Poetry and Small Press

Founding the Small Press League in 1987
Minicomics Co-Ops: The United Fanzine Organization, or UFO, is a co-operative of minicomic creators that has existed since about 1968. The group was created by Carl Gafford as an entity for trading and promoting small press comics and fanzines. Gafford was the publisher of a comic called Minotaur. The original name of the group was Blue Plaque Publications, or the BPP for short. Among its earliest members were Chuck Robinson II (publisher of Comique), Dwight Decker (True Fan Adventure Theatre), Ed Romero (Realm), and Gordon Matthews (Coffinworm).

The BPP was the first small press minicomics co-op. The term co-op has often been confused with Amateur Press Associations or APAs. The difference is that an APA is helmed by a central mailer, to whom the members send copies of their publications. The central mailer then compiles all the books into one large volume, which is then mailed out to the membership in apazines. Some APAs are still active, and some are published as virtual "e-zines," distributed on the internet.

In a co-op, however, there is no central mailer; the members distribute their own works, and are linked by a group newsletter, a group symbol that appears on each member work, and a group checklist in every member zine. The UFO's monthly newsletter, reproduced by ditto, mimeo, photocopying, or later by offset printing, was known as Tetragrammaton Fragments.

The original BPP disbanded in early 1972, but was revived later that same year by Steve Keeter, who had been the last of the original members voted in before its collapse. During Keeter's tenure as chairman, the name was changed to the UFO, and a new constitution was adopted. Notable members during this second phase of UFO history included Jim Main, Kurt Erichsen, Larry Johnson, Don Fortier, and Rod Snyder. For a short time, The Comics Journal, one of the most prominent and highest-circulation 'zines of the day, was also a member.



When the UFO again disbanded during the early 1980s, it was revived yet again by Jim Main. The group has continued ever since, and many of the finest publishers in the comics small press have been, and continue to be members. Chairmen have included J. Kevin Carrier, Nik Dirga, Sam Gafford, John Yeo Jr., Bob Elinskas, Jason DeGroot, and Nic Carcieri. Longtime small-press cartoonist/self-publisher Steve Shipley succeeded Carcieri as Chairman in November 2010. The current UFO Chairman is Rob Imes, editor/publisher of the fanzine Ditkomania.



There have been a number of other co-ops created over the years, including the SPS, or Small Press Syndicate, the SPL (Small Press League), founded in 1986 by Liam Brooks, Andrew Roller, Will Dockery, David Cushman and Rick Howe. Pizazz, the Self Publisher Association (SPA), founded by Ian Shires, and a new group, sporting the original BPP name, that was begun by Jim Main and Steve Keeter in 1999. While each of these groups has its own distinctive character, they all follow the basic co-op format that was established by Carl Gafford decades ago.



As Poetry Editor

 * I was published in the 1995 Poet's Market hardback ISBN Q-89879-677-6 Reference Poetry (and other years but I don't have those volumes on my knee), Page 248, with a verse from one of my poems as an example of the type of poetry the Publisher was looking for, as "William Dockery", still a few months away from officially becoming "Will" in Summer 1995, and also was listed as Editor of the publication. Google Books does have a scan of the entry:

1995 Poet's Market: Where & How to Publish Your Poetry - Page 248 books.google.com/books?isbn=0898796776 Christine Martin - 1994 - Snippet view - More editions As a sample the publisher selected these lines by William Dockery: Sassanna was painting the back porch, in the early afternoon. ... Sample postpaid: $1 US or free for a SASE from William Dockery at his address above ("greeting card SASE...)-Will Dockery These works continue to the present day in various forms and formats.

The 1990s, Poetry Readings and Video appearances
"...And I go home having lost her love. And write this book." -Jack Kerouac

Planting plum trees-

Pops was squatting patting the dirt,

from a long row of small plum trees.

Slowly carefully patting the dirt around them,

like he used to do when he was alive.

