Local poet Aaron Lowinger isn't too highbrow to forego a humorous path here or there.
As his work "R?(c)sum?(c)" reads, "I can't wait to get home and take a shower in Gold
Bond/I bet I could do this high/They say anybody can be a poet if they just got high."
Perhaps he's right.
Lowinger, along with poet Mike Basinski, took to the podium Thursday in the back of Rust Belt Books, a quaint, hole-in-the-wall used bookstore located on 202 Main Street. Despite the usual, blustery Buffalo weather, poetry fans settled in and warmed up for the reading.
Aaron Lowinger launched the reading with a musical number, for which he donned a pair of dark sunglasses and picked up an acoustic guitar proclaiming, "this is a song for the people who hate."
Despite his apparent lack of vocal ability, Lowinger got the crowd laughing with witty lyrics.
"When everyone dies and we're the only ones left/you will chew on some bark and I'll beat on my chest."
The author has been performing his poetry live for most of his life.
"I read for the first time when I was a freshman in college... it's always nerve-wracking, (although) it gets less so as you go on," Lowinger said.
Lowinger is a contributing author to the website housepress.org and derives inspiration from his surroundings and his friends.
"I get a lot out of the people here...I get inspired from the people I'm surrounded with, from the people I knew," he said. "There's things that remind me of different people and different friends, songwriters, solo blues guitarists, and 20th century American poets like Ted Berrigan."
After his initial musical performance, Aaron Lowinger launched into a series of readings from his works that focused on humorous paradoxical statements such as, "I'm going to live until I die, and then who knows? I might just keep on living."
After Lowinger's performance, Mike Basinski took over the pedestal with a reading of his work "A Poem of One Thousand and One O's." The work was lengthy with many experimental elements, ranging from a circle on a page that indicated improvisation to creative wordplay such as "hemo-goblins."
Basinski is the curator of the poetry collection at UB and has been performing live for over 30 years.
"(I am) inspired by all poets and poetry," Basinski said. "(My work is) playful, people shouldn't take art too serious."
Basinski performs as part of the poetry group ButtFluxus, as well as with the East Buffalo Music Association. Most recently, he has released his first CD, "Fungenii."
In addition, Basinski's works have been published multiple times, including "Heka," "Strange Things Begin to Happen When a Meteor Crashes in the Arizona Desert," "Poemeserss," and his most recent set of works that can be found in Richard Owen's new issue of "Damn The Caesars."
The poetry reading was part of Just Buffalo's Small Press Poetry Series, running every third Thursday of the month at Rust Belt Books on Allen Street downtown. The event is free and open to the public.
