Davidson Garrett

Last updated
Davidson Garrett
Davidson Garrett.jpeg
Davidson Garrett in 2016
BornSep 11, 1952 (1952-09-11) (age 72)
Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S.
OccupationWriter, Poet, Actor
NationalityAmerican, Notable Works, “King Lear of the Taxi: Musings of a New York City Actor/Taxi Driver,” “Arias of a Rhapsodic Spirit”


Davidson Garrett (born September 11, 1952), also known as King Lear of the Taxi, [1] is an American poet and actor living in New York City, New York. He drove a New York City yellow taxi cab from 1978 until 2018 to supplement his acting and writing career. Garrett has authored six books of poetry, and has been published in many literary magazines, and poetry journals. [2]

Contents

As an actor, Garrett appeared in verse plays of William Shakespeare, W.H. Auden, and T.S. Eliot in New York City. As a member of SAG-AFTRA, he worked for many years in television and film appearing on All My Children, The Guiding Light, Spin City, Oz (TV series), The Sopranos, Law and Order, New York Undercover, As the World Turns, and on PBS in the award-winning documentary, “Something Within Me.”

Garrett also toured in theater extensively in the United States and Europe. In 2016, his spoken word play, “Conspiracy Theory: The Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen”was performed for the Boog City Poets Theater. [2]

Early life

Garrett was born September 11, 1952, in Shreveport, Louisiana, graduating from Fair Park High School. He studied theater arts for two years at Centenary College of Louisiana. [3] Garrett moved to New York City in 1972 to pursue an acting career and also because he is gay and was looking for a supportive community. [1] [4] He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and acting with Alice Spivak at the Herbert Berghof Studio in Greenwich Village. Garrett graduated from The City College of New York with a B.A. in Liberal Arts, and M.S.in Education. [2]

Garrett lived at the McBurney YMCA in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea from 1978 until 2000, which was the famous YMCA that the Village People based their pop song anthem on, “Y.M.C.A.” [5] [6]

Poetry

Poems and other writings have appeared in The New York Times , [7] Xavier Review ,from New Orleans,' “Big City Lit,” '2 Bridges Review,’ from City University of New York,'The Paddock Review, Sensations Magazine,”Impossible Archetype,”First Literary Review-East,”The Paterson Literary Review,” ”Reverie Magazine,” [8] The Ekphrastic Review, [9] The Stillwater Review, The Episcopal New Yorker , [10] Marco Polo Arts Magazine, [11] Conceit Magazine, Thorny Locust, and Podium, [12] the online literary journal of the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. His poetry has been anthologized in several anthologies including, “The Arcade of the Scribes,”(Rogue Scholars Press, 2023), “Stonewall’s Legacy,” (Local Gems Press 2019,) From Somewhere To Nowhere: The End of the “American Dream” (Autonomedia, 2017), “Beyond the Rift: Poets of the Palisades” (The Poets Press, 2010), and in “Pears, Prose and Poetry” (Poets Wear Prada / Eggplant Press, 2011). [13]

Garrett has authored six books of poetry, including his most recent title, “Cabaletta: Poems of a New York City Taxi Driver” published in 2022 by Finishing Line Press. ‘’Arias of a Rhapsodic Spirit,” a full-length collection was released in 2020 from Kelsay Books, and two chapbooks, “What Happened to the Man Who Taught Me Beowulf? and Other Poems”, released in 2017, and “Southern Low Protestant Departure: A Funeral Poem”, released in 2015. An earlier chapbook “To Tell The Truth I Wanted To Be Kitty Carlisle and Other Poems” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2013. Garrett's first full-length collection, “King Lear of the Taxi: Musings of a New York City Actor/Taxi Driver,” was published in 2006 by Advent Purple Press. [14]

In 2013 Garrett was invited to take part in a taxi drivers' writing workshop organized by the poet Mark Nowak and sponsored by the PEN World Voices Festival. [15] [16] He with two other members of the workshop, Seth Goldman and John McDonagh, read their taxi poems at "Watching the Meter: Poetry from the Taxi Drivers Workshop" at The Public Theater's Joe's Pub in New York City. The New York Times reviewed this event dubbing the three taxi drivers, “The Bards of Gridlock.” [17]

