Poetry in a Cave
Day 7 of Tour
We started day seven outside St. Louis, looking for bus tires. National Beat Poet Laureate Mark Lipman’s skoolie bus Furtherer had some bad ones on the front, on the steering axle, and Jess was able to find a TA Travel Center that got him hooked up. Do you know how miraculous it is to find tires anywhere in America, in stock and have them installed on any kind of vehicle, let alone a bus, within two hours? That might have been the miracle of the roadtrip tour.
We offered to stay and follow Mark and his bus to Indiana, on to the next gig, but he sent us on, and off we were, driving across the Illinois farm fields.
It was only four hours to get there, and when we did, the curveballs started coming at us. We were meeting in Spring Mill State Park to read in a cave and to camp out. There’s no phone service in the park. The campground was full, and we couldn’t find the people we were supposed to meet. So, we drove back to town, back to civilization, and after some cell phone wrangling we figured it out.
Tyler Frederick, local Indiana poet and avid caver planned the event, and he and poets Westley Pentland and Frogg Corpse met Jess and I near the cave. Poet Michael Duckwall and his family showed up, and we waited. The New Jersey Poetry Renaissance found us and about an hour late, the Vagabond Bus and its madman captain Mark Lipman came rolling in with new front tires, and cave poetry was in business.
Tyler had headlamps for borrowing but we’d stopped and got a couple of one dollar flashlights. We descended 150 steps, 33 of them suspect and sketchy, then around a babbling brook and into the mouth of a large, muddy cave. The cave goes back about 200 yards and dead ends into a large circular cavern room that has a little nook at the top that leads out onto a ledge.
We had a round robin style reading. Frogg Corpse kicked us off by reading the Walden poem from Dead Poet’s Society. We’d joked that this was a weird poetry seance, but really it was just fun to take turns reading and laughing and cheering each other on.
It was my first time ever reading in a cave, the type of event Tyler plans to do more of, and definitely something fun and different, and fun and different is some of my favorites.
So, the thing was, Tyler, and others had forgotten it was Memorial Day weekend, thus explaining the full campgrounds, but he managed to find three camp spots next to each other in a state park 20 minutes away, and he took care of covering the cost of those for us, so all the touring poets, us and Mark’s skoolie, all got to crash together and camp with Tyler and other locals. Definitely one of the highlights of this whole tour.
We all caravanned just after sunset, which must have been a sight, four cars and a red bus making their way through the winding hills of south Indiana.
We sat around the campfire, cooking up brats, or in the New Jersey Renaissance’s case, damn near a three course meal, and ate and laughed and made smores, oh man, priceless. Mark Lipman got his guitar out. We sang some songs and told stories, maybe passed a ceremonial blunt or two, and stayed up til 2am enjoying the camaraderie.
This morning we got up and going, and said our goodbyes, and gave our hugs and thanks, and took off north to Chicago. The Windy City. We read here tonight at the Gallery Cabaret, at the monthly open mic and reading hosted by writer Westley Heine. Should be a packed house.
Tomorrow a picnic on the Lake with local poets.
I’m so grateful to be here, and to have had the opportunity to chase these experiences and read these poems. I’m eternally grateful for all of your help and support, and thanks for following along on the journey. I love you all. Namaste.
Love,
Dan
Ps. With no cell service at state parks and lots of driving, I’m behind on getting back to some of you I’ll get caught up soon.
Also, I’ve got a big mail day when I get home Tuesday. You can get one of these mailed to you by sending any donation amount
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Reading in a cave - the acoustics must have been incredible.