I’ve written more about Portsmouth, Ohio and their art scene than any other place, besides my adopted hometown of Toledo. Portsmouth is Portsmouth, man. It’s rural. It’s Appalachia. It’s a place that has been ravaged over and over again by capitalism, and is now finally seeking a rebirth. It’s no secret that I fucking love the Portsmouth art scene, and the fact that they’re making beautiful, incredible art in one of the most notoriously desperate places in America.
J.I.B. my friend, colleague, and brother in tattooed and poetic arms, his birthday was in mid March, and he hosts a twice a month poetry and music event called The Dope As Fuck Show. He usually features a few traveling and local poets and musicians, and mixes in open mic readings between the features. I read at this show last November, and wrote about it then.
But for this show in March, to celebrate his birthday, J.I.B. decided to host a banger of an event full of traveling poets and multiple bands. There would be no open mic at this event. All superstar features and invitees. Damian Rucci, the nefarious innovator of the New Jersey Renaissance would be there. Alexander Ragsdale, a new host and young poet of the same New Jersey movement. Ezhno Martin, publisher extraordinaire, and punk performance poet from Columbus. Zach Hannah, perhaps the most active blue collar poet Ohio has ever produced, from Columbus, he’d be there. C.D. Bailey from the local area. Nikki Blankenship, local poet, sword swallower and fire performer. J.I.B. planned to read and get a tattoo live, as a promotion for his upcoming book. Plus four musical acts. It was lining up to be a whale of hell of a good time.
March 15th is my girlfriend Chrissy’s birthday, so it seemed a good excuse to take her out of town for a weekend to celebrate. The catch? She had to attend poetry in Portsmouth, then I promised her a Saturday night date in Columbus.
She and I took off from Toledo, and our route took us within a few miles of the Indian Lake Ohio community. The night before, some 16 hours before we drove by, a tornado had struck the area, killing three people and causing millions of dollars in damage. Many years ago, 20 plus years ago, when I was a completely different man than I am now, I lived near Indian Lake. I thought about that time, a lifetime ago, as we passed a long parade of power worker trucks, tree cutting services, trucks hauling demolition equipment and emergency vehicles. We only saw one silo standing like a tipsy naked skeleton, its metal clothing strewn twisted and crumpled throughout the farm field next to it. Thats the only visible damage we saw, but we were just miles away from where the epicenter of the storm struck, and it added a somber tone to an hour of our drive.
We coasted into the foothills of Appalachia and onto the mean streets of Portsmouth in the late afternoon, checked into the luxurious Quality Inn on the edge of town and got to the 7pm reading about 10 minutes early. Upon arrival our relentless organizer, J.I.B. hugged me and informed me that we would start around 8:30 probably. So it goes in Portsmouth, OH.
I’ve read a dozen times down there with those in the growing and feral underground art scene, and I’ve read in at least four different venues, a basement of a house once. In a museum once. But now they’re throwing shows at The Landing, a pretty cool coffee house and more than gracious host. Two dozen artists and local denizens milled about the gravel parking lot, passing joints, stories, vape pens, hugs and shit talk for a good hour and a half. At one point we all took turns hitting vape pens and joints two or three at a time, you know, like typical knuckleheads trying to get stoned three times as fast and five times as much.
Normally, at this type of event on the road, when the bill is stacked with traveling talent, it becomes more reunion of poets than traveling poet and book salesman. So I brought books, but left them in the car, and Portsmouth is so goddamned good to me that I sold three books in that 90 minute delay, before the show even started. Portsmouth is so good to me that I might have to start claiming them as my second home.
The show was hosted by local Portsmouth comedian David Perry, who in a nod to the Ides of March, hosted the damn thing while wearing a Toga. Perry kicked the show off with some jokes and comedy bits he’s working out, and some brought laughter, and some induced smiling groans in the restless audience that packed the house. Perry joked off and on through the evening, introducing acts. The crowd would filter inside and out, wander and come back, as bands set up and tuned up, and poets had to be found and lassoed for their turns on stage, but it was standing room only inside all night.
The order of the acts is a little fuzzy, and I was the last performer as the Friday event stretched into Saturday. But Alexander Ragsdale and C.D. Bailey read early, and the night was crazy with fun, laughter, good weed, music, and friends. I should note that outside of Alexander of NJ, whom it was great to meet, I was already friends and colleagues with all of the other poets that were featured that night. Not that you’d ever find me embellishing too much about the talent of my friends. But when I say the poetry lineup was stacked from the newest poet to the most veteran, or oldest, and fuck you, it’s a young crowd in Portsmouth, and yes, at 45, I find myself being the old guy more often than I care to confess, but the combined poetry experience of that lineup includes one of us having read in nearly every state but Alaska, Hawaii, and maybe Montana, do they have poetry in Montana? And between us there’s at least a combined 25 published books. And that was just the poets. I haven’t even talked about the bands much.
C.D. Bailey also plays drums in a two piece band, with my friend Kris River on guitar. They call themselves ‘A House Fire,’ and I was proud to see them perform live for the first time. Their debut, self titled album is out everywhere. I’m listening to it as I write. You should, too.
