Nantucket Poetry Slam to honor Jim Nettles
BY MARLI GUZZETTA INDEPENDENT ARTS EDITOR
This week, when the Nantucket Poetry Slam resumes its feature readings and open mic, it will do so without the physical presence of its emcee, the belated and beloved Jim Nettles, who passed away on Wednesday, August 8.

He will, however, be remember in spirit and in spoken word, as the attendants will be invited to share their thoughts on the man whose face became visually synonymous with Nantucket's stages, as he performed and recited prolifically during his decades on Nantucket.

"He made a lot of friends here," said NPS founder Len Germinara. "So I'm just putting it out there, to let people know that if they want to read or say something in celebration of Jim's life, they can. Because I think that the desire for them to say something in that context might be there. There was a shared experience that he had with almost everybody here… and I know how hard that can be sometimes, to be welcoming to people all the time, but he did so graciously."

Germinara met Nettles four years ago.

"I think it was our third show. We'd booked Reggie Gibson, and Jim came out," Germinara remembered of a reading that brought together the two men, plus a few others, whom Germinara said soon became "a circle of friends, of likeminded, thinking people."

Involved in youth programs at the Boys and Girls Club, Germinara worked with Nettles in spreading a love of poetry to children.

"Jim was all about reaching kids, and he made himself a volunteer with the Boys & Girls Club and with the teen slams we did at the library," Germinara said. "He took great pleasure whenever he saw or heard something he enjoyed, and he loved poetry and loved that so many kids on the island had an interest in it."

Nettles even gave his library of poetry to the Boys and Girls Club, Germinara said. "And it was a remarkable library."

In addition to Nettles' "love and words and hammy streak," Germinara said he also recalled Nettles' love of stories and poems about redemption.

"There's this one poem about redemption by Brother Blue that Jim performed. … It was about a man whose father committed suicide and failed, a true story. …99 out of 100 people would have been too scared to do it, but Jim took it up and mde it his own, and people were blown away by it. He was channeling Blue," Germinara said. "It was one of those things that only an actor can do - opening up to the word that way, and Jim had a great knowledge of the word, combined with a great showmanship. The whole time he did the poem, he was dancing. The whole thing was so difficult, and yet he took such joy in it. … He was like a shaman, dancing around the fire, a great lover of life. And he always wanted to share that."

Langston Hughes, according to Germinara, was probably Nettles' favorite poet - Germinara and Nettles were reading together a book about Hughes and Carl van Vectn, a gay, Jewish man who championed Hughes' work and made sure it got published. The men were thinking about adapting the story for the stage.

"He just had such a love of poetry," said Germinara, who added that Victor D. Infante, the featured poet at the slam, is one of the best NPS has ever hosted.

"He's a critic and an author who's been instrumental in slam poetry, and one of the first in the blogosphere," Germinara said. A dedicated, passionate and political man, Infante is also the Editor-in- Chief of the November 3 Club.

It seems like a fitting choice for the reading - given that so many people saw Nettles as a man who "did things for a reason."

"You can't be a poet without some kind of agenda - you need a soapbox to stand on and something to say," Germinara said. "It's so cool to be with someone like Jim, who had something to say and a reason for saying it. It empowered me, and it empowered all of the poets."
What: Nantucket Poetry Slam
dedicated to the memory
of James R. Nettles
When: Sunday, Sept. 9, 2-4 p.m.
Where: UMass Boston Field
Station, 180 Polpis Road.
Cost: Free: