Poetry with a slice of pizza in Camden

As the regulars funnel into the pizza parlor, Rocky Wilson greets them with a high-pitched voice and a monkey sock puppet.

"Helloooo!" he says, exchanging hugs and pleasantries (switching back and forth between his normal and puppet voice).

It's Wednesday night in downtown Camden, and Wilson has turned off the TVs in the pizzeria's small dining room, draped a leopard-print cloth over a bright light fixture to cast a warmer glow over the room, and placed a stack of poetry books on a center table. The savory smell of garlic and baking dough hangs in the air.

For nearly 20 years, Wilson, a poet, playwright, and substitute teacher in the city schools, has led Pizza and Poetry at A Slice of New York pizzeria in downtown Camden.

"They keep coming. They must like it," Wilson says with a shrug, cracking open a can of Guinness before Wednesday night's gathering to celebrate poets with October birthdays, Jim Henson and Mary Oliver among them.

Wilson moved to the city in 1975 after living on a Vermont commune. He's known for his sock-puppet monkey sidekick, Bongo, and his propensity to break into song. On Wednesday night, he was wearing rolled-up khakis, toe sneakers, and a Hawaiian shirt. Asked his age, he says lyrically: "I'm as old as the mountains and as young as the sunrise."

The poetry group of 20 faithful members is similarly eclectic. Some come from Camden, others from Collingswood, Oaklyn, the Jersey Shore, Philadelphia, and Bucks and Chester Counties. The largely over-40 crowd has included librarians, retired teachers, plumbers, roller skaters, psychologists, and insurance-fraud investigators.

But they're all words people.

"This is a counter-action to the electronic age," said Concetta Risilia, a retired Philadelphia schoolteacher who now calls herself a "full-time poetry bum." "It's healthy backlash against the screens. And it's a social event. You can pick up your phone and read a poem, but you have to be here to hear it, its flaws, its nuances."

Risilia, of Collingswood, reads a poem titled "PENT."

"Fess up, dig up, make up, feel up, trip up, knock up, take up, touch up/Give. What's. Wake. Get. Crank.

Tune. Beat. Jack. Mark. Sit. Stand."

Hers is the lone voice over the occasional clang of dishes in the kitchen and the rush of the soda fountain machine.

For two hours, the group shares beer, wine, and flasks, – all brought from home – pizzas baked at the shop, and poetry.

Walt Howat, 80, of Collingswood, has attended since nearly the beginning. A retired advertising copyeditor from Philadelphia, he needed a hobby once his eyesight started to go. Writing poems on the computer relaxed him, he said. He reads one of his poems, "Neurotic Quixotic," as Rocky shines a flashlight on the page for him.

If only there were three of me/instead of only one. Just think what I'd accomplish/all that I'd get done. One would work so hard, putting bread upon the table./'nother would be ever kind, helping those not so able./The third would think great thoughts and be so very well-read./But I think all three'd rather find a wench and spend all day in bed.

Laughter fills the room and Howat smiles and returns to his seat. "It's a little silly at times but a total unwinding," he says. "Some of my best friends I have today I met here."

A woman plays the harp and sings "Ring of Fire" and "Side by Side." There are readings from Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" and a group sing-along to "Rainbow Connection" to celebrate Henson.

Toward the end of the night, Wilson brings over a poundcake covered in candles for Linda Delengowski, an art teacher at Camden High School who lives in Camden. Betty Warner of Westmont reads a blessing from John O'Donohue.

 Wilson approaches with finger puppets of famous artists on his hand. "I first met Linda across from Cooper Hospital painting a sun on her roof," he says. "Thank you, Linda, for making Camden a much sunnier place."

It's an emotional moment, right around the time three young people walk in and huddle toward the back.

Sean Lynch, 22, a student at Rutgers-Camden, found the group through a professor who introduced him to Wilson.

"At first, I thought he was a crazy guy on a bike with a sock puppet, but then I got to know him and he's really brilliant," Lynch said. Younger crowds have attended, but they don't come by as faithfully as the older cohort.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Pete Toso cleans up for the night. Owner of A Slice of New York, which has been on Third Street since 1992, he opens the place monthly to the group.

"It's pretty neat when you look at it. It doesn't matter who you are, when you're in that room, everybody's treated fairly."

Toso acknowledged it's not for everyone - he's never done a reading, though he did once ask Wilson whether he could read some of the tawdry comedian Andrew Dice Clay's stand-up act ("This is a family affair," Wilson told him).

"It scares away a few people when they know poetry's going on. They won't come in because it can get a little strange in there," he says.

Sitting toward the back of the room at a table by herself, newcomer Angela Boatright-Spencer, 63, takes in the scene. A retired Episcopal pastor, she moved to Camden three months ago to retire and stumbled upon the poetry group while getting pizza. She says she's loved living in the downtown neighborhood so far and wants to meet more people.

As though on cue, Wilson asks for a female volunteer to read a poem by Mary Oliver, and Boatright-Spencer can't help but step forward. She loves Oliver's work and even took a collection of the poet's works with her to the event. She reads "Wild Geese" to the inviting, quirky group.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Original poems from the Pizza and Poetry event.

As the night creeps on,

I slowly die inside;

The cold silence speaks.

- Haiku by a Camden Cooper's Poynt student

I Hear America Sighing

By Sean Lynch (November 2012, Philadelphia)

I no longer hear America singing.

I hear America sighing, the different moans I hear:

those of teachers, each one sighing

as it should be strong,

the laborers sighing at machinery,

the programmers sighing, repeating abstractions.

The servers sigh out smoke in the alley

while those who dine inside sigh only after laughter,

the delicious sighing of the rich!

The wealthy and their woeful worries

sighing with closed eyes.

Each sigh belongs to everyone

as each day no longer is itself,

but belongs to every other day as well.

The CEO sighs

with sealed shut eyes

blind to life and serendipity.

PENT

By Concetta Risilia

PENT UP WORDS

Fess up, dig up, make up, feel up

Trip up, knock up, take up, touch up.

Give. What's. Wake. Get. Crank.

Tune. Beat. Jack. Mark. Sit. Stand.

CRACK UP.

Belly. Bang. Cough. Caught. Lift.

Raise. Leg. Put. Batter. Pick. Hold.

Stick. Hurry. Messed. Hung.

BLOW UP.

Gang. Lap. Jig's. Look. Ante.

Open. Listen. Pin. Perk. Meet.

Pick. Stood. Fed. Washed. Speak.

LOAD UP.

Fouled. Screwed. Mark. Straight.

Crank. Shore. Let. Set. Fill.

Light. Throw. Kill. Suck. Rack.

HUNG UP. LOCK UP. SHUT UP.

PENT UP RAGE

PENT UP. UP. UP. UP.

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