Collaborator. Musician.

I completed half the coursework towards an MFA in Poetry back in the ‘70s, but dropped out of the program because I wasn't ready to write poems yet.  For me, poetry's like the blues -- you can't write it till you feel it & you can't feel it until you've logged some miles.  So I bided my time, studied poetry, wrote a disstertation, got my heart broken a few times, broke a heart or two, lost some friends, knocked around, traveled.  Then I started over writing poems, songs, radio plays, non-fiction . . . and kept a journal through it all, which I still keep (just about every day since 1974!).  I think my work is better for it.

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just kiddin’ myself.  But I like what I do with a line, an end-line, a rhyme, a metaphor, even a cliché, these days.  Feels like it was worth the wait.

The Toves

We take our name from “Jabberwocky,” that crazy Lewis Carroll poem you learned in school.  As in “the slithey toves.”  We set poetry to music — the great poems of American & English literary history, and my own poems too — and yes, we do a version of “Jabberwocky.” Sometimes we appropriate a piece of music, like a familiar jazz melody or riff, and put words to it.  Whatever we do, our goal is to get you to listen differently to a poem you thought you knew or a jazz tune you recognize from a favorite record or band.  Our shows are usually like a poetry reading in 5/4 time.

Rick Eckberg - bass

Andrew Wiele - piano, clarinet

Clark Watson - ukes, vocals