In November 2017, Garrett's poem "A Taxi Driver's Die Gotterdammerung” was included in the poetry anthology, "From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream,” which was published by Autonomedia, a nationally known publisher of radical books. This poem documents Garrett's actual experience when his yellow taxi was parked under the North Tower of the World Trade Center at the moment the first plane hit the North Tower on September 11, 2001. [18]

On May 1, 2023, Garrett was invited along with other members of the PEN Worker Writers School to celebrate International Workers Day in a reading of cinquains in Brooklyn Bridge Park sponsored by the Dia Art Foundation. As the poet/workers read an individual cinquain, the cinquain was projected on the stanchion of the Brooklyn Bridge. This was the first time in the history of the Brooklyn Bridge that poetry was projected on the bridge. [19]

Spoken word, performance

Garrett has been performing spoken word plays, poetry and more, primarily in the New York City region.

In the autumn of 2005, Garrett’s satirical verse play, “The Tragedy of MacCheney,” premiered in a staged reading that was held at Grover Cleveland Birthplace in Caldwell, New Jersey, with Garrett performing all the characters in front of the fireplace in the historic living room. The event which featured poets reflecting on the U.S. Presidential Election of 2004 was part of Sensations Magazine’s Creative Events Series. [2]

In December, 2008, at the Robinson Plantation House, a historic home built in 1690, in Clark, New Jersey, Garrett performed all of Shakespeare’s King Lear monologues in a program titled: “The Poetry of Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” The event was sponsored by Sensations Magazine. [20]

In 2009, 2010, and 2016, Garrett performed in poet Joel Allegretti's tribute to Leonard Cohen, You Know Who I Am, which was produced by Greenwich Village's legendary Cornelia Street Cafe. [21]

Garrett was cast in the play, “Ishtar Redux,” by poet John J. Trause that was staged in 2013 at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in an evening of performance works produced by the performance artist journal, “Nerve Lantern.” [22]

In August 2015, Garrett was invited to the Boog City Poets’Theatre in the East Village, Manhattan, to perform a new poetic monologue with incidental music titled Nine Meditations on the Nothingness of Now. [23] He collaborated with the musician, Michael Skliar.

Flushing Town Hall, a cultural arts organization in the Borough of Queens, invited Garrett to give an outdoor poetry reading in Diversity Plaza [24] in June 2016, as part of a cultural program celebrating LGBTQ Pride Month in Jackson Heights.

In December 2016, The William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative of Southern Bergen County, New Jersey, invited Davidson Garrett to be the featured poet for their monthly poetry series. Garrett performed his entire funeral poem, "Southern Low Protestant Departure" at the William Carlos Williams Center for the Performing Arts in Rutherford, New Jersey. [25]

In January 2017, Garrett was invited to read his original poems about the 1960s in a series of four spoken word shows at Cornelia Street Cafe, titled: "What Were The Sixties Really Like?" which were produced and curated by the poet/playwright Kathyn Adisman. [26]

In 2017, Garrett’s spoken word play, “Conspiracy Theory: The Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen,” was performed at the Boog City Poets’Theater Festival, curated by poet, Joel Allegretti. The play was published in Issue 8 of the performance art journal, “Nerve Lantern.”

In December 2020, 2021,and 2022, Garrett was invited by the Church of the Transfiguration, Episcopal (Manhattan), also known as the Little Church Around the Corner to give special poetry readings commemorating World AIDS Day. [27]

Awards and honors

Garrett’s manuscript, “Taxi Dreams” was a finalist in the 2000 Gival Press chapbook competition. That chapbook evolved into Garrett’s first poetry collection, “King Lear of the Taxi.” In 2009, Garrett was featured in an entire chapter about an incident with street walkers and an angry John who destroyed his taxi in Amy Braunschweiger's book Taxi Confidential: Life, Death and 3 a.m.:Revelations in New York City Cabs. [28]

Garrett’s poem about HIV/AIDS, “Death in Harlem Hospital with Straussian Overtones:1986,” received Honorable Mention in December, 2007, for Poet of the Month by The Foundation For Creative Expression in San Francisco, and was published on the website of that ciry's Beat Museum. [2]

