A Sockdolager Poet
I met the poet, ruth weiss after hearing her recite poetry with a three-piece jazz band at a theatre club in North Beach, California. Though I had heard of her, I never met her before that perdurable evening.
I arrived at the theatre before the poetry show. The theatre club was elegant and intimate. A very large photo-mural of a beautiful and elegant woman stenciled into the upper stage wall, an image from a movie I could not name, and the stage area itself was well-lit and clean. A bass fiddle, a saxophone, and a well-stained wooden box were sitting on the polished stage floor. The theater held perhaps 70 persons comfortably.
The theatre lights dimmed, and three musicians took the stage; then, a short woman with teal hair walked to the podium and, without hesitation, began to speak in a raspy, baritone voice. She was a sockdolager. She was exceptional and forceful. The effect was unexpected and unique. We were in the presence of an original, a valorous, provocateur.
After the show of perhaps twenty poems and farewells from the poet, the audience slowly dispersed, and I went backstage to introduce myself. I was wearing a bright silver jacket of my design, and I could see it had caught her eyes. I could see her curiosity went far beyond poetry as we talked about clothing design and artistic originality, ecological destruction, and being different from others.
Since that initial meeting, I have met with this iconoclast of artistic expression, this sentinel of truth and simplicity, many times. I am particularly fond of the time I went to see ruth in the hospital after she had a stroke. She was asleep when I entered the room, and I hung over her bed rails and began to recite the poem, Invictus, by William Ernest Henley, and halfway through the poem, she began to smile and stir and open her eyes with a big grin! Indeed, poetry had awakened her out of her stupor! "It's the Tin Man!" she said, referring to the bright silver jacket I wore when we first met and calling me the "Tin Man" from that point onwards.
My last meeting with ruth was at the celebration of her winning the Maverick Award —all celebrating her and the movie, ruth weiss, the beat goddess the story of her life. That was the last night theaters were open before the shutdown of year and a half from the spread of the Covid pandemic.
During that last dinner, she waved me to come closer, and I set myself close to her. She told me softly, “Thank you for being the person who brought these people together to make this film about me possible… it was because of that first meeting with you that these people followed…” I replied that her story needed telling somehow, some way. It wasn’t me.
She left a valuable principle for others to deeply consider: that all of us must follow and be guided by what we love to do; be guided by a sense of purpose that we are fulfilling in our lives. For her, it was poetry, her heart and mind's expression through words. How extraordinary it must be to know that there is at least one clear reason you exist. How few of us have this clarity?
To meet such an individual deserves reflection and pause…
ruth weiss; your life was a life well-lived because regardless of the world’s events, you just kept on with what you love to do.
