LB’s Poetry: “Kid Hollywood”

kidhollywoodcovercoyoteCaptureNOTE FROM LB: A Hollywood poem by a Hollywood guy.

About what it felt like to be this particular Hollywood guy.

For those who want to know more, there’s a longer note after the main attraction.

Kid Hollywood
by Larry Brody

Kid Hollywood used the living room’s dark, the

TV tube’s glare, and the glittering stars with whom

He made friends

To hide who he was, what he wanted, and all he

Could be.

Hid because there’s no audience, not for

Poetry.

And no money. And no

Friends.

Hid because to be was to feel,

Was to reveal,

Was to be at the

Mercy of those who found truth in the tube

And the dark, and the glitter.

Kid Hollywood stood guard, donned 60-page armor,

Brightly outfitted, perfectly formatted, immaculately conceived

Scripts that delighted, and corrupted, and spun

Truth into straw.

(Not that Kid Hollywood knew.)

Kid Hollywood wrote,

Turned out word after word, all dingy disagreements, all

Confrontations, all

Car chases and screams. He wrote and he sat in that

Living room’s black hole, and he stared at that

White-washed screen.

The Kid wrote, and he sat, and he stared,

And he bought, how many dinners for how many

Constellations, how many configurations of Sirius and

Orion and the Big Bear?

How many luminous experiences with

Luminaries who could remember

Neither their lines nor

His name?

(Not that Kid Hollywood knew.)

Kid Hollywood wrote, and he sat, and he stared, and he bought,

Because he feared. He feared that

To know him was to push, was to prod,

Was to maim and permanently impair

The talent

He’d already

Darkened from all the glare.

Or was it really the Kid’s own

Wounds Kid Hollywood so feared?

Is that why his last series

You remember, the unsold one,

The one he called, “Despair”—

Found no audience, no money, no friends?

(Not that Kid Hollywood knew.)


NOTE FROM LB: While living in Santa Fe back in the early ’90s, I got into the habit of writing at least one poem a day, starting before breakfast and ending…whenever. Over the years, various individual poems won the usual poetry awards (because prize certificates are a lot cheaper to give out than money?), and on special occasions I would compile them and make my own physical book versions to give to friends and family.

A few years ago I turned a volume I called Kid Hollywood and the Navajo Dog into a Kindle book that sold one, count ’em, one copy to someone I actually didn’t know. It’s still available on Amazon.Com, but if you want to read the contents for absolutely free! free! free! all you have to do is come here to TVWriter™ once a week because starting today I’m posting selections.

No, not to get people to buy. Just the opposite, in fact. As the Navajo Dog herself once pointed out to me, “Art has to be free. If you create it in order to get money, you always end up compromising  your artistic vision by trying to please those who are paying. If you don’t ask them to pay, you can be yourself. When you, the creator, the visionary, take that road, you automatically free yourself.

The work above is the first piece.

Free.

For, I hope the benefit of you and me. 

Author: LB

A legendary figure in the television writing and production world with a career going back to the late ’60s, Larry Brody has written and produced hundreds of hours of American and worldwide television and is a consultant to production companies and networks in the U.S. and abroad . Shows written or produced by Brody have won several awards including - yes, it's true - Emmys, Writers Guild Awards, and the Humanitas Award.

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