Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1997)
just out ▼ a ugu st 1, 1097 ▼ 29 T he A rtist P eckerneck if* TciA^tf. T iA i/tt | The life, work and times o f Walt Curtis, Portland’s poet provocateur, are brought to the screen Vacation Specials | as ▼ by Christopher D. Cuttone minority community, where his subject matter is f all the words that have been used to less shocking. describe Walt Curtis, perhaps the The controversial nature of Curtis’ work is most apt is...prolific. During a ca embodied in the segment of Peckerneck Poet that reer spanning several decades, the 56-year-old author has been pub juxtaposes “Cash Paid for Levi 501 Jeans,” an erotic and/or raunchy (in the eye of the beholder) lished in various venues, from community news poem about skin-tight button-flies, with images papers to poetry anthologies, from chapbooks to Mala Noche and Other "Illegal’’ Adventures, a of cowboys at the Clackamas County Fair rodeo. Although the poem’s male narrator mentions his recently released collection all his own. girlfriend, there is a current of homoeroticism and The publication of that book, which includes sexual ambiguity supplied by Curtis’ reading. The film also captures a tense interaction between Curtis and the police and rodeo organizers that provides a true-to-life response to one man’s subversive fantasy. Another segment, paired with the poem “Skinny-dipping,” shows Curtis and a younger the novella that inspired Gus Van Sant’s directo friend swimming sans trunks at Willamette Falls. rial debut, also titled Mala Noche, has made Curtis something of a media darling. He has been Both visually and aurally, the scene hints at the profiled in recent weeks in Our Town, Willamette sort of unrequited and unauthorized love so well Week and the Oregonian, and the Portlandia expressed by Curtis in Mala Noche. Review o f Books christened him “Oregon’s unof The fun in the buff continues with “Roto- ficial poet laureate.” Rooter Man”: In the film’s closing scenes, Curtis’ All through the month of July, Mark Woolley poem is chanted call-and-response style with a Gallery in downtown Portland showed Curtis’ group of his friends. But the words begin to fade, paintings and hosted an ancillary reading from the becoming at last pure rhythm without meaning, book on July 27. subsumed into the images of naked bodies writh Curtis is currently secretary of the Oregon ing in the mud. While there’s some obvious Cultural Heritage Commission, and is in his 27th excitement on the part of at least one reveler, the year on the air for KBOO-FM radio. overall feeling is one of tranquillity—a place of As if all that weren’t enough, he is the subject rest and comfort after a long and jolting journey. of the film Walt Curtis: Peckerneck Poet by Bill The film does an excellent job of capturing Plym pton, which will première Aug. 8 at the Northwest Film Center in Portland. Despite growing up in the same smallish town of Oregon City and having attended the same high school (four years apart), Curtis and Plympton did not meet until 1973, when Curtis’ reading at the Port land Poetry Festival in spired the cinematic eye of Plympton, a filmmaker and animator then work ing out of New York. Years later, in the sum mer of ’95, Plympton re Walt Curtis turned to Portland with a camera crew to record a film that in many ways Curtis’ spirit, a credit both to the powerful imag defies description—even the makers aren’t sure ery of his poetry and the talent and vision of Bill what to call it: It’s part live performance—some Plympton. While Curtis insists that he had no apparently spontaneous and others more theatri control over the film (later admitting to having cal— with slice-of-life scenes that follow Curtis had only a tiny bit of control), he says he is around town in his beat-up Plymouth Skylark to generally pleased with the product. Despite his familiar places and some undisclosed locations. satisfaction with individual segments, however, (Curtis has said Plympton “is full of BS” for Curtis is anxious about how they all work to calling the film a documentary.) gether—something he worries about, while he Both artists have a penchant for surreal humor concedes to Plympton’s experience as a film and ignoring the limits of good taste, and the maker. sexual tension—and occasional nudity—is all Following its Portland showing, the next stop part of the game. Curtis admits (after some dodg for Walt Curtis: Peckerneck Poet is the film ing) that underneath the spoof and satire his festival circuit, where Plympton is hoping it will poetry is in part designed to push people’s but pick up some theatrical play dates before going to tons, although not without good reason. cable television and video. As for the poet him Poetry is a world of fantasy where, Curtis self, he is living in Oregon City and enjoying says, he is still reacting to the pre-gay-liberation some well-deserved attention for his body of and religious repressions he experienced in grow work. ing up. Much of his work, be it poetry, prose or painting, rails against societal constraints and Both Curtis and Plympton will appear at the makes a case for environmentalism and femi première o/W alt Curtis: Peckerneck Poet at nism. Curtis’ aggressive performance style, remi 8 pm Friday, Aug. 8, at the Berg Swann niscent of the bombast of granddaddy to the Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave. Admission is queer poets Walt Whitman, is fueled by a desire $6 general, $5 fo r members. to break free from patriarchy and other destruc Mala Noche and Other “Illegal” Adventures tive forces, and to send a wake-up call. So it’s not by Walt Curtis. BridgeCity Books, 1997; altogether surprising that Curtis’ delivery has $14.95 paper. 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