If It Isn’t Singing, Take It Out: Rich Ferguson on poetry, rhythm, and the embodied word

Where is a poem? For poet, drummer, novelist, and performer Rich Ferguson, poetry lives in the breath, the body, and the beat. It moves through voice and gesture, enters into conversation with music and silence, and gathers new meaning from the people and places surrounding it.In this conversation, Rich joins Scott Catey to explore the deep musicality of language and the entwining of music and poetry. He explains how cadence becomes an editing tool, why memorizing a poem is a physical process, and how years of preparation make spontaneity possible. As Rich puts it: if a passage doesn’t sing, it doesn’t belong in the poem.They also discuss the continuing legacy of Beat poetry and its power to awaken attention. At a time when art is increasingly encountered through scrolling, fragments, and disposable moments, what can poetry and other artistic forms do to slow us down and return us to direct experience?Rich describes Poet Film Stage, the multidisciplinary performance series he created with poet, playwright, and director Kathleen Florence. Combining poetry, theater, movement, music, and carefully placed silence, Poet Film Stage transforms a traditional reading into a collective journey. No single poem or performer is the destination; meaning emerges from the relationships among them.The conversation culminates in Rich’s performance of “Live and Die in LA,” a propulsive spoken-word portrait of the city he once fled, but ultimately learned to love. Moving through music, violence, racial history, celebrity, incarceration, reinvention, and the accumulated ghosts of Los Angeles, the poem becomes both love letter and reckoning—a city carried in the blood and breath of the poet. HighlightsAlong the way, Rich and Scott explore:Why Rich considers his voice a musical instrumentHow the Beat tradition continues to reverberate through contemporary poetryPoetry as an antidote to distraction and disposable attentionThe role of movement, gesture, and memory in live performanceHow rhythm helps a writer recognize what belongsThe discipline hidden beneath apparent spontaneityLetting go of beautiful language that does not serve the workHow emotion and imagination can transform autobiography into artThe influence of Los Angeles on Rich’s creative identityWhy poems change when placed in conversation with other poemsCommunity, collaboration, and the making of Beat Not BeatThe artistic partnership between Rich and drummer Butch NortonPerformance Featured in this Episode:Live and Die in L.A., a spoken word poemUsed with permissionAbout Rich FergusonRich Ferguson is a poet, performer, drummer, novelist, and former California Beat Poet Laureate. His books include 8th &amp; Agony, Everything Is Radiant Between the Hates, Somewhere a Playground, and the novel New Jersey Me. He served as lead editor of Beat Not Beat: An Anthology of California Poets Screaming Through the Post-Beat Scene.With Kathleen Florence, Rich created Poet Film Stage, an ensemble performance project bringing poetry into conversation with theater, movement, film, music, and silence. His spoken-word performances and films frequently feature musical collaborators, including drummer Butch Norton, who was also a guest on The Sum of All Wisdom.Explore Rich’s WorkRich Ferguson: http://rich-ferguson.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@fuzzydoodahInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/fergiebeat/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rich.ferguson1/Poet Film Stage: https://www.kathleenflorencepoet.com/Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/Chapters00:00 — From New Jersey to the San Francisco poetry scene 04:12 — What is Beat poetry now? 07:51 — Poetry, consciousness, and the struggle for attention 13:31 — Reimagining the poetry reading through Poet Film Stage 18:49 — Movement, silence, and embodied experience 25:45 — “The work lives in my body” 26:33 — The life cycle of a poem 32:58 — Improvisation, preparation, and the illusion of effortlessness 36:16 — Using cadence and musicality as editing tools 38:32</st