Ed Sanders reads some really good poems

 

In high school, my classmate, Mary Kopala, had an older brother in college studying for a PhD in Engineering, if I remember correctly, and he brought the record album, The Fugs, home at Christmas for her to listen to. This would have been in 1966, and when I visited Mary at the time, I got to listen to “Kill for Peace” by Tuli Kupferberg and “Coming Down” by Ed Sanders too, strong songs that have always remained with me.

As a song writer and vocalist for The Fugs, was how I first got to know Ed Sanders. Over the years since then, as I’ve read and heard him read from his works including Investigative Poetry, Tales of Beatnik Glory, The Family, and Broken Glory: The Final Years of Robert Kennedy, what I appreciate most is how he has called on all poets to join him in the ancient poetic tradition of chronicling history through research and investigation. In the pursuit of the truth, I love Ed Sanders and simply want to hug him; he dances with his wife in the moonlight and has worked for wise ways to conjure words into actions off the page.

A few Sundays ago, on August 9, Sanjay Agnihotri and Jeff Wright organized a Zoom poetry reading including Ed Sanders, who is in his house in Woodstock with his wife waiting out the pandemic. Every poem Ed read touched me especially one called “Time-Tithing,” which he wrote for the occasion printing it out with some drawings on it. You will see it below.

Time is money like they say, and in the coming days let us all invest being good in wise ways preserving justice, peace and harmony. I am writing postcards as we speak, five hundred of them to two districts in Pennsylvania, advocating for the Democratic candidates there running for the state legislature adding hopefully in my small way to a Democratic victory in the 2020 election. There is no time like the present. Tithe Your Time.

I begged Sanjay to share the Zoom recording with me so I could make a Vimeo out of it and share it on my blog. I think it is important. Thank you, Sanjay. And thank you, Jeff. Enjoy Ed Sanders, everyone, and join him when he shouts, “Out, Demons, out!”

 

 

 

Tuli Kupferberg, Ed Sanders, Ken Weaver of the Fugs

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