Report #4 / 09 FEB 2009 (Tribute to Al Hellus)

This week's "Report from the Mountains" is my tribute to a recently lost friend: the poet laureate of Hamilton St., the One They Call Al (Oh, hell yeah) Hellus. Over the years, Al and I worked on countless projects together, from poetry slams at the Red Eye and the annual Theodore Roethke Festival to benefits for Emmaus House and tributes to Ginsberg and Dylan. At one point, we were setting up so many poetry events in Saginaw, that the editor of the local paper told the arts editor, "You're doing too many stories on poetry. I don't want to see any for awhile."

But, despite editorial idiocy, the events continued, under Al's Drainage Basin Artists Alliance or my Collective Artists Gallery, we (but mostly Al) brought in guest poets and performers like Ed Sanders, William Heyen, Tess Gallagher, Country Joe McDonald, John Sinclair, , Linda Nemec Foster, Faye Kicknosway, Carlos Cumpian and Bob Hicok. We also had poetry bands, like my Miscellaneous Jones, Al's Plastic Haiku Band, M.L. Leibler and the Magic Poetry Band, Richard Tillinghast with Poingant Plecostomus, and Spoke. (Check out those links -- there's some great poetry and music to be found.)

Probably the project I'm most glad to have done was our co-authored poetry book: Saginaw Songs which was published in 1999 by Ridgeway Press. It includes Saginaw-based poetry by the two of us, as well as illustrations by Duane Miller. It's out a print, but you can read a couple poems from it here.

In closing, here's a journal entry I made after hearing of Al's death:

"Because I moved away before he died,
it doesn't seem like he's gone.
Rather, it just seems that Al & I are living in different towns.
Mine w/ changing seasons & the hiss of tires over pavement.
His w/ a river that flows continually w/ poetry
& gulls that keep one eye,
always,
on the poet at his table
performing origami w/ his soul."

Listen to the episode here:
reportfromthemountains04.mp3