I’m foregoing my usual spiel this month to remember a vociferous and splendid poet and friend who passed away a couple weeks ago. That would be

Joie Cook

Nov. 4, 1951 ~ Feb. 24, 2013

Joie lit up the streets and clubs and poetry venues of San Francisco for most of the last three decades, rocking rooms and roofs and alleyways with her non-nonsense verbiage. Performance poet to the core, Joie came up as a guitarist and singer, from jazz to the hardest of rock, and was also known for her lyrical and playful abstract and semi-figurative paintings, often displayed in the North Beach gallery scene. She was also a prolific correspondent, and many of her friends have collections of hand-painted cards (really mini-paintings) that she sent out frequently. I’ve included a self-portrait from one of those below. But she was mostly known for her ass-kicking readings, grown sadly scarce over the last few years as she battled a slew of illnesses, that turned venues upside-down and were in many ways the beating heart of San Francisco truth revealed. Click here to watch an awesome capture of Joie seething words at The Knockout in 2010.

Joie was one of the first poets (and humans) that I met after first moving the the Bay Area, at the Old Spaghetti Factory readings in North Beach in 1983. Our paths crossed frequently and giddily through that decade in cafes, clubs, parties, and reading venues citywide, including the Chelsea Square Cafe and Open Air readings (literally on Polk Street), the Meat Factory series in Noe Valley (which Joie co-curated with poet Laura Conway), Cafe Babar, and beyond. But we really connected after I moved back to SF in 2007 after a 14-year absence, and spent many hours in conversation, lamentation, poetry-sharing, word-playing, and just plain ranting. The time I spent with both Joie and her stalwart husband Dave Picariello, sweetness personified, made me feel more connected with my SF roots than probably anything else since my return. Many folks remember Joie for her hard nosed, straight up, no-BS performances, her wild antics, her outspoken tenor, but I will always remember her welcoming heart and open arms, and those many recent visits, where weary and washed up on the shore of Cookville, I would find her bounding to the door like a child on Christmas, exclaiming with glee, “Oh my god you’re here!” That to me is the flipside of Joie Cook that should never be forgotten.

Here are a few of her poems that have always struck me through.

 

YOU ARE WE WERE

You are
We were
A beautiful equation

Equal to the blooming crocuses

Of my childhood walks

Along the parkway

 

And we are

Can be

A new incarnation

 

As time swallows love

And love swallows time

 

Outside the fishbowl

Of still life poses

A tainted photograph collects dust

(an older rendition of our lost portraiture)

 

Where together

You are

We were

At least anything that

Screams as silently as possible:

 

“My name is forever, please remember me”

 

 

* * *

 

 

THE LEAVING PAIN

 

 

I recognized the fog or maybe it was smog

Twelve miles out of Santa Ana

Heading south from an otherwise decent climate

But the dust in the 2 a.m. air

Rose from the side vents

Of the U-Haul truck

Causing me to choke and spit

And pull over

To a liquor store

 

It was just industrial waste

My daughter said

So we drove

Until the surf

Held tight the belly of foam

Crashing with Pacific thrust

 

I left behind the memories

Put them on pause for an hour or two

Threw pennies into the ocean

For sacrificial good luck

In this new turf

 

Next day it rained violently

Like a cock fight in Maryland

My voice came back

There were planes overhead

Reminders of motion

And miles I had driven

That landed us here

 

I sat at the ocean

Then back at my barren house

Where the only objects were the books on the floor

I will read ‘til I vomit

I promised myself

Or until the dead surfers

Have swallowed the sea.

 

 

* * *

 

 

SHE IS FIGHTING LOVE

 

 

Like a dangerous promotion in a job she hates

Which would lock her into

Routine and ennui

 

Pushing her into an oblivious race

For time and tranquility

 

She is fighting love because it owns her now,

Penetrates each particle of bone marrow

And tissues her in,

With its indulgence and fortitude

 

She is fighting love

However deep or done

An entity in which she reluctantly swims

Diving endlessly into the foam

 

“You Are We Were” and “The Leaving Pain” are from Joie’s book Habitat: Selected Poems 1981 – 2006, which is published by Beatitude Press, and can be purchased here through Zeitgeist Books. “She Is Fighting Love” is from her last chapbook Take Ten, self-published in 2012 with art by James Redo.

You can find a lovely tribute page on sfheart.com, which includes a couple poems and photos and links to more. And I’m told that Zeitgeist Books is compiling a collection of Joie’s many chapbooks, and possibly a full collected works. Keep an eye open for that!

Finally, I’ve included a memorial poem that I recently wrote for Joie, along with two of our collaborations, on my Fresh Words page.

Wishing good life to all,
Richard