Storyteller of the Week

Catfish McDaris

 

 

Catfish McDaris in back with curly hair. In front from left: his wife, Aida McDaris, award winning Beat/Hippie poet Antler and poet performer Ana Christy (Alpha Beat Press)

Catfish McDaris is a poet and fiction writer who began writing and reading his Beatnik poetry in the mid 1980s with the late greats Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski.

 He was born Steven Carl McDaris in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1953.  Bukowski’s Indian pal Dave Reeve, editor of Zen Tattoo gave Catfish McDaris his name when he spoke of wanting to quit the post office and start a catfish farm. 

 After 3 years as G.I. Joe, he hopped freights and hitchhiked across the U.S. and Mexico. He spent a summer shark fishing in the Sea of Cortez, built adobe houses, tamed wild horses around the Grand Canyon, worked in a zinc smelter in the panhandle of Texas, and painted flag poles in the wind. He ended at the post office in Milwaukee. 

Catfish is listed in the 2011 Poet's Market on The Louisiana Review page with Gary Snyder and Antler. In 1994, he organized a charity event of poetry and music in Milwaukee called Wordstock. 

Catfish read his poetry in 1994 at The First Underground Press Conference at De Paul University in Chicago. In 1998, he read his poetry in Cherry Valley, NY at the huge Beatnik festival held near Allen Ginsberg's farm. In 2007 Catfish read at The Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore in Paris and also in NYC in Oct of 2010 to promote his books and chapbooks.

Catfish's mother worked for Norman Petty Recording Studios, where Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and Stephen Stills recorded in Clovis, New Mexico and was enough lucky to meet musicians like Stephen Stills, Sam and Dave, Three Dog Night, and Waylon Jennings

Catfish also worked with Bennie Barrow doing a few psychedelic light shows for Iron Butterfly, Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Flock, and Zephyr. 

Catfish‘s most infamous chapbook is “Prying with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski.” His best readings were in Paris at the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore and with Jimmy "the ghost of Hendrix" Spencer in NYC on 42nd St. He’s published over 25 chapbooks in the last 25 years. He’s been in the New York Quarterly, Slipstream, Pearl, Main St. Rag, Café Review, Chiron Review, Zen Tattoo, Wormwood Review, Great Weather For Media, Silver Birch Press, and Graffiti.

He has been nominated for 15 Pushcart Prizes and, Best of Net in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017 and won the Uprising Award in 1999, and the Flash Fiction Contest judged by the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2009.

He was in the Louisiana Review, George Mason Univ. Press, and New Coin from Rhodes Univ. in South Africa. He’s recently been translated into Spanish, French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Bengali, Mandarin, Yoruba, Tagalog, and Esperanto. His 25 years of published material is in the Special Archives Collection at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

 Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

“Catfish told me I should write more fiction,” my poet friend, Marianne Szlyk, said as she talked frequently about her poet friend, but I had no idea of his last name or what his poetry was like until I read a poem on Silver Birch Press by a Catfish McDaris and asked her if that was her poet friend and if she would email him and ask him if I could email him. Soon Catfish and I were exchanging poems and our lives via email. I from Arizona and Catfish from Wisconsin.

What impresses me about Catfish is that he emailed me just like any other poet and not once did he mention that he was on Wikipedia, had worked with celebrities, was interviewed by journalists and was famous in the Beatnik circles. I had to find that out by searching the internet. He preferred to talk to me about his wife, daughter and grandchild and his poetry.

He writes: “My wife is Aida Elizabeth Aguayo McDaris. My daughter, Eli (Elizabeth Alicia McDaris Benitiz) is 36 and a Milwaukee cop. She's our only child. We have only one grandchild, Alejandro Joaquin McDaris Benetiz, he's almost 2 and raises Cain and Abel. His father is Miguel Benitez, an Air Marshal, Swat, and FBI. I write a lot of poetry about my wife and daughter.”

 

 In an Interview by Michael Limnios

Catfish stated that he got started writing poetry in the mid-80’s by “reading the Beatniks… and discovered Bukowski and I had lived hard, drank, drugged, and chased women. I could relate to Buk, so I discovered Milwaukee had a small poetry scene with Antler and I went to Chicago to a few spots. My skills at musical instruments sucked, so I started reading my prose poems.” 

