Wilbo Discovers the Sun Poet's Society, San Antonio's Strongest Poetry League for the Last Quarter Century

February 27, 2020 at 9:29 AM
McDonald’s in the WalMart at Roosevelt & Military
San Antonio, Texas

Every day, I search for an expression of culture, and I don’t always find what I seek. Last night, I hit the jackpot. Across Broadway Boulevard from the Witte Museum, the Berry to Bean coffeehouse hosted the weekly reading of the Sun Poet’s Society, a play off the film title, Dead Poet’s Society. I met a few of the readers who arrived early, all circled aro

und Rod Carlos Rodriguez, who has passionately led the society for many years, maybe for twenty-five years.

The society celebrates twenty-five years in style with a performance at the Guadalupe Theater, March 21st. Rodriguez went to great lengths to make sure the City of San Antonio picked up that tab for that night. The show will be free to all who wish to attend.

For an open mic, the reading brought in a strong house, keeping the barista busy making drinks. He had to find a pause between the orders to get up and read from his work. He read an old poem and a new poem. “I have some new stuff”? “New stuff?” chimed the audience in unison. When the barista can make a great cappuccino and a great sonnet, a small part of the world has gone right.

I write new stuff every day. I was worried that, like so many open mics, that too many people would want to read and I would have to wait until the bitter end to read. I wanted to get up and say, “I wrote some new stuff today” and hear the audience declare, “New Stuff”? Rodriguez kept the program moving. People knew to not jam the stage with epic poems apparently. One after one, people got up, began reading without a spiel and read only two.

He declared a break, and anyone who wanted to sign up for the second half could. I have never attended a poetry reading that moved so efficiently in my experience. Usually one poet hijacks the proceedings, and usually it’s the host. Or worse, the host puts his favorites first and calls up the outsiders when the house is about to close and most in the audience have gone home.

I learned to love the characters. Dee read ballads that always rhymed, and full rhymes too. The Barefoot Poet took off his shoes but not his hat, which read Barefoot Poet embroidered in sundown orange ink. One man stood up to read who hadn’t read at the event for two years, but everybody remembered him. He read with a full, confident voice, reciting by heart his light and comical verse. He looked like Emmett Lathrop, the scientist who soups up the Delorean in Back to the Future. He made everybody laugh because he read poems with the timing of a comedian.

Rodriguez kept busy filming the readers, using a GoPro mounted on a selfie-stick, crouching low to get the best angle. I wondered how long had he kept a video archive of the readers who had walked into the society’s weekly event? These films become incredibly precious for many reasons, not just when a poet hits the literary limelight years after appearing at Berry to Bean.

I was reminded of Dan Wilcox, a cherished poet of his city, who has photographs of hundreds of poets who have appeared at the many programs hosted by the Albany Poets in Upstate New York. I know that the dozens of photographs I took at the Downtown Writers Center in Syracuse have become remarkable documents now that one year has passed.

Rodriguez and his society have a house to fill and I hope they turn to the schools and the universities to fill every seat in the Guadalupe Theater. When the Association of Writers and Writers Programs comes to town March 4 to the 7th, he has done everything in his power to attract those traveling poets who love to read to a real audience. Whomever desires that authentic an audience in early March will find just that Wednesday, March 4th at the Berry to Bean, near the headwaters of the San Antonio River.