November 14, 2007

A poet's time

by Wendy Butler

Vincent Peloso speaks about his life in descriptive detail — language sounding as if in search of a comfortable chair in which to rest having made a point.

He’s an education instructor with a decided poetic bent. So much so he has marked his adult life with verse.

He took over the helm of the KHSU-FM (90.5) public-affairs program The Mad River Anthology in 1994. It airs the second and fourth Sunday every month at 10:05 p.m.

The program features readings by local and visiting poets and occasional fiction and non-fiction writers, as well as interviews and a regular calendar of literary events.

But, with his work in developmental education at College of the Redwoods and other commitments, such as CSU-Fullerton graduate studies, Peloso said, he will no longer be able to produce his twice-monthly radio program.

So, the final show will be in February.

That’s unless somebody steps in.

While not a person one would commonly picture as a poet — he might have a beret somewhere in the hidden recesses of his office — his vocation is related to his avocation.

“Poetry’s about reading and writing. Poetry’s about responding to the world with words,” Peloso said during a recent interview at one of his favorite CR benches.

“Poetry’s about using language — sudden, surprising, poetry’s the best kind of writing.”

In Massachusetts while studying for his master’s degree in education, Peloso was determined to follow his first love.

“I’m going to work as a waiter and write poetry,” he had said.

“My adviser turned to me and said, ‘Good luck,’” Peloso said.

He and his wife Debbi Krukonis made their way out West aboard “Diamond Lil,” a 1969 Volkswagen bus.

They landed in San Francisco.

In 1988, they sold their house and “spent a year traveling around the country searching for paradise,” he said.

They wound up in Arcata.

“But Arcata had an Italian restaurant, so I knew I could find a job,” Peloso said.

Peloso had grown up in the New York metropolitan area. That was a subject of conversation about 14 years ago with then-KHSU Public Affairs Director Sharon Fennell, who inquired if Peloso had heard of Mad River Anthology.

He had listened to the program on several occasions, but had no prior radio experience.

Peloso took part in a volunteer training program and was trained specifically by producer-engineer Rich Culbertson, who just recently left the area.

“It was always an easy show to produce because I’m working with people that produce language,” Peloso said.

Radio is the “perfect medium for poetry,” he said.

“Putting a poem on the radio is different than putting a poem in a book that’s going to sit on a shelf,” Peloso said.

Some of his life’s highlights have included interviewing former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins while he was standing on a train station platform in Long Island.

Interviewing many guest lecturers who have made presentations at Humboldt State University has also been enjoyable for Peloso.

He has also actively recorded local and visiting poets who have performed their work for the Featured Readers Series that was formerly at Arcata’s Jambalaya.

“The Jambalaya provided me content for years,” Peloso said.

He said he’d been thinking it was “time to sort of pass it on.”

Mad River Anthology creator and poet Stephen Miller said that was part of the idea behind his program, which officially took to the airwaves on May 31, 1981.

“When I started it, my idea was to try and start a program that the community could enjoy, and poetry was a means to get different messages out,” he said. “And so I went ahead and had some problems starting it, simply because people didn’t believe there would be a listening audience, and once it got rolling it developed quite a listening audience.”

The Manila resident said he has compiled, partially with Peloso’s help, about 200 tapes of poets over the years. He said he’d like to donate the material to area libraries.

Miller said he recalls “dragging” a reel-to-reel tape recorder to different venues around the area, largely to Jambalaya, to record local and visiting poets.

“My intention when I started it was to have a program that could be passed on,” Miller said. “I’m absolutely delighted that it’s lasted this long.”

He said he thinks Peloso has done well, but he’s troubled to hear the program might be ending.

“It seems like it’d be a huge loss of voices for the community,” Miller said.

Talking about radio with a reporter

who is also a volunteer radio show producer
at the same community station as I
about the show I will soon be leaving.
After fourteen years it is time to go,
pass it on, step aside, fall back
to become another anonymous listener
spinning the dial, pushing Preset, scanning,
dialing up, tuning in, streaming, downloading
voices on the air, broadcast verse, lines online,
audible, memorable language
to sweeten the atmosphere, flavor the weather,
fill up my life with more life
until I tune out, until the show ends,
until the poem finally stops.
But you can’t stop the river. The show will
go on. We be poetry.

If I had more time, if I had more interest

if my motivation remained steady and strong,
then this would be enough, I might be engaged,
and my life could be meaningful.
But no one gets more time. Interest is always sporadic.
And motivation dogs every distraction.
So this is never enough. Engagement is problematic.
And life lacks insouciance.
Words take me for as bath. Wonder floods understanding.
And love laves me in its wine dark sea,
drenched, dazed, bedraggled and dazzled
by this life, in this place, at this time.