Scott Beal!
If we had a cloning machine, Scott Beal might be the first person we would throw into it. People don’t generally come as good as this one. Scott came to us (by way of the one-and-only Jeff Kass) the very first summer we opened our doors, and has been a staple on every workshop schedule since. It’s exciting to put together a new workshop schedule, and one of the best parts is always reading Scott’s proposals. The words “genius,” “brilliant,” and “super super holy cow creative” all come to mind. I mean, with names like “Outleash Your Outlandishness: Poems of Audacity and Weirdness,” “Unexpect the Expected: Burning Cliches for Fuel,” and “Nonsense is Better Than No Sense At All,” how could they not be awesome? This month, Scott will teach “The Poets on the Bus Go Line By Line,” a workshop in which participants will take a couple of bus rides and then write poetry about their experiences…and the poems are going to be put on display in all the AATA buses! Pretty cool!
But it goes beyond that. Scott also wrote and recorded three stellar songs that appear on our new CD, I Am Not a Philosopher, I Am Just a Green Monster: Songs of Monster Protest. The title of the collection, incidentally, is a line from one of Scott’s songs. (And this is no place for shameless self-promotion, but it’s for a good cause, and probably Scott would want us to tell you that you can buy it here.)
Aaand it goes beyond that too, but, at the risk of this becoming too long, we’ll try to condense it a bit. In addition to being a wonderful teacher, he’s an incredible, incredible poet. (His collection, Two Shakespearean Madwomen Vs. the Detroit Red Wings, is something you should run out and buy. Like, now.) He’s someone we call when we have just a seed of an idea, and we need someone to make it awesome. He’s very busy, but he always has time for us. He’s someone we’re always excited to see. Oh yeah, and he won a Hopwood. But he would never tell you that, or any of this, really; he’s too humble to brag. Another reason we like him.
And so, Scott Beal, thank you so much for being our friend, and for continuing to hang out with us. We are continually wowed and inspired by you. You’re the best!
[Note: we tried to find a picture of Scott. It was hard. We found a teeny tiny picture of him reading poetry, but, long story short, it just wouldn’t work. So there’s this monster from the cover of the CD. And, in addition to looking a little like a Sweet Pickles character, he also looks a little like Scott. I mean, Scott has a mohawk. So…]