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Poet delves into our deep connection with TV

Wednesday, June 3, 2009
BY ROBERT BIESELIN, STAFF WRITER
NorthJersey.com

It’s animated but inanimate, often thought intimate but ultimately inert.

The television, an ever-projecting and projected-upon jumble of live wires and lifeless tubes, has been described both as the campfire of our generation — around which we share stories — or our era’s version of the lobotomy — through which we systematically get dumber.

DAVID BERGELAND / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

“The goal of all this is to bring people to poetry; to make them feel more involved and to show them this wonderful tool of human connection,” says Susanna Rich. In a recent book of verse, Susanna Rich offers a third opinion on the medium, one steeped in disciplines psychological, literary and theatrical. “The whole series of poems explores how television becomes a surrogate for God, for your own father, for a love, for friendship and even for a sense of yourself,” said the author of “Television Daddy” and star of the one-woman show of the same name, which she’ll perform tonight at Ridgewood Public Library. “Think about [watching] Jay Leno — it takes the place of reflecting on your day.” For Rich, a poet/Fulbright scholar/professor at Kean University, television has been much more than an escape mechanism — though it’s been that too at times, especially during childhood.

From the comforts of her Castro Convertible couch, daily programming became “an after-school buddy.” Her playmates were Victor Mature, “Clubhouse Gang” host Officer Joe Bolton, Popeye and Betty Boop. Her pet was Lassie. Her family was the Cleavers, the Waltons — both of whom helped her (temporarily) feel like part of a real “all-American family,” while estranging her, in a sense, from the reality of life with a working mother and absent father.

“There were all these familial ideals that left me feeling like I was the only one who has a horrible family life,” she said.

A few decades later, Rich knows this wasn’t really the case. She’s using that hindsight to analyze the sensation of network television, and its child-rearing effects.

On the page, she imagines children who sit in waiting for visits from the Beatles. They describe the illusion-shattering experience that was meeting Ralph Waite outside of his John Walton character. They suffer in an emotionally abusive household and wait to be rescued by Lassie, Flipper — anyone.

On the stage, under the direction of Ernest Wiggins, Rich brings these characters and sensations back to life, deviating from the normal poetry reading format to give a performance in tune with Yeats’ definition of art as “a fountain jetting from the entire hopes, memories and sensations of the body.”

And so, the body, not the podium, Rich said, is the centerpiece of “Television Daddy,” a work infused with hip-hop beats, Gregorian chants, a multi-purpose scarf and lots of audience interaction.

“I really feed off the [audience’s] energy,” she said, specifically so during a particular poem about child abuse. “When I look into the eyes of someone and I see them tear up, that helps me make my performance more authentic.”

This, said Rich, is the point: to initiate a real interaction absent from anything passed between the glow of a television screen and a Castro Convertible couch.

“The goal of all this is to bring people to poetry; to make them feel more involved and to show them this wonderful tool of consciousness and human connection which is poetry &md and for that matter, television.”

Gilda Radner meets Lily Tomlin meets Lauren Bacall meets Marlene Dietrich!

~Mikael Cramer, Songwriter

There are a million people who can string together colorful words into poetry. But they don't leave you with illuminations of your own life and a catch in your breath. Here's Susanna, who does it all ...

~Bill Bridges, Author, The Landscape Deeper In

Susanna Rich’s poems wholeheartedly embrace life’s contradictory nature. Lyrical, elegiac, and sometimes touched with determined humor, they are poems imbued with a capacity for wonder and joy that resonates with the passion and pain of human experience. Expansive in context and character, Rich’s poems are infinitely genuine, profoundly informed by spirit and heart.

~Adele Kenny, Poet, Chosen Ghosts; Poetry Editor, Tiferet

Susanna Rich creates poetry of sensory language disciplined by intelligence. She is fearless in her willingness to engage themes beyond surface comfort-a terrorist’s hands, a daughter’s rebellion, societal cruelties-and the redemption of love. Hers is a poetry of quest-her imaginative vision fuses with what is perceived so that everyday markings of contemporary culture enter unexpected planes of revelation.

~Charlotte Mandel, Poet (Sight Lines; The Life of Mary);
Editor, Saturday Press

Susanna Rich’s poems engage the reader with both authority and benevolence. She is a master of detail and her objects of attention, sometimes humorous, sometimes chilling, all become fertile ground for her generous perspective. These are the poems of a woman at home with language, an accomplished writer who invites us into her heart.

~Ed Romond, Poet, Dream Teaching

A dynamic performer, Susanna electrifies and inspires her audiences with a deeper love of poetry and its possibilities.

~A. S. Wolfbank, Cultural Attaché, Budapest