Seamas Navarro, Beat Poet

A couple months ago, I was with several friends at Toronado, enjoying a sausage and a beer for dinner. At around 6pm, I stepped outside to take a phone call. Just as I finished, a man in a blue jacket and worn sneakers approached me.

"Hey man," he said. "Do you like poetry?"

I looked at him and hesitantly said, "Sure."

To my surprise, he said, "Well, don't let the backpack fool you, but I'm an internationally known poet." He pulled out a stack of paper and pressed it into my hands. "Here, why don't you read some of this and tell me what you think."

Internationally known poet? Yeah right.

I didn't want to be rude, so I read a couple poems off the first page. They were pretty good.

After a minute or so, he said, "So what did you think? Did you like them?"

"Yeah, they're pretty good," I replied.

"Here's the deal, I just got back from Burning Man and I need to get to my next gig in Redding, but I'm out of money." I looked at him skeptically as he continued. "But I don't want your money. How does this sound: if you come with me to Kinko's and help me run off a few copies, I'll give you two signed copies of my book. I want to sell off these books and get enough money to buy a Greyhound ticket... I'm supposed to leave tonight, but I don't know if I can make it. What do you think?"

I thought about it for a few seconds. I had initially thought he was going to recite poetry and then bug me for a buck or two. But this seemed different. technically, he wasn't begging for a free ride; he just needed some seed money to get himself started. I actually admired him for it.

I said, "Sure. Where's the Kinko's?"

"Right down there on Church and Market. It's not too far."

"Sounds good. Let's get going."

We walked for about 15 minutes, talking about anything and everything.

- Bush's war on terror ("It's all messed up there. I can't believe this is happening right now")

- Santa Barbara, where he was from ("beautiful place... but it's changed man... it used to be a great place with Santa Barbara character, but now it's just another outgrowth of LA.")

- Burning Man - ("I was nominated for poet laureate for Burning Man. It was great. There was this really hot girl who gave me this handmade leather journal. She said, 'Wow, your poetry was really great and it really spoke to me. I made this and I want you to have it." Here, check it out. I've already started writing poems in them.")

- Women and relationships ("This girl I met, I said, 'Tell me two things about yourself. I want to hear darkness and I want to hear light.' She said, 'Well, I'm engaged to marry this guy, but I don't think I love him and I'm thinking about calling it off.' Once I heard that, I thought to myself, 'I'm not fooling around with this girl. That's just a disaster waiting to happen.'")

- How he submitted some of his poetry to an international poetry society in France and got published.

- Life on the road ("I was in Aspen about six weeks ago. I've traveled through 14 states already. I basically left Santa Barbara to do what I loved. I left with basically nothing and made my way around the country, doing readings at coffee shops here and there, and just seeing if I could live off my poetry.")

- How he's able to tell who would be receptive to hearing his poetry ("I can tell by their shoes... and their general look. If they've got the full-on business suit, I generally avoid them. Birkenstocks? Yeah, they're usually more chill about things and they'll usually hear me out and throw a few bucks my way. Normally guys with nice black shoes like loafers aren't too receptive, but I could tell you were a decent guy, so that's why I asked you.")

- On the Beat movement - "I think the beat movement is a philosophy, not a movement. I'm trying to live that philosophy. A few years ago, I decided to see if I could live off my art. I'm still doing it."

When we finally got to Kinko's, I talked him out of running photocopies on standard 20-lb bond paper. "It's a business decision," I said. "You'll probably sell more books and people would probably be more interested and take you more seriously if it was on nicer paper." So, we ended up running off about 15 copies of his book (more like a booklet actually) on some light stone 24-lb bond.

On the way back to the bar, he kept thanking me profusely. "You just saved my life man. I would've been stranded here in SF. From now on, anytime you want to come to any of my readings, you're in, no cover charge or anything. You and one other person, just let me know. Just tell me that you're Dave from SF who helped me run copies of my book and I'll know who you are."

And with that, we shook hands and parted ways.

Later that night, I googled him out of curiosity, and sure enough Seamas Navarro was the real deal. His story checked out; he had been travelling across the country, he was a beat poet living off his art, and he was indeed in Aspen just six weeks prior.

I still have his books on my shelf, signed in an artsy scrawl, "Thanks Dave! Good luck! Seamas Navarro, Beat Poet! 9-9-05, Fillmore, San Francisco."