Garrett was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011, and in 2012, he was featured in New York (magazine) in an article titled:”I Drive A Taxi But I Also….” by award winning journalist, Kate Lowenstein. [29]

In June 2014, Garrett was awarded first place in the 2nd Annual Juanita Torrence-Thompson International Poetry Competition sponsored by Amulet Poetry Magazine. Garrett has been featured reading his poetry on WNYC Radio’s Morning Edition, and also WBAI radio in New York City. [3]

Curation

In August 2016 and September 2018, Garrett was the curator for Poets' Theater at the Annual Boog City Music, Poetry and Theater Festival, presenting eight short plays both years at the legendary SideWalk Cafe in the East Village, Manhattan. For 2016’s program, Garrett presented excerpts from poet Zhang Er’s opera libretto, “Tacoma Method.” [30]

On September 30, 2018, Garrett was invited to be the poetry curator of "An Afternoon of Poetry in Albert's Garden,” a half century old Community Garden near the Bowery. For this reading, Garrett invited the poets, Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, John J. Trause, Hilary Sideris, Austin Alexis, and Jessica Nooney to be featured with readings from their recently published works. Garrett served as Emcee for the special event held in the beautiful Shade Garden, and he ended the reading with his recently published poem, "Texas Wildflowers in Spring: In Memory of Lady Bird Johnson." [31]

Filmography

In 2019, Garrett was the subject of the short film: “The Taxi Cab Poet: Davidson Garrett,” by filmmaker, Zardon Richardson. The film was screened at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC Radio, as a part of the PEN World Voices Festival. [2]

In September 2008, texts from Garrett's book, “King Lear of the Taxi” were used for the short film, "Taxi Driver," screened at the Portobello Film Festival in London, U.K. by director Ray Andrew Wilkes, with Garrett recording the voice-over for the film. [32]

In 1993, Garrett was featured in the award winning documentary, “Something Within Me,” which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Audience Award Documentary. The documentary profiled St. Augustine School of the Arts in the South Bronx where Garrett taught arts education for several years. Later the film was broadcast on PBS and shown on Public Broadcasting stations throughout the United States. [2]

Publications

Related Research Articles

Gustav Davidson was an American poet, writer, and publisher. He was a one-time secretary of the Poetry Society of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimiko Hahn</span> American poet

Kimiko Hahn is an American poet and distinguished professor in the MFA program of Queens College, CUNY. Her works frequently deal with the reinvention of poetic forms and the intersecting of conflicting identities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Weil</span> American poet (born 1958)

Joseph D. Weil is an American poet. He currently teaches undergraduate and graduate creative writing classes at Binghamton University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emanuel Xavier</span> American poet

Emanuel Xavier, is an American poet, spoken word artist, author, editor, screenwriter, and LGBTQ activist born and raised in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. Associated with the East Village, Manhattan arts scene in New York City, he emerged from the ball culture scene to become one of the first openly gay poets from the Nuyorican movement as a successful writer and advocate for gay youth programs and Latino gay literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forrest Gander</span> Poet, essayist, novelist, critic, translator (born 1956)

Forrest Gander is an American poet, translator, essayist, and novelist. The A.K. Seaver Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts & Comparative Literature at Brown University, Gander won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2019 for Be With and is chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Belladonna* Collaborative is a small press non-profit publisher and collaborative organization based in Brooklyn, New York City. It was founded in 1999 by Rachel Levitsky as a reading series at Bluestockings in New York, NY. The reading series quickly expanded to a matrix of readings, publications, and informal salons, featuring avant-garde feminist writing, with an emphasis on hybrid and language-focused writing. Currently, the press operates as a non-hierarchical collaborative, publishing books and hosting literary events with attention to diversity in its roster of authors and editorial board.

Grace Cavalieri is an American poet, playwright, and radio host of the Library of Congress program The Poet and the Poem. In 2019, she was appointed the tenth Poet Laureate of Maryland.

Elizabeth Treadwell is an American poet. Her works include LILYFOIL + 3, Chantry, Birds & Fancies, Wardolly, Virginia or the mud-flap girl, and Posy: a charm almanack & atlas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Northup</span> American actor and poet (born 1940)

Harry E. Northup is an American actor and poet. As an actor, he made frequent appearances in the films of Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme and Jonathan Kaplan.

