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<TD><FONT COLOR="White">As you may soon discover, Whitman McGowan is a kind
of undiscovered genius. Inventor of the term "spokaoke" to describe the spoken
word with music playback part of his act, this "poetainer" is unforgettable
as a performer of words and other sounds you can make with your mouth. On
stage he's appeared with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jello Biafra, Lydia Lunch,
Al Young & England's premier satirical poet, Attila the Stockbroker.
Whitman's set attendance records at a number of SF venues and has made the
scene at such far flung poetry hot spots as The Green Mill in Chicago, The
Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Manhattan, Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, Rote Fabrik
in Zurich, the Festivale Transmusicale in Rennes, France and The Taos Poetry
Circus. His work has been heard at schools from jr. high through college
levels, and via various recordings, telepoetics (poem phone) programs and
tv & radio around America and Europe. Basically he parks his 17 stone
on a barstool and recites his funny poems & monologues with the aid of
a little bag of tricks. At any moment he can transform from a cool colossus
into a wild man of song and chant. Audiences often participate in pieces.
The result is usually a bit of a party! Of course he's had a few books out
(the latest is Contents May Have Shifted), won some awards, had hundreds
of poems published on the Internet and in a big menagerie of magazines and
anthologies, most recently in Poetnoise out of New York, but all of that
really matters not a Whit! What's important is that his sexy and well mixed
mythologies shake up dormant cortexes, guide us through the swamp of our
collective unconscious, slay the monsters of hypocrisy, hatred, guilt, and
complacency & lead us on a quest for truth, insouciance, and the earthling
way. Those who have seen him in person can vouch that this likeable skald,
who started his career reading poems at a dollar a pop in a Pasadena coffeehouse,
deserves to be an overnight sensation. His debut CD PO FU features music
by electronica geniuses Coldcut, Hollywood movie composer William Ashford,
computer music pioneer Drew Lesso, Arab music group Arabesque and the greatest
one-man band in the world, Bob Log III.</FONT></TD>
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