Reading - Dalva @ 3121 16th St. - Featuring Monique Marquisa de Magdalena - WARNING: NUDITY

The Dalva poetry reading (7-9:00 every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month) has been one of my favorites; the tiny wooden room with a low ceiling is tucked in back, past the bar, and the space feels like an illegal gambling room or a meeting place for anarchists, or even, scatological poets. Thursday the 11th: stepping through the unmarked door into the suffocating air we barely found standing room in the antearior. Every seat was taken and the staircase in the corner was filled all the way up to the second floor. The 1st poet was followed by a gush of applause. The room was crowded for a reason.

Up came Ozzy with a poem that veered toward madness; and yet, it was about searching for books at the public library . He pronounced words with a brutal Rhode Island accent where "R"'s are "ahh"'s while referencing old Bezerker mythology as well as the giants from Beauwolf in a way that made the room shake. Somehow we were in a tangle with all of written history while searching the card catalogue. At one point he says: "KEYWORD / spelt B / E / R (AHH) / S / E / R (AHH) / K / I am not crazy!" Include lunge toward audience and wide unseeing stare. Always a pleasure.

The featured poet, Monique Marquisa de Magdalena, I'd seen at many readings but I'd never see her do anything like she did this evening. I'm not certain of the particulars but she was channeling Anita Berber, an intriguing German exotic dancer in the 1920's who is "probably the first person to dance naked" and who pioneered modern dance itself. She lived wild and died at the age of 29 after 3 marriages and many drug and orgy filled nights. She wrote a book of poetry with a husband titled: Die Tänze des Lasters, des Grauens und der Ekstase (Dances of Vice, Horror, and Ecstasy).

Monique Marquisa de Magdalena turned down the lights and put in a CD - two drummers and guitarist began playing Natural Born Killers-style country - then she began a gothic reading about stripping, drugs, and touring the world: "they called me / the ice queen / the little devil goddess! / I was banned from Berlin / I played Baghdad / I played Beruit / in all the dirtiest clubs / I was banned from Europe". Everything felt punk rock and her music and dancing was hypnotizing. She passed out a bottle filled with Cognac and "pretened" to blow cocaine. Soon her clothes began to come off and a Anita Berber-mantra began. You never know what you'll find at Dalva.



(Pictures Top to Bottom: Hosts Adam Wolf and Elz Cuya, Ozzy, 3 pictures of Monique Marquisa de Magdalena, Jesse reading, myself with Cognac)