I had the rare good fortune, Friday evening, to attend a performance by AvantRetro, the poetry and music duo of Charles Rossiter and Al DeGenova. These guys are the real thing, folks -- great poetry, full of what has been and what is, with hints of what will be -- all presented in a terrific, entertaining manner, with accents of well-wrought jazz and blues riffs accentuating all. I'd had the opportunity to hear Al solo before, which was very good, but the combination of these two is just that much better.
Friday's perfomance was at Milwaukee's oddly-named but terrifically good Woodland Pattern Book Center, where even the open-mike readings were mighty impressive, and the collection of poetry books on hand is -- I'm running out of superlatives here -- very, very large.
If you have the chance to hear AvantRetro live, go hear them. Or get their CD (cleverly titled "AvantRetro") Or buy their book, "Back Beat". Listen to Charles Rossiter's audio website, poetrypoetry.com and buy Al DeGenova's journal of Chicago writing and art, after hours.
Does any of this sound like I might have enjoyed myself on Friday night? Well, yes, my friends, I guess I did.
1 comment:
I'd like to have seen that show. Those guys are both very good poets.
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