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Poppa Poetry Man
Topics: Big Poppa E, Eirik Ott, Bakersfield, Bakotopia, September, 2009, Poetry, Def, Fencepost, Thrust, Greg Goodsell
Posted by Bakontributor Mon Sep 14, 2009 13:19:33 PDT
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Poppa Poetry Man
Bakersfield native does spoken word for a living & lives to tell the tale!

Above: Eirik Ott aka Big Poppa E makes a surprise appearance at barnes & Noble in Bakersfield, CA on 9-8-09. Photos by Matt Munoz

By Greg Goodsell, Bakotopia Contributor

If you were around the Bakersfield downtown scene in the mid-’90s, quite a few names and places are sure to tug a nostalgic heartstring: Chaos Coffee, Spike 1000, Cradle of Thorns, American Thrift, Babcock's Books and Eirik Ott.

If that last name sounds familiar, it's probably because you either read his column in The Bakersfield Californian, or read his home-brewed fanzines Fencepost or Thrust. Back then, Ott was a crazy skateboarding young man with a mission. His writing stepped on quite a few toes, and Ott wasn't afraid to let a few people in the close-knit Bakersfield indie scene that he thought they were rank poseurs. Ott fled Bakersfield when a confluence of different things fell through in '94, and bid a hasty adieu to attend college in Chico.

Too often, such boho folks wind up in dull 9-to-5 gigs with a spouse and family to support, but not Ott. Influenced by the burgeoning spoken word scene, Ott took pen in hand to compose his own material for poetry slams under the moniker, “Big Poppa E.”



“I stopped doing music, and just started doing poetry full time. I started being part of the San Francisco scene, which was three hours away from Chico, started making a name for myself over there. In 1999, there was the National Poetry Slam, which is sort of like the Olympics of performance poetry. My team won that year. We were in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Chicago Sun Times, “60 Minutes” … It was crazy. I quit my job, I quit school, and went on tour,” he said.

Ott would find far-flung acclaim, and in a world where so many artists have the day gig to keep them afloat, poetry is all Ott does
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“I make as much money as a manager at Taco Bell, but I don't have to work at Taco Bell,” Ott explained at a recent open mic affair at Bakersfield's Barnes & Noble Bookstore on Sept. 8. “I got $2,800 for a poetry gig in Alaska, and $800 of that went to travel expenses and the rest I got to keep.”



Ott thoroughly entertained the standing room-only audience on the night of his performance. While many still associate poetry with high-talking esoteric, Ott's work is infused with much humor and deals explicitly with the commonality of human experience.

One poem dealt with the male gaze and the wish fulfillment of coffeehouse devotees that the cute barista who looks up from the counter harbors a secret crush on them. Ott laid the story straight that these overworked young women, in fact, only see them as customers, and associate them with their weird tics and unfortunate fashion decisions.

Ott also read a poem of early attraction among pre-adolescents, of being ashamedly “in like” with the member of the opposite sex.

Even then, Ott was on his best behavior that night, realizing some of his “anatomical” poetic terms might not fly.

Ott has since been on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam three times.

“I was also the whitest person on (BET) Black Entertainment Television,” laughs Ott. “I stopped doing real jobs. I take jobs every now and then, I like to do graphic design and promotion, but for the most part, I publish my books and travel the country.”

Ott now makes his home in the creative hotbed of Austin, Texas, where he says “that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an actor, musician or person with a video camera.”

While the poet makes the world his stage and Austin his home, he still harbors fond memories of his time in Bakersfield.

“I didn't know it then, but back then we had a vibrant little scene. I think being pinned down and held in check just makes you want to lash out and be heard even more strongly than ever.”

In closing, Ott advises readers: “If you want more info on what I've been up to, just search for 'Big Poppa E' on Wikipedia. That's my stage name.”

www.brokenword.org/

Also printed in Bakotopia magazine, issue 63, 9-17-09

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Comment From: jenraven

To Ott~ There's no such *#!!%@! thing as cussing too much. Loved the videos! I'd be happy to see more good performance poetry like this on Bakotopia ... any time!