<i>Rain Taxi</i> Book review and literary organization

Rain Taxi is a Minneapolis-based book review and literary organization. In addition to publishing its quarterly print edition, Rain Taxi maintains an online edition with distinct content, sponsors the Twin Cities Book Festival, hosts readings, and publishes chapbooks through its Brainstorm Series. Rain Taxi's mission is "to advance independent literary culture through publications and programs that foster awareness and appreciation of innovative writing." As of 2008, the magazine distributes 18,000 copies through 250 bookstores as well as to subscribers. The magazine is free on the newsstand. It is also available through paid subscription. Structurally, Rain Taxi is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. It sells advertising at below market rates, much of it to literary presses.

Christine Hume is an American poet and essayist. Christine Hume is the author of three books of poetry, Musca Domestica (2000), Alaskaphrenia (2004), and Shot (2010) and two works of nonfiction, Saturation Project and Everything I Never Wanted to Know. Her chapbooks include Lullaby: Speculations on the First Active Sense, Ventifacts, Hum, Atalanta: an Anatomy, Question Like a Face, a collaboration with Jeff Clark and Red: A Different Shade for Each Person Reading the Story. She is faculty in the Creative Writing Program at Eastern Michigan University.

Bina Sarkar Ellias is a poet. She is editor, designer and publisher of International Gallerie, a global arts and ideas journal (www.gallerie.net) founded by her in 1997. She is also an art curator, having curated several important exhibits of renowned artists. https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/opinion/city-columns/bina-sarkar-the-cave-woman/articleshow/59865389.cms

The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players and the related Bard Press has published both established and emerging poets. The literary magazine, Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, has been in continuous publication since 1979. For thirty years, Waterways and Ten Penny Players worked with special needs and incarcerated children in New York City schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory Fraser</span> American poet

Gregory Fraser is an American poet.

Amy Catanzano is an American poet from Boulder, Colorado. She is the author of Multiversal, which won the PEN USA Literary Award in Poetry. Michael Palmer describes her work as "a poetic vision of multiple orders and multiple forms, of a fluid time set loose from linearity, and an open space that is motile and multidimensional." Since 2009 she has published writing on a theory and practice called "quantum poetics," which explores the intersections of poetry and science, particularly physics. Her other interests include cross-genre texts and the literary avant-garde.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Van G. Garrett</span> American poet

Van G. Garrett is an American poet, novelist, teacher, and photographer. Garrett's poetry has appeared in a number of well-known American literary journals, including: African American Review; The Amistad; ChickenBones; Drumvoices Revue; Obsidian III; phati'tude Literary Magazine; Pittsburgh Quarterly; Potomac Review; and StepAway Magazine. His works have also been published internationally, including in: Istanbul Literature Review (Turkey); One Ghana, One Voice; Poems Niederngasse (Switzerland); and White Chimney (UK). Garrett often writes poetry with haiku or kwansaba structures.

Sampson Starkweather is an American poet. Starkweather received a BA in English Roanoke College and an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. In 2006, Sampson Starkweather started the press Birds, LLC. with Dan Boehl, Chris Tonelli, Matt Rasmussen, and Justin Marks. He has helped organize, Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative and the CUNY Chapbook festival. In 2013, Starkweather self-published The First Four Books of Sampson Starkweather through Birds, LLC. The book has been categorized as a ‘metarealist’ text by The Huffington Post.

Joel Allegretti is an American poet and fiction writer. His second book of poetry, Father Silicon, was selected by the Kansas City Star as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006. He is the editor of Rabbit Ears: TV Poems, the first anthology of poetry about the mass medium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clive Matson</span> American poet and writer

Clive Matson is an American direct expression lyric poet and creative writing teacher.

Danielle Legros Georges is a Haitian-born American poet, essayist and academic. She is a professor of creative writing in the Lesley University MFA Program in Creative Writing. Her areas of focus include contemporary American poetry, African-American poetry, Caribbean literature and studies, literary translation, and the arts in education. She is the creative editor of sx salon, a digital forum for innovative critical and creative explorations of Caribbean literature.

