I’ve known Billy Mo for more than half my life. The text below is a remembrance of our first encounter.
“I don’t know if one is a born poet or evolves. For me, it was both. Unlocking the memory vault from those chaotic days, it was on Mount Royal Ave., near “The Tav,” where I first met William “Billy Mo” Moriarty. The year was 1976. The American Bicentennial was in full swing, and we were freshmen. It was a crisp early autumn evening; I was a greenhorn poet going to my first group reading at the urging of my poetry instructor, Joseph “Papa Joe” Cardarelli. Performance art was all the rage, so I decided to use some props as visual aids, carrying my beat-up suitcase filled with weird objects. I was coming from the opposite direction of Mount Royal Ave. I saw “Billy Mo,” who was also carrying a beat-up suitcase. We climbed the monumental steps of the MICA main building together and simultaneously inquired, “What’s in your suitcase?” Replying together, “Just some stuff.” My props included: a large rubber fish, a crucifix, a bible, a rosary, and dirty underwear (mine). Billy Mo had some weird things too. Billy Mo read next. He opened his suitcase and began pulling out paper plates with hand-painted funny faces on them, the masks of an imaginary family of comical characters. Billy Mo changed his voice for each paper plate mask to mimic each character. The crowd went nuts! It was hilarious as he switched masks and ad-libbed the characters. I believe we were among the first “prop poets,” mixing comedy, tragedy, and theater, creating a new poetry form. It wasn’t until years later when we saw prop comics like Carrot Top and Howie Mandel. We were ahead of our time. From that night, we became brothers in a world of possibilities.”
We worked as a team in poetry and theater and co-wrote songs when Bill became the lead singer for Baltimore’s first punk band, Da Moronics. He is a physical specimen of raw power. We played hard and fast for five years until moving to California and raised a daughter. However, he never stopped writing or painting, and this new book offering is proof that William Moriarty is an involuntary genius. A man of many reasons.
Tom DiVenti
Apathy Press Poets
William Moriarty