-Will Dockery



The 1990s began with sadness, as "Pops", Kelly Dockery, Will's father, passed away on February 6th 1990, after long illnesses and tragic loss of his once almost superhuman powers.

Later in the year 1990, the old Jordan Mill suddenly shut down, ending Dockery's job that had lasted almost a decade.



The 1990s were a productive and evolutionary time for Will Dockery, as he moved forward from in print potery through Small Press, mail order poetry Chapbooks and quiet family life to the world of Poetry Readings, Open Mics and Performance poetry.

"...Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and tradition transmitted orally from one generation to another.The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants. In this way, it is possible for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledges across generations without a writing system." (from Wikipedia)

Shadowville's Open Mic Tradition, 1995-2005

Poetry history 1990s

I first attended a Shadowville open mic/poetry reading in Summer 1995, after Todd Speser of ' Bizarre Earth' finally talked me into getting up onstage at The Loft poetry reading. This was a shaky time for me, coming off ten years of a very private domestic situation, and the only place to find Will Dockery poetry was in chapbooks and zines... I hadn't done a reading in years, 1983 to be exact, and Hell yeah I had some jitters. Drank a pitchur of ' Killian's Red' and watched the poets.

Man, I thought, Shadowville is *loaded* with great poets... and socomfortable with the stage, each with their own moves, not a onestammering and shy:

Brad Smith, brilliant and sharp, fast and cutting, he carried a torch for Frank O'Hara.

Frank Saunders: Big burly with a heart of gold, poet of politically correct agendas, and one of my best friends almost instantly.

Shawn Bernard of Leominster, MA... Beat, Beat, Beat, tie-dye and Phish. Jim Morrison swagger and more sexual favors offered to him than he had hours in the day to oblige.

Donnie Strickland, the first of a long line of excellent poets from nearby Fort Benning, Georgia... deployed to some hot spot of the day and never seen again.

Sandra Pollack (her real name!) Older den mother of the poets, flowing gentle and sweet poems. Beat me in the "Poet Of The Year" citywide vote from ' Playgrounds Magazine' in 1997, and deservedly so... as Colin Ward says, if the *people* like it, it *must* be poetry. I won it in 1998, btw.

And so on, I'll get to the others, just as great and beloved, shortly.

But... then... there's Nita Gale, on the stage, dressed in red with a big hat, gold hair swirling, blue eyes stabbing, with a poem that set scenes in a cornfield, a transcendent consciousness expanding performance.

Yep. Nita was the bomb (as the young folks in the 1990s used to say), and most likely still may be. Anyhow, long story short, I got up and read some poems.



Other members of the local Columbus-Phenix City poetry scene included Patrick W. Hopkins, Karen Marie Keller, Lisa Scarborough, Bill O'Connor, Jeff Hill, Cora Lee Bragg, [Jack Midnight]], Misty Simpson, George Sulzbach and many others.

Talk about the oral tradition of poetry!

Dockery went in to his files, archives, and so on, to find a lyric post for "Under The Radar" for The Shadowville All-Stars show, and to place chord tabs to... and find that he had never written down the actual words of the song as the band performs it.



Performance poetry is not solely a postmodern phenomenon. It begins with the performance of oral poems in pre-literate societies. By definition, these poems were transmitted orally from performer to performer and were constructed using devices such as repetition, alliteration, rhyme and kennings to facilitate memorization and recall. The performer "composed" the poem from memory, using the version they had learned as a kind of mental template. This process allowed the performer to add their own flavor to the poem in question, although fidelity to the traditional versions of the poems was generally favored.

"Actually I've had both feet smashed in terrible disaters over the years, and get a bit of ache on damp winter days... Bishop: a limp can be turned into a swagger with the right pre-publicity. Set up a 'Poetry Night' at the cafe you've written about with you as 'master of ceremonies', put out a Chapbook of poems, and watch the young folks flock to this event. All you really have to do is set it up and then sit at a back booth with a sign up list and a cup of joe... you'll be famous around town in short order, and the limp will be percieved as a swagger.' -Will Dockery, How to start a Poetry Reading"



Performance poetry is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe poetry written or composed for performance rather than print distribution, and that is exactly the meaning it had for this point in the life of Will Dockery, as he moved more and more away from print forms to oral tradition of the spoken, and laater, musical Word Jazz.