References

  1. 1 2 "Cabbie Waxes Poetic In New Volume". Queens Chronicle. January 18, 2007. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Davidson Garrett". Poets & Writers. 13 November 2018. Archived from the original on April 7, 2023. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  3. 1 2 "David Garrett". Poets and Writers. 13 November 2018. Archived from the original on April 22, 2019. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  4. ↑ Lyons, Jessica (2007). "Taxi driver writes between fares". Taxi-Mart News. Archived from the original on 2014-05-08. Retrieved 2019-12-12. Originally from Louisiana, Garrett came to New York in 1972 in part because he felt he could not be open about his homosexuality in his hometown and also in order to pursue acting.
  5. ↑ Pogrebin, Robin (1999-07-17). "Y.M.C.A. in Chelsea Sheds Its Tenants; 34 Men Used to Single Rooms Know New Homes Will Be Hard to Find". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  6. ↑ Hu, Winnie (1999-11-14). "Tenants Protest Y.M.C.A. Sale and Loss of a Chelsea Home". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  7. ↑ Nemy, Enid (16 August 1999). "Metropolitan Diary - New York Times". The New York Times . Retrieved 2014-05-06.
  8. ↑ "September 2016". rulrul.4mg.com. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  9. ↑ "Sun and Shadows, by Davidson Garrett". The Ekphrastic Review, “The Paterson Literary Review,”. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  10. ↑ "The Crucifix" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-05-06.
  11. ↑ "Marco Polo". marcopoloartsmag.com. Archived from the original on 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2014-05-06.
  12. ↑ "Taxi Driver Villanelle - Podium - Issue 10 - 92nd Street Y - New York, NY". 92y.org. Archived from the original on 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2014-05-06.
  13. ↑ "The Poet's Press Featured Poets -- Annette Hayn". www.poetspress.org.
  14. ↑ "Results for 'au:garrett, davidson' > 'Davidson Garrett' [WorldCat.org]". www.worldcat.org.
  15. ↑ Flegenheimer, Matt (2013-05-05). "Poetry of the Streets, Written by Those Who Know Them Best". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  16. ↑ Davies, Nick. "New York taxi drivers read their poetry at PEN World Voices Festival » MobyLives". Melville House Books. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  17. ↑ "Watching the Meter: Poetry from the Taxi Drivers Workshop". PEN America. 2013-02-14. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  18. ↑ "The Unbearables - from Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream".
  19. ↑ "Poetry &:Worker Writers". Dia Art Foundation. May 1, 2023. Archived from the original on April 17, 2023. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Historical holiday celebration at Robinson Plantation House in Clark". NJ.com. December 5, 2008. Archived from the original on April 18, 2023. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  21. ↑ "The Cornelia Street Café Hosts An Evening of Spoken Word and Music". nymetroparents.com. Retrieved 2015-09-15.
  22. ↑ "Nerve Lantern News". pyriformpress.com. Retrieved 2015-09-15.[ permanent dead link ]
  23. ↑ "Annual Boog City Festival". broadwayworld.com. Retrieved 2015-09-15.
  24. ↑ "Diversity Plaza - CECM". www1.nyc.gov. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  25. ↑ https://www.evensi.us/wcw-open-williams-center-for-the-arts-rutherford-nj/160632289 [ dead link ]
  26. ↑ "And a '60s child shall lead them". The Villager. 2017-01-12. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  27. ↑ "Program 26: Poetry and Spoken Word Performances with Film 'The Acting Class'". Workers Unite Film Festival. 18 May 2018. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  28. ↑ "Taxi Drivers Turn Around and Share Their World - NYTimes.com - NYTimes.com". Archived from the original on 2009-09-24. Retrieved 2014-05-06.
  29. ↑ "Kate Lowenstein". New York Magazine Services. Archived from the original on July 22, 2012. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  30. ↑ "» Boog City poetry, music, and theater fest 8/5 – 8/9/16 OntheWilderSide". www.onthewilderside.com. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  31. ↑ "Event: An Afternoon of Poetry at Albert's Garden at Albert's Garden". NYC Parks. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  32. ↑ "Portobello Film Festival – London". www.portobellofilmfestival.com. 2008. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.