But the quote that made me realize he belonged on this journal is: “I am a storyteller above all else.” That and the way he writes poetry his way. He is direct, honest and tells it like it is no holds barred. He flies solo and doesn’t belong to any particular group. He writes poetry full throttle like he lives his life. He writes from his heart and his poetry warms and breaks my heart.

Catfish told Limnios that his poetry was inspired by his life “growing up in New Mexico, shooting Howitzer cannons in the army for 3 years in Germany, lots of adventures, travel, and Mexico. Once you get hooked on writing (creation) your mind records\ and it spits out all kinds of crazy stuff.”

He listed his greatest experiences as: “Getting autographs from Liz Taylor and buying her a margarita, Aretha Franklin, and Red Skelton. Meeting Charles Plymell, Antler, Janine Pommy Vega, and all the Beatniks.” 

But the most blessings in his life come from his wife, Aida, daughter, Elizabeth and grandson, Alejandro, Catfish told me.

“I've written many poems for Aida. This year we'll be married 41 years, in the church in Guadalajara and in the Court House in Milwaukee,” he said. 

I am proud to publish some of my favorite poems about his life and especially his powerful and poignant poems about his wife and daughter.

Mexican Love for Aida
 
I never knew why you
came back or why you
left.
 
Just be my siempre  
Valentina.
 
Emiliano Zapata emptied
his pistols into his
sombrero.
 
I listened to the silence
and it listened back.


Roadrunner in a Snowstorm
 
 Your beauty and art have the
captivating magnetic pull
of Mother Earth’s gravity  
 
You have painted yourself
bleeding, weeping, cracked
open with fantastic magic  
 
You embody Mexico, nature,
exotic erotic women with  
proud legendary tree stature
 
You have captured passion with
a smothered cry only to laugh  
as it explodes in living paint.  
 
 
Author’s note: The roadrunner is the state bird of the Land of Enchantment. I am a New Mexican. My wife, Aida is an Old Mexican, we been a brick to each other for 39 years. Thirty five years ago, we visited Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s Blue House in Mexico City. Frida, Aida, and the roadrunner’s spirit gave me the courage to go on being a bricklayer. Frida and Aida were the inspiration of this poem.


Elizabeth
 
 If I could reach
inside my chest
and rip my heart
out and give it  
to you I would
 
Along with all my
worldly possessions
I would do it gladly
 
Or turn back the  
hands of time and
erase all my faults
 
If you would forgive
me and speak to me
again after ten long
years of silence
 
My only child
light of my life
I beg you I need
you I beseech you.

 

Lead Foot

My granny drove her 64 Pontiac
Catalina a few miles from town,
she scooted over while I walked
around the car, I was a tall 13

It was an automatic transmission
so I dropped it into drive, we were
on red dirt roads in the middle of
sugar beet fields, I poked along

Until granny said hit it, my grandpa
called her lead foot, I made her sit
back when I goosed that new blue
car, we were flying, I hit some bumps

Our heads were knocking off the roof
top, she told me to slow down and stop,
we practiced in reverse and parking,
it was fun, I wanted to drive forever

When I was a baby granny rolled a car
in Albuquerque with me inside, we were
tossed like clothes in a dryer she broke
her fingers and couldn’t play guitar again

I still think about her singing The Streets
of Laredo and me putting on Cream’s
version of Sitting on Top of the World and
her knowing it, I don’t miss driving a bit

Vacation South of the Border
 

After the army I drifted through mountains in Mexico, exploring pyramids, fishing rivers, and lakes. Sharing meals with smiling people. Money didn’t matter. Cozumel was paradise and Isla Mujeres, Europeans sunbathed nude. Fish rubbed with garlic, chili, and oregano were grilled. Cerveza was icy cold and the mescal with lime and salt was smoky. A monkey lived in a tree, eating boiled eggs. Tourist buses stopped the monkey would climb down and snatch off the ladies’ bikinis and grab their purses and throw stuff all over. Laughter turned into tears and tears turned into laughter.

“Lead Foot” and “Vacation South of the Border” were previously published in Silver Birch Press.