Many hours of this was documented, as Will Dockery and other poetry and music friends and comrades were a part of documentary film-makers George Sulzbach and Truman Bentley, Jr.'s multi-part video cassette observation of the poets, artists and oddballs of Columbus, Georgia from the years 1996-2000. These have not been transferred to DVD and were out-of-print until recently.

One Day In Shadowville #1 (the epic movie), are the first three parts of the footage converted to digital, and available on YouTube, thus far starring Will Dockery, Bodeen, Rick Howe and George Sulzbach during a day in Shadowville, 1996.

In these hundreds of hours of episodes are 1990s open mic & poetry readings, and many current and long gone members of the local scene, performance video & documentary interviews to be added in the months to come in 2013.

The Return of Dan Barfield


Dan Barfield returned on the scene in the mid-1990s, after over a decade of separation from Dockery, after the events of July 4th 1980. They picked up their friendship without skipping a beat, as if the 15 year gap had never happened, or at least hadn't really been that many years. Time being what it, is, it probably wasn't, anyhow.

As Dan Barfield describes his life and art, and in so doing sets the bar for his students, Will Dockery among them:

The Art of Dan Barfield

I have often been asked by critics and students for the influences that have shaped my "philosophy of art." I rattle off a few well known names and a few well known "schools" of art which seems to satisfy them.The truth is....I don't have a philosophy of art. My paintings grow out of my philosophy of life and from the experiences of the life that I live and have lived since childhood.

I grew up along the east coast between Savannah, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida, when that coast was still wild and undeveloped. School was a prison for me, a thing to be endured only long enough to escape into the birdsong silence and deep shadows of the woods and river swamps, or the sun washed marshes and sea islands of the coast.

Then, as all teen-agers must, there came a time when I rebelled against this life. I left this life behind and went to art school and college. I embraced any road, any thought, any philosophy that took me away from that "old life" which seemed somehow dull and meaningless. I learned all of the names and catch phrases of the intellectual artist, embraced all of the currently popular "schools," and lived the life of "artist as rock-and roll star." And I did it well, getting my undergraduate degree in art from Columbus State, and my Master of Fine Art from Savannah College of art and Design, showing in Europe and America,wearing the laurels of success, never allowing myself to admit that I was lying to myself and living someone else's life.

Then a major event in my life took place in which I lost everything. I was living in my car with no home, eating at the Saint Francis mission in St. Augustine, Florida, and being forced to rethink my life........In retrospect it is the best thing that could have happened to me. I returned to the beauty and basic truths of my childhood. I again embraced the beaauty of the earth and the joy of being alive and free. This is where these paintings are born.

This is my personal favorite series. I have attempted to reach deep into the human psyche here and create paintings that will be recognized across all cultures and times. To this end I have worked flat with no attempt to make them appear as anything except flat paintings on flat surfaces. There is no attempt at perspective or depth; often there is no foreground, middleground, or background. The colors are vivid and bright, the flora and fauna would never be recognized by science, the fruits and flowers would never be found in a florist or grocer....I hope that they are universal symbols of that which they represent.

The observer will notice at once the power and importance of the sun symbol. Actually the sun was usually the first thing painted and the rest of the painting grew up around it. Those who have lived in the tropics will understand this, as the sun is the ruler of the day and of all life.

The ruler of all life ....It has been suggested that the sun is a "god" symbol in these paintings, and I am comfortable with that. (Note that I have said a 'god symbol,' not a god....a symbol only.) The sun is the source of all life as all energy comes from the sun...we are of the sun, we eat the sun when we eat vegetables, or the meat that feeds on the vegetation.

