JOE SPEER WEEK

One of New Mexico’s own, Beatlick Joe Speer was an itinerate raconteur and performance poet, native of Albuquerque and a 1970 graduate of New Mexico State University. His only book, Backpack Trekker: A 60s Flashback, is his chronicle, his glorification of hitchhiking as a means of transportation, while it was in its prime.

‘Hitchhiking in America during that era kept one close to the Earth. It was a simpler time. The hitchhiker was not looked upon as a freak of nature. People were less insulated and more generous back then, trusting and willing to pick up a stranger. Our goals were simpler back then, too… find that campsite at the end of each day, find the next ride, the next town, the next festival.”

Published posthumously, Speer’s travel journals crackle with imaginative dialogue and soulful poetry; entertain with essays and reviews in his fields of research: literature and film of the 1920’s and 1960’s; and inspire with his minimalist philosophy – respect for Mother Earth and fellow man – and sparkling joy of life on the road serving the muse in the spirit of Beat writers Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady.

His literary footprint is large, his newsletter Beatlick Poetry Newsletter is archived in five universities and two public libraries. His personal library is located in the Branson Library saved in Special Collections at the NMSU.  (Pamela Hirst.)

Backpack Trekker: A 60’s Flashback

TREK 27

In 1969 Margaret Atwood’s “The Edible Woman” reveals the life of a young woman whose structured and consumer-driven life alters drastically.

When I was a student, the majestic peaks of the Grand Tetons made me wish I could fill my dorm room with rocks. I didn't want imported beer bottles, or old Christmas cards or calendar girls straddling motorcycles on my shelf. I wanted to adorn my study area with rock formations. But I settled for books and LP's because they were easier to move at the end of the semester. The best plan was to visit the rocks in their own habitat.

I encountered the wonderment of random rocks as I hiked a trail to Lake Solitude. It was in this remote locale that I met a Buddhist monk.

The monk had been there for seven days. He spoke English as well as seven other languages. Our minds closed ranks on the third day as rain pelted the rocks. It turned out that we both wrote poems so we created a piece alternating lines:

You and I were in a dream together

asleep under a rhododendron leaf

protesting second-hand smoke

a retired poet injected you with a free-will serum

desert winds were born from your wound

and activated the machinery of fraudulence

as the infernal blue buzz crawled through the rubbish

of our collective DNA

through the canebrake of verbiage

Beatlick Joe Speer

 All material used with permission.