Bobby Byrd

On a recent Sunday evening in El Paso, about 30 young folks from Basketball in the Barrio followed a musician to a small house on Louisville Avenue. Just outside the bedroom door they read a poem, “Basketball Is a Holy Way to Grow Old,” to the man lying inside who had written it. As they read the poem, thunder and rain shook the windows.

The man lying in the bedroom was Bobby Byrd. A few months ago, he’d celebrated his 80^th birthday in the backyard of that house, with live music and poetry. The day after they read his poem to him, he died.

With a perpetual attitude of bemused surprise over how it all happened, he had led a hell of a good life. Happily, lovingly, productively married for decades; the father of three wonderful kids, one of whom was an El Paso City Council Representative for years. Lee and Bobby had not only produced a fine family, but also created in 1985 Cinco Puntos Press. Cinco Puntos (named for their neighborhood) mattered, because it published many Borderland writers, often Hispanic or indigenous, whom the world had ignored but to whom the world now gave prizes. Many fine voices we’ve heard only because of Lee and Bobby, and their bookstore was a great feature of their neighborhood. The National Endowment for the Arts once promised them a $7,500 grant to publish a children’s book by the leader of an indigenous uprising in Chiapas – then cravenly withdrew it for fear of offending the Mexican Government. They published i anyway.

Long ago, I knew the Byrds slightly, as mutual friends of poets Keith and Heloise Wilson. The last decade or so, I’ve known (and loved) them better, and, since COVID, Bobby has been a welcome addition to our (ZOOM) poetry workshop. I hope Bobby wouldn’t mind my reprinting here the middle of one of his poems, “What’s it Like Not Being Here?”

And what’s it like not even being here?—

this here would not be here,

no here, no now, my world, all

gone away, nothing, empty,

the darkness my mother’s womb

pushed me through, a burst

of amniotic fluid into light,

like this light here, like this now,

a dream, which is not a dream,

the same dream my father whispered

in my little boy ears, the day

so many years ago, his plane flew

too close to the earth,

crashed and erupted into flames,

Clarksdale, Mississippi,

goodbye, he said, maybe he said,

maybe he didn’t say, leaving this light,

this earth light, this human light.

And now you are not here, my friend! Wonderful kids and grandkids miss your touch, your laughter, your easy delight in their quirks and yours. You ambled through life in your own way, doggedly loyal to truth, beauty, family, and friends, and managed to do a lot of good while staying humble and spontaneous.

Is that Ferlinghetti’s dog howling?

                                                     – 30 --

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 17 July 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper’s website (We Will Miss Bobby Byrd - Poet, Publisher, Friend) and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both station’s websites.]

[A poem by Bobby that I particularly liked was “Ferlinghetti’s Goddamned Dog.” Ferlinghetti's poem, "Dog," was one of the first Beat poems Bobby heard and loved as a kid, as he recounts in this May 2021 blog post:

“When I was 16 or 17, like in 1958 or 1959, my friend Harvey Goldner, my first mentor in the community of poets, guided me to a basement listening room in the Memphis Public Library. There we listened to the San Francisco Renaissance poets—Rexroth, Ginsberg, Snyder, Whalen, Lew Welch, Spicer, Ferlinghetti, and all the rest. We spent the whole afternoon there, the 78rpm records spinning round and round. The poem that opened my heart the widest was Ferlinghetti’s “Dog.” (Please listen before reading my poems.) That poem, with its street-talking wisdom, was revelatory for me, a young man wanting to be a poet. I keep it in my heart and mind all these years. Likewise, his City Lights Bookstore and City Lights Publishing were also inspiration for me when Lee and I began Cinco Puntos Press in 1985 and then in 2001 when we bought our own storefront in downtown El Paso. Around the time of his 100th birthday, thanks to our friend Elaine Katzenberger (publisher, City Lights Publishing), I met and talked with him at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s. He was like an old friend. Indeed, he was an old friend.”

[What I’ve called Bobby’s “bemused surprise” at his successful life was evident in his manner, whenever we talked, but also in his introduction to Otherwise, My Life Is Ordinary, a book of his poems: "This poetics of mine is like a three-legged donkey. A goofy-looking pack animal that stumbles along beside me. Damn thing just materialized haphazardly when I was growing up.” His 80^th birthday party, with live music and poetry, was a wonderful evening. ] 

By the way, Susie Byrd says that anyone who wants to “do something to help” or mark Bobby’s passing donate to the Both Sides / No Sides Community (El Paso Zen Buddhist Center for Engaged Practice), where Bobby was a founder and a teacher. He found much peace there and helped others find more, and would love for his passing to help sustain the community that was holy for him. You can make a PayPal donation to bothsidesnosides@gmail.com or send a check. http://www.elpasozen.org/

The Both Sides / No Sides El Paso Zen Buddhist Center is a community of people who come together to practice the dharma in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition.

[The full text of the poem quoted in the column is:

What’s It Like Not Being Here?

Waking up groggy, dream-heavy,

the driver’s seat tilted backwards,

the Subaru in the shade of an oak tree,

windows open, a hot summer day,

the Sprout’s parking lot,

4:08PM, Memorial Day 2019—

I can’t remember why I am here.

And what’s it like not even being here?—

this here would not be here,

no here, no now, my world, all

gone away, nothing, empty,

the darkness my mother’s womb

pushed me through, a burst

of amniotic fluid into light,

like this light here, like this now,

a dream, which is not a dream,

the same dream my father whispered

in my little boy ears, the day

so many years ago, his plane flew

too close to the earth,

crashed and erupted into flames,

Clarksdale, Mississippi,

goodbye, he said, maybe he said,

maybe he didn’t say, leaving this light,

this earth light, this human light

and it makes perfect sense—

these cars going back and forth,

Fords, Hondas, Chevys, so many cars,

so many people inside those cars,

inside those buildings, walking the sidewalks,

huddled in the shade, hot desert wind,

dust and more dust,

a mountain over there

at the edge of Mexico, topped

with dead Jesus on the Cross, stars

and planets spinning round, fucking Trump

in Japan making a mess of things,

humanity on the brink.