Others have found a "Christian" image in the three "Ancestral Figures" that stand guard with spears and huge erections over this fecund paradise.(I have to admit that these figures are stolen from Australian rock paintings and modified to suit my needs.)

I think I have said enough about these paintings now. I have a tendency to get long winded and I would not want to color your perceptions. And after all, art does not take place in the paint or on the wall; art does not take place in the mind of the artists;...art takes place in the interaction between the viewer and the painting. Art is a different experience for each of us, modified or enhanced by our own unique experiences.

What can one say about these paintings? These are scenes that I have stumbled across from the Low Country of South Carolina to the provinces of the Philippines. Shrimp boats of the South Carolina and Georgia coast, a lighthouse somewhere on the Golden Isles of Georgia; a mother and daughter in Costa Rica, two young Filipino girls with the family's carabao...other images of other times and places...

Oil on canvas; simple, but I enjoy the discipline needed to render a sceene that exists on the outside of my mind....simple beauty of a simple life.

I hope that you, the viewer, enjoy them, that you are sensitive to the beauty of them, and that they bring you happiness.

And as the wise man asked... is there no truth in beauty? -Dan Barfield

The story of the "dead bodies in the old house" made local headlines, and even a cheap paperback book collection:

What's the Number for 911?: America's Wackiest 911 - Page 105 - Google Books Result books.google.com/books?isbn=0740700324 Leland Gregory - 2000 - Technology & Engineering It turned out to be a work of art called "Vietnam" by artist Dan Barfield. The work consisted of barbed wire and Barbie dolls burned with a blowtorch "He hates..."

What's the Number for 911?: America's Wackiest 911 - Page 105



"'DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was — but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.' -Edgar Allan Poe"

In A Dream I Saved You

Barfield's art almost got Dockery arrested a few years ago, a nosy peeping tom thought Dockery had "dead bodies" stashed in the backroom:

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (GA) July 13, 1997 Section: LOCAL Edition: FIRST Page: B1 HOW GROSS THY ART By Tim Chitwood

Apparently it was all just a big misunderstanding.

The misunderstanding led to a 911 call about a decomposing body in an old house M***** S*****'s husband R****** owns at 2113 **th St. in Columbus. That led to the discovery that it wasn't a body after all, but artwork made of barbed wire and blowtorched Barbie dolls. But it sure looked like a body to police. And it looked like a body to paramedics. And it definitely looked like a body to Danny W****.

Danny is a real estate agent who with M***** went to look at the house July 2. He wanted to buy it and fix it up. It needs fixing up. The roof leaks in places and some of the floor's rotting. The S**** now live on F**** Drive and use the **th Street house for storage. M*****'s son Will Dockery lets friends -- artists, poets and madmen, Will says -- store their work there.

Among those artists is Dan Barfield, who has a concept piece called "Vietnam, part of which the veteran made of melted Barbie dolls. ("He hates Barbies, says his wife Judy.) It now lies on the floor among other stuff stored in the dark, northwest bedroom of the ##th Street house. To someone who didn't know what it was, it might look like a rib cage and sternum atop decayed matter.

That's what it looked like to Danny W**** when he walked into that musty room, first staring up at the rafters. Then he looked down. Then he froze. Then he ran.

He wasn't sure what he saw. Maybe a body. Maybe it was sealed with wax, which trapped the odor. Maybe this was a bizarre ritual. Maybe he didn't want to know.

M***** followed Danny as he dashed outside, where he tried to make a call on his cell phone. She told him not to. According to her, she told him he'd just seen some artwork. According to Danny, she never said that; she just said they didn't need the police coming there.

This did not sound reassuring. Danny had to make that call. Now don't call the police, M***** said again. She says she also told Danny her son Will had a bad temper, and he wouldn't like Danny calling the police.

