It was as if the rainiest night of the summer didn’t come until the first week of autumn. Lucinda Williams, awaiting showtime, was sheltered in one of two identical tour buses behind the Charlottesville Pavilion. Across the Ninth Street Bridge a small group of folks, many of whom appeared to be friends, was assembled at The Bridge to hear Tim Davis read something that was dubbed PerfectlyNormalPoems—a selection of unpublished works that Davis said will likely never be published.
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“For no intents or purposes”: Tim Davis got existential and hilarious with a reading from PerfectlyNormalPoems at The Bridge/Progressive Arts Initiative. (Below) The author letting it all hang out, artistically speaking. |
Inside, copies of his 2004 collection American Whatever lay on a small table, next to a handwritten note: “Free—seriously.” Greg Kelly, managing director of The Bridge, introduced the reading as “poetic sideshow to Tim’s big exposition.” Davis, who was in town for a residency at UVA, is known for his work as a photographer—his collection, “My Life in Politics,” is showing at Ruffin Gallery through October 23—much of which explores his fascination with the American ephemeral. “Seven Entertainers,” for example, is a canted view of cardboard cutouts of real-life powerbrokers (Bill and Hillary) next to not-so-real ones (Dr. Evil and Xena). A harsh light glares off the creases at each character’s waist, where the cardboard folds.
Davis shuffled through a Manila folder of loose pages, reacting to them with the audience as if he had just found the poems in some soggy alleyway. His poetry—referential, messy and often funny—hoisted onto language that same preoccupation with preserving the disposable. A brief poem entitled “Retail” winded through variations on the phrase, “For all intents and purposes,” and ultimately came to rest on “For no intents or purposes.” Another poem, “Bumper Sticker Humor,” explored what Davis called a “false sense of community” by re-imagining bumper sticker slogans; among them, “My other car is a terrorist,” and “End hunger: Eat a little snack.”
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The surface-level silliness in these lines at times gave way to more serious considerations. Was it the same poet who asked how many orifices a human has (arguably, 11), who poignantly asked, “What is the difference between terror and horror,” and went on to answer, “The old French said it had something to do with trembling”? It was.
In his essay “On Photography,” Davis writes, “America is a symphony of One-Offs. We’re always Supersizing and Downsizing or something. That’s why photographing it matters.” As the group stood to leave, somewhere in America—what Davis calls the “theme park of Flux”—three George W. Bushes were simultaneously broadcast on three flatscreen TVs at a Circuit City. Davis’ image of that moment, when it happened once before, hung on the wall of the Ruffin Gallery. And just outside, as Lucinda Williams began to play songs in the style of a durable American tradition, no one braved the rain on the Ninth Street Bridge to catch a free glimpse.