Skint, another young local band played that night. I read with them at the legendary underground venue, Holland Haus in Toledo last year. Skint is not only a great fucking band, but all of their members have wound up being fairly well read lovers of literature and poetry, and I’ve had the pleasure of talking about such things with them. Those conversations give me hope.
J.I.B. read his poetry set outside, where Nikki Blankenship inscribed a line of his poetry permanently on his body via tattoo, while he read. Vincent Herman, a local movie producer and friend of mine, his production company Subject to Change filmed J.I.B.’s performance, as he’s been duped into making a documentary, and Nikki set some of J.I.B.’s poems on fire during his set, and I trust you can taste the salt on the peanuts of this most entertaining of circuses. They do art and poetry different in Portsmouth. It’s all blended in with performance art, where music, noise and poetry dance together, and everything has the punk authority brought by the desperation surrounding us.
Throughout the night there’d be a few poets read, then a band would load in and tune up, while everyone milled around on a 20 minute break. This is one of the challenges to mixing poetry and music together, musicians need set up time, space, and time to tune up. With four bands in the lineup, and the late start, we went til 1 in the morning, but The Landing Coffee House did a brisk business all night long, and with the right group, those breaks become a social hour of smoking and trading books and stories.
The band A Further Along played a kick ass set. The band Soft Pain, who I’ve read with before, did, too.
Ezhno read, one upping Damian Rucci’s infamous ending of “someone bum me a cigarette,” EZ has started bumming half drank beers mid poetry set, and I defy you to find a better heel in all of underground poetry. One as talented, gorgeous, and lovably unlovable as EZ.
Zach Hannah read in the middle of the night somewhere, and I fucking love Zach so much. He’s worked mainly in warehousing type jobs his entire adult life, while writing and creating, and hosting poetry and art events around Columbus to build space for other artists. My kind of working class American hero.
Damian Rucci started the last trio of poets to end the night. He’s got a new collection of poems out, The Last of the Hardcore, and he’s one of the rare living poets that’s traveled twice as much as I have, choosing to chase poems and life experiences, rather than bank accounts and security. Rucci is a union meat cutter, from New Jersey, by trade, and I don’t think it gets much more working class than that.
Nikki read new poems as she’s working to expand her best selling chapbook ‘Pussy’ into a full length collection. It was around 12:30 in the morning when she read, so she read sitting down on a stool like it was punk rock story time.
I read after her. It was late. I’d driven from Fort Wayne to Toledo to Portsmouth, and I was the oldest poet in the building. There was still a big crowd and I decided to sit on the floor meditation style, and Zach Hannah scooted over next to me, and I read my set dedicated to J.I.B. for his birthday. I read a poem that I wrote inspired by our shared difficulties and obstacles in life. It’s called ‘We Are the Children Born Under Trigger Warnings.’ And I know this is long, but if you’re still reading, then I got you, and you ain’t bored yet. Portsmouth was once again a satisfying oasis of a night in a life full of searching. I can’t wait to read down there again in a few weeks, to help celebrate J.I.B.’s new poetry collection, American Television.
Here’s that poem I wrote for J.I.B. Happy Birthday, fucker. I can’t believe you made it this far.
we are the children that grow up under trigger warnings
(for J.I.B.)
the best minds of my generation
have been born into madness
born into chaos
we are the children born from heartache
born from mistakes
born from loneliness & mental illness
we are the forgotten children
raised on government cheese & powdered milk
a paper ticket punched for a free school lunch
we are the products of a broken system
designed to fail us
we are the generation born of crack epidemics
& AIDS pandemics
starved by Reaganomics
we are the forgotten victims of the War on Drugs
we are the children born with generational PTSD
we’ve been poisoned
drugged
neglected
& left to rot in jails
projects & ghettos
we are the invisible kids they don’t even make documentaries about
we are the kids that birthed trigger warnings
to protect you from our feelings
we are the kids
from Portsmouth, OH
Mattoon, IL
from Toledo
Chicago
New York
we are the children born with a welfare plastic spoon in our mouths
we are the children born into sins
that live through sins
that wear sins like shame
that even capitalist Jesus can not wash away
we are the children born with triggers in our hearts
& brains
& genitals
we are the children born with triggers in our beds
& under our beds
we are the children
that grow up
to show our triggers on the Jerry Springer Show
we are the children
that grow up
to show our triggers on the 11 o’ Clock news
we are the children
that grow up
to laugh with our triggers in Broadway bars
that grow up to dance with our triggers under full moons
that grow up to have coffee with our triggers
every morning before work
we are the children
that grow up
with trigger warning alert systems
tested
every first Friday at noon
©️Dan Denton 2021
Love y’all
-Dan
our illustrious host with pre show hijinks
Emcee for the night, comedian David Perry, kicks off the show in his toga.
a candid shot of film producer Vincent Herman.
J.I.B. reading and getting a tattoo.
and there's fire
Columbus poet Zach Hannah
Ezhno
Rucci from Jersey
Nikki and her punk rock poetry and story time
and there I am finishing out the night
Thanks for the report from the hinterlands. So good to know that these scenes are thriving.
Great piece and giving Portsmouth some well deserved love. Got a laugh from your description of EZ as "loveably unlovable". Hahaha! And a good poem you ended with.