Bringing out the bards

Danette Goulet

It is a craft like no other. It is free and flowing and often without

rules or boundaries.

Poetry, although rarely mainstream, has drawn talent and audiences for

as long as the written word has existed. It is what songs, prayers and

children’s rhymes are made of.

This week, the many who share a passion for this timeless art are

sharing it at the first ever Orange County Poetry Festival.

“I’m really thrilled that Orange County will have a poetry festival --

its really needed,” said Barbara Hauk, who has lived and written poetry

in Huntington Beach for 26 years. “A lot of people think poetry is

old-fashioned or inaccessible -- that you can’t understand it -- and I

think [the festival] will help people understand that you can understand

[poetry].”

Hauk is one several poets, from Orange County and abroad, invited to

share her work at the festival.

The festival is funded by a nonprofit foundation based in Huntington

Beach called Tebot Bach, which means little teapot in Welsh.

Tebot Bach was created in 1999 by Huntington Beach resident Mifanwy

Kaiser as a means to promote poets and their work, promote literacy by

introducing children to poetry and strengthen community.

One of the programs Tebot Bach funds and promotes is a monthly poetry

reading hosted by The Five Penny Poets; Mifanwy Kaiser Michael Paul,

Steve Ramirez, Paul Suntup and Mindy Netiffee.

The success of the readings, held the last Friday of each month at

Fidelity Federal Bank at Beach Boulevard and Adams Avenue, is what

prompted the group to start the festival.

Each month the group has two featured poets -- one renowned and one

local. The featured pair is given most of the stage time, but anyone can

attend and sign up for a few minutes in the limelight.

The festival, which began on April 18 and runs through Monday consists

of reading at venues throughout Orange County.

Nationally beloved poet Thomas Lux is the featured guest of the

festival, who will be paired with John Gardiner of Laguna Beach.

“I’m looking forward to reading with him, I’ve heard marvelous things

about him,” said Gardiner, who has several books of his own published.

Lux, who has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in

Poetry and received three National Endowment for the Arts grants as well

as a Guggenheim fellowship, will read his work on Friday at 8 p.m. and

Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Fidelity Federal Bank. He will also offer a

paid poetry workshop.

Despite the honor bestowed upon him, Gardiner said the festival was

about no one poet, but a means of promoting and inspiring new poets and

poetry as a whole.

“At a lot of readings you’ll see the same people,” he said. “The only

time people even think about poetry is at a wedding or they don’t think

of poets as living.”

But there is a whole new generation of poets, Gardiner points out. And

here they are.

Besides the featured pair, other festival events include a

presentation tonight at Barnes and Noble, Huntington Beach of “Incidental

Buildings and Accidental Beauty” an anthology of Orange County and Long

Beach poets work, published by Tebot Bach Books.

There, Surf City poet Hauk will do her second reading of the festival.

At 64, Hauk said she has “been writing forever.”

It is through her poetry that Hauk shares her her witticisms, whimsy

and wisdom with the world.

“I decided to be a writer when I was 10 years old,” she said.

Although Hauk says she took a little detour away from writing when she

became fascinated with biology and went to college, the break was

beneficial to her writing, she said.

“When I was young, I felt like I had nothing to say. Then when I had

some experience behind me, I had more to say,” she mused.

Hauk said she gets her inspiration from everyday things.

“The people I meet I transform them into characters,” she said. “I

don’t really know what my inspirations comes from. Things occur to me as

I go about my daily life. I’m the kind of person who writes poetry on

napkins -- as soon as it hits you, you need to get it down.”

Hauk, who writes mostly free verse, also has a book “Confetti”

published and is the co-editor of a literacy magazine, Pearl.

Hauk and Gardiner are just two of numerous featured poets at the event

organizers hope to expand for next year.

While this inaugural festival was planned in a short two months,

Kaiser said, she and the Five Penny Poets will begin planning for next

year as soon as they wrap up this festival.

FYI:

For a calendar of events and other featured poets visit o7

www.ocpoetryfestival.com

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