Drop: To Be The Color Black, West Memphis Witch Hunt, and My Time: The Lunch Break Book
and online at: www.saintvituspress.com, www.outsiderwriters.org, www.getunderground.com, www.kissthebeat.com, and www.dyingwriters.com, DecomP Literary Magazine, Zygote In My Coffee, Redfez.net. Michael is now in Florida where he hosts the website www.covertpoetics.com, and also hosts a reading at Exodus Coffee & Culture in Port Saint Lucie.
Photo by Rick Spisak. Last update : 09-12-2007 10:09
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