socks

You will like Jay Davis, I'm not pre-supposing on you. Your certainly entitled to come to your own conclusion BUT its going to happen. He's tall and whenever I see him he's smiling walking with a slow labored feel he won't even have to talk to you. You'll like him and when he sits on a stool on stage at the North Star in the future(its going to happen) and reads you his work you'll continue to like him it will add another dimension to the way you like him.



I put him up there with anyone, Jack McCarthy, Patricia Smith even NATHAN AMADON. That's right I said it. I always felt odd early on in the veritas days, people were reading poetry and getting big applause they would read pieces and say "GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT" and people would scream and applaud or "BUSH SUCKS" same reaction. It seemed to be about making all the anger in your life about serious issues compact and visual in your performance. I wasn't like that, I never really wrote anything in anger just long stories that ended with a sad quiet dignity or the promise of hope. My nickname early on could have been Wet Noodle.



Whenever Jay came and read I sat and stared at him trying to learn. He is the perfect mixture of sad, funny, intelligent, philosophical, hopeful, humble, EVERYTHING I aspired to be. That's how I felt the first time i saw him years ago and thats even more how I feel today after buying his book SOCKS at Longfellow Books. Leave it to Jay to create an environment in that book where a bad poem can't live, every one speaks like he does with deliberate care and purposeful humor while trying desperately to cover up the part of him thats sad. Not glum but horrified lightly by the inequalities of life, the violence, everything those kids were yelling about he hides in a dark corner of his poetry and leaves it up to the reader to find it.



I have a poem I call the nose poem that I read sometimes, its for my girlfriend and its sappy like me. I read it while Jay was there and when we both walked outside he turned to me and said "That nose piece was great. If I was a girl, I would have fucked you."



I spent the whole night giddy and waiting and when my girlfriend finally walked in I pulled her close and said "JAY DAVIS SAID HE WOULD FUCK ME!!!" Then i told her the full story.



Bottom line is if your in Portland go to Longfellow Books and buy Socks for $8 or you can go to the moonpie press website I think they have it setup so you can order it online. Jay taught me that its ok to make people laugh and that its not un-artistic to do that, he reaffirmed my notions of responsibility as an author that when you write something its your job to lead the reader to the point...if you have a point. He made me so jealous I always feel like I should have a point.