Forty-year Newport Beach resident Lee Mallory said he was once voted
one of OC Weekly's "31 Scariest People" because of his in-your-face
delivery and his incessant and shameless promotion of his poetry
shows. It's an honor he embraces.
He'll get in your face and creep you out with a lustful swagger,
but that's what separates Mallory, 58, from the rest. He says it
drills up respect for an endangered art form. A publisher of seven
poetry books, he's helping the movement along.
"To paraphrase Jack London, I'd rather go out like a blazing
meteor than a dull, sleeping planet," Mallory said.
As a performance poet, Mallory lyrically seeks refuge from
traditional meter and what he calls "singsong moon-tune-June" verse,
promoting instead the outspoken, free form spoken word at Alta Coffee
House in Newport Beach and the Gypsy Den Cafe in Costa Mesa.
In addition to his own readings, Mallory teaches English at Santa
Ana College and promotes young, edgy, lovesick wordsmiths for the
coffeehouse performances. Chris Tannahill and Leigh White, poets with
attitudes and rocky pasts, should fit the bill at 8 p.m. Wednesday at
Alta, he said.
The Daily Pilot's Jeff Benson sat down with Mallory at Alta Coffee
House to discuss his self-described disregard for rhyme and reason.
You've been called 'The Love Poet.' How well does that title fit
you?
I've also been called the grandfather of Orange County poetry. At
least they didn't say "great-grandfather."
Somebody dubbed me the love poet, which sounded so hokey when I
first heard it. It sounded like some late night disc jockey from
Oklahoma broadcasting over staticky radio. But then when I stopped
and thought about it and I looked at my work, everything was about
love and male and female relationships.
Then I thought, "OK, I'll take the rap." As stereotypical as it
sounded, I just had to embrace it. Then I asked myself the question,
"What's more important than love?" Beyond the hype, beyond the war,
beyond the empty communication, beyond the stresses between the
sexes, what we need overall is something that'll bring us all
together -- and that's love. The poem is the best way to telegraph
it.
How much of an impact does performance have on what you do?
The performance dimension is so important. You could call yourself
a performance poet, but you need to be a good poet first. I see some
performance poets so dramatic and elegant that they can stand up and
read the Sears catalog and make it seem like art. But that's when a
