Friday, August 31, 2012

Dave Snodgrass

My friend Dave Snodgrass has graciously consented to have me publish his poem about the Golden Plowman.

Dave was a huge presence in the Cleveland performance poetry scene when I first became involved with it back in the very late '90s.  For his own reasons, he has removed himself from it, much to the community's impoverishment.

I don't think Dave ever made much effort to publish his poems, seeing them as more oral/aural and performance events.  But he is/was a wonderful writer.

Hope you enjoy this.

2 comments:

Eric Snodgrass said...

This poem is definitely classic David. So is the "moving on to different things." These days he's doing some sort of folk music thing, well the last I heard anyway. That's nothing new for him in a way. He was one of the best hard rock/metal bass players in the area during the 80s and early 90s. Then he did the theatre thing for awhile. Kicked ass at that too. His "Renfield" in Sagamore Hills was over the top.

Of course, being married and having a teenage daughter can take up tons of time as well.

I can totally see that he loves to recite and hates to publish. I'm the opposite in that regard. Of course, Dave and I are opposites in a lot of ways. I'm a Freeper (smartass libertarian variety), and I love technology and fast showoff cars. Dave had to have his daughter program his rarely-checked voice mail. He's likely listening to Woodie Guthrie right now, I have MGK going.

One thing we do have in common is we love to use the English language as a toy. Eva uses the word "technotarded" in the aforementioned voice mail. I invented it....just for David.

Oh, we have our parents in common, too.

Happy 44th birthday, Dave.

Terry Provost said...

Thanks for commenting Eric. I didn't realize Dave had a brother. He's a unique guy. Hope you guys get along.