She says Danny replied that the police wouldn't do anything to her; she wasn't involved. That's true, she said (she wasn't involved in storing the art), but the police needn't be bothered.

M***** claims Danny then offered her $13,000 for the house, then said it needed so much work the most he could give her was $10,000.

Danny maintains all M***** did was tell him no one should call the police.

The next day, someone called the police.

About 10:30 a.m., police and paramedics rushed to the house, unboarded a door to get in and examined what they, too, thought was a decaying body, oddly odorless. Then they poked it and figured out it wasn't. It was such a weird story, the Ledger-Enquirer ran it on the front page July 4.

That's how M****** learned police had broken into the house. She was perturbed. She blamed Danny.

Danny won't say he called police, but admits he told someone what he thought he saw. Stan Swiney of the 911 center says the call reportedly came from a Billy Hanson. (No Billy Hanson listed in the Columbus telephone directory was involved; I called.)

The 911 report said someone saw the alleged corpse through a window. That's difficult: The room's dark; the window's dirty; the art's hard to see.

The artist, Dan Barfield, says it's funny Danny W**** would be frightened, because the real estate agent stopped by a few months ago when Dan was moving art into the house, and this piece was out on the lawn at the time. The artist claims the agent told him a decayed body was found in the house once.

Danny says that's outrageous: He has never met Dan Barfield. "I would remember that, he says.

Danny says he just wanted to buy the house to help clean up the neighborhood, where he owns other property. ``As far as I'm concerned now, they couldn't give it to me, he says.

Perhaps it will remain the house of scary art, where once people thought they saw a dead body.

But didn't.

How Gross Thy Art?



As the 1990s wore on, Dockery became more and more recognized as a poet, and performed in approximately 1000 Poetry Readings and Open Mics.

Manifested destiny a manifesto and a part

All the actors still agree that ever had a heart.

Hazel knew the karma, she kept it in a bottle

Black tooth mojo marked index cards

Bundles over the side of Dillingham Bridge

Splashing as ripples reflect from the stars.

Shadowville, Shadowville Speedway

Riding slow down a one way street

Shadowville, Shadowville Speedway

Don't look back, don't admit defeat.

-Will Dockery In 1998, he won the Perky Award for best Poet in Columbus, Georgia, an annual "Best Of" poll held by Playgrounds Magazine in those years.



While remembering the early days of what I consider the early, and greatest in some ways, art-music-poetry scene in 1995-97. It looked that perhaps anything was possible from the opening chords and verses of the Columbus-Phenix City scene, not just music, but poetry, art... ideas. Since not only was there the early, frantic moments of a "music scene", meaning music created in, from, and sometimes about the Columbus-Phenix City area, our music, but also a fairly complex network of poets, and yet another spiraling group of artists... and Will Dockery walked into that surprising world sometime early in 1995, when, insane as it may sound now, The Loft held a weekly poetry reading, and even more insane seeming, the place was packed out loaded with people, not only just poets but an audience. But that's a story, maybe a novel, for another time. What this post is about is...



While remembering the early days, Dockery decided to Google some of the names from this aspect of the Columbus-Phenix City music-art-poetry scene, some names remain current here, in fact draw the connection between the poetry scene with the music scene stronger than previously considered or stated, Jon Saunders, his brother Frank Saunders, Jack Snipe, Heath Williamson, Henry F Conley, Rebbeca Wright-Harris, Brian Fowler and others I will remember later, founders of the "Columbus music scene" were also involved with the poetry scene. Others, such as Sean Bernard, Sandra Pollock, Donnie Strickland, Lisa Scarborough, Karen Keller, Nita Gale, Eric Duckworth, Brad Smith are no longer seen on Broadway, The Loft, or anywhere else around town... so Dockery did a quick Google and this is the first entry I've found, so far, so it is a start, the earlier search for Military poet Don Strickland.

Don Strickland poetry

Will Dockery knew Donnie Strickland way back in the 1990s, and was pleased to happen across some of his poetry just by chance.