{"id":9224,"date":"2013-12-19T12:16:42","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T20:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=9224"},"modified":"2013-12-19T12:20:19","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T20:20:19","slug":"un-ordinary-joe-pushes-poetry-combats-bullying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/un-ordinary-joe-pushes-poetry-combats-bullying\/","title":{"rendered":"Un-ordinary Joe pushes poetry, combats bullying"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m ignorant about oh, so many things.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>

Joe Zaccardi, in his home office, contemplates a new poem. Photo: Woody Weingarten.<\/p><\/div>\n

Poetry may top the list.<\/p><\/div>\n

So it amazed me that I wanted to interview Joseph Zaccardi, Fairfax resident and Marin\u2019s poet laureate.<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s scarcely the only poet in Fairfax. There\u2019s also Kay Ryan, Pulitzer \u00a0Prize-winner and U.S. poet laureate whom Barack Obama just handed a major medal (along with filmmaker George Lucas, a San Anselmo resident).<\/p>\n

Can I deduce poetry\u2019s as popular hereabouts as Indiana Jones and Yoda (who are standing tall\u00a0 \u2014 and short \u2014 in San Anselmo\u2019s Imagination Park)?<\/p>\n

No way.But down-to-earth Joe Zaccardi could become the antidote for anti-poets.<\/p>\n

His tips: \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid of poetry. You have to cultivate a taste for it. Read widely. Try writing free verse \u2014 you\u2019ll surprise yourself. You\u2019ll find yourself writing about love, or the death of someone. You\u2019ll remember something someone said. Or you might ask yourself a question, really off the wall, like, \u2018I wonder if they ever fried insects.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Of his work, the 65-year-old notes, \u201cEvery once in a while my sense of humor slips into my poetry and I leave it there. But I\u2019m usually serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cites as a solemn for-instance, \u201cArroyo\u2019s Soul,\u201d which emphasizes subject matter \u201cthat\u2019s really quite deep \u2014 about our not believing in anything anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s background isn\u2019t riddled, however, with the snooty posturing sometimes attributed to writers.For much of his life, after apprenticing as a butcher, he functioned as \u201ca barber, not a stylist, and I used to tell people I do one style \u2014 it\u2019ll be shorter.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hung up scissors and combs in 2003.<\/p>\n

Retirement means he now can take whatever time is necessary, rather than jotting down a word or two between clients. First drafts average 30 to 40 minutes. \u201cOf every 10 of those, I only continue one or two\u201d \u2014 and then his editing process \u201ccan be another month.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s published 240 poems so far but is \u201csure I\u2019ve written 1,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWritten\u201d is precise.Although he utilizes a computer for other tasks, he creates poems in longhand, in a notebook, in pen.<\/p>\n

Joe gets $5,000 for his two-year stint as poet laureate, barely enough to buy writing materials. But the meager honorarium isn\u2019t the point: The position enables him not only to promote poetry but use the bully pulpit to stage a panel discussion on \u201cbullying and bystanders.\u201d<\/p>\n

He remembers being 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cA fat kid was picked on at lunch every day. One day six guys were doing it. I\u2019m not brave, but I stepped in front of him and said, \u2018Hit me instead.\u2019 The leader said, \u2018Let\u2019s leave them alone.\u2019 And I realized one person could make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also as a teenager, Joe \u2014 who last month married his longtime partner, Dave Eng \u2014 recognized he was gay.A teacher concurrently spurred his interest in poetry through William Carlos Williams, a New Jersey native like Joe, and advised him not to worry about punctuation marks or rhymes.<\/p>\n

At 25, though, he started punctuating. \u201cNow I love it,\u201d he says, \u201cespecially semi-colons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today he\u2019s drawn to Jane Hirshfield of Mill Valley, Pablo Neruda, Gerald Stern \u201cand lots of Chinese poets.\u201d Earlier favorites? Shakespeare, Chaucer and Allen Ginsberg.<\/p>\n

Ginsberg, in fact, had hit on him.\u201cI was in my 20s and I met him. He bought me a Heineken\u2019s beer, put his hand on my leg and said, \u2018You have very nice thighs,\u2019 and I said, \u2018The thigh\u2019s the limit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe laughs at both pun and memory.<\/p>\n

The skinny, six-foot poet\u2019s totally animated when speaking. His hands perpetually move, and he occasionally jabs a finger at something invisible. Off and on go his wire-rimmed eyeglasses.<\/p>\n

His soulful eyes remind me of actor Steve Buscemi\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey used to be brown, but now they look gray, really strange,\u201d Joe says, not<\/p>\n

ing that as a schoolboy he asked a nun what color Jesus\u2019 eyes were. \u201cThe color of yours, I\u2019m sure,\u201d she replied.Since the early \u201880s, he\u2019s been hanging out at the Marin Poetry Center in San Rafael, which \u201cputs on monthly sessions with visiting poets, an open mic once a month, and a wonderful thing called the Summer Traveling Show, which sponsors about 125 readings in various venues.\u201d<\/p>\n

He likes reading aloud: \u201cYou can feel an audience when you read a poem.\u201d<\/p>\n

When, at his request, I audibly read one \u2014 about his father, from his anthology \u201cRender\u201d \u2014 I\u2019m overwhelmed by its power.<\/p>\n

And I understand why Zaccardi\u2019s a very special Joe, not an ordinary one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I\u2019m ignorant about oh, so many things. Poetry may top the list. So it amazed me that I wanted to interview Joseph Zaccardi, Fairfax resident and Marin\u2019s poet laureate….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"