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September 2, 2004
Mona Moore: the upbeat Beat
Now for something really different. I am also a poet; a comic poet but a poet nonetheless. Mona Moore was created after my character Shirley was invited to be part of a local poetry jam here in Hell's Kitchen. I had always wanted to be a beatnik. As a child born in the 1950's, I loved the whole notion of the beat generation, and even how that turned into the hippie movement in 1964. I particularly liked the clothes. The pointy black shoes knocked me out.
One of the writers I work with is actually a bona fide beat poet, so I turned to him to guide me towards my inner poet. My first performance was two poems, a total of 2 minutes of stage time. I brought down the house! I was even offered my own one hour show at a prestigious poetry venue, The Red Room, that day!
My husband and stage mom, Tom, was amazed that I accepted this offer with only 2 minutes of material. Hey what's the worse that could happen? The audience would discover that it wasn't poetry? Ah duh; "I'm not a poet" I said.
Well I created one hour of material with reckless abandon and soon discovered that this was the very heart of Beat poetry and that the rhythm of the beat was very much the same rhythm of comedy; set and punch. And my first one woman show was a huge success.
As a tribute to Allen Ginsberg I wrote Bark and it is still one of my favorites.
Posted by photocartoonist at September 2, 2004 8:27 PM