(door thuds) - hi. come on in, come on in, okay? nice to see you. (door creaks) the very first poem i wrote when i was five years old and here it is. oncepon a time, there was a bear. had brown es. and went back and forth. he didn't wanna be of any use. so one of my friends says, "oh, the first beatnik, a drop out." (ruth giggles)

my name is ruth weiss. all through my childhood i wrote. i ote a lot of poems but i knew all my life from as lg as i can remember that i am to be a et and that is what i uld apply my lifto, and that the poems would have meanings in the wld. the firsthing i do, i visualize in my mind what is a person or a place or what. and then i don't like a lot of description. i like something to evoke just by a few words put together. i want the subject of whatever it is to present itself in its deeper way.

a feast, a feast to celebrate the beast raging in the winter of the soul. fire the tapers for outrageous capers. the odds against light should tempt the demons to attend. the impossible dance is within the reach of each and the outcast and the outcast chance commence. (ruth speaking in foreign language)

no chant is chance. the impossible chance is within the reach of each. now's the time to mend split ends. split end antic, flicker as in no more, anyone to hang another up. the tarot man atarot, the hand-man atarot. miracle of easy the head, upside down, slow dissent with broken wing. shoo-shoo-shoo.

now is the time to mend split, to mend split ends. now is the te to mend split ends. (gentle music) - ruth is very complex. though on one side, she truly does embody maybe the archetype of the beat poet, laid back, "hey, let's just go with the flow. let's just see what happens." but the other side is highly complex and very abstract. so you have to almost be psychic to play with ruth, i think. - the dragon arrives. (gentle music) nice. - she'd give me a feeling and then i would play that feeling or interpret that feeling of what she wanted to play.

thenhe would start reading and i would back her up and then we'd try that feeling. and if it didn't work, i'd change the feeling and go on to where it felt right. - there are dreams that do not vanish, like the waters of the sea retreating, retreating to return a tidal wave, bring back the dream. i do my best to use simple every day words. strung together they cancreate . i write it and then i may do a line or two and then i do another line. then i take the whole thing, throw it away, start over again. or maybe i'll save two, three words. sometimes there's a whole ss pile of papers. i'll write this line, but it has to stay in there. and i repeat it and i write over and over

until suddenly the rhythm gets going. and then it picks up on the next line and off we go. poem wrote itself, so here it is. "nine is a perfect number, as one is oneself. 'only god can make a tree,' as the poet said. but only i and you and we can see the tree and hear it speaking." guess it's time to type it up. okay, my little loyal royal, here we go. - ruth weiss has a very unique place in american history. she contributed to our culture with her poetry and the innovation of the jazz and beat poetry. she has a zelig-like aspect to her.

you could be talking to her abt almost anything in the last 80 years and she was either involved or knows somebody - the beats literally changed the course of america and the world. and then they morphed to the hippie era, the valu that the hippies passed on, which they got from the beat generation, to be normal. whether it's racial equality or gender equality or gay and lesbian rights, climate change. that all came from the beat generation. - what a circus. clowns distract the audience. donkeys leap through loops of fire. a shadow show of acrobats. the circus owner is running in circles. even the elephants are at a loss who's boss.

(crowd giggles) mama earth is taking over. get your tickets now. the next show is about to begin. mama earth and her troop present the new begi (crowd cheering) thank you. - she is a true innovator of beat jazz poetry. in fact, historically, she may have been the firsto do th. (gentle music) - i was born in 1928 in berlin. june 24th to be exact. my mother was alone a lot. my fher worked at night and he was a news editor and he would be flying to paris or this and that. and i had toe very quiet

because he always slept in the daytime. but it was just my mother and me in berlin and we were very close to th. i think when i was maybe four, i was much io fairy tales. one ofy hanukkah presents they got me a book of "grimms' fairy tale" and it's over a thousand pages. and this book meant so much to me that when i was packing up to leave for the united states, it was one of the things i packed. i still have that book. here it is, with my name. and then it says, "for hanukkah, 1935, from your parents." my parents gave me a lot of freedom and i lived in my own world. so i didn't have too much interference with my inner development. there were my things that i was able to nurture

without my parents knowing a thing about it. my girlfriends and i would take a street car to the end of vienna and then hike all over the mountains there. i saw shapes in the leaves. there were trees and the wind would go through them. they became very alive and they would suddenly turn into beings that i would see. which of course i wouldn't tell people. i mean, these were secret things. i created my own magic land. (gentle music) (gentle music)

the children, yes. the children, yes. pictures from your dreams, pictures from your waking. colors mix and flow. music from the spheres, music from the earth. poems dancing. (gentle music) 1933, we moved to vienna and in '38, five years later, hitl annexed austria.

they welcomed m. (gentle music) so you can see the old german script, right? and now if you look at this, i don't know if you can tell it's messy in comparison to my other script. do you see messy? well, that was the day hitler came in. then i was 10. and she dictated this wonderful thing that happened. my reaction was this, of course. my father immediately of course had applied for a visa. came hom we habarely had time to hug each other. he says, "packmmediate. we're leaving tomorrow and see if we can get to switzerland."

and we packed a few little things and off we went. took a train to nsbruck, which is in austria. and then they hired different people to help us. we tried a ltle boat. and i was the only child with them. and it turned, we managed to get out. by the time we got to switzerland it was starting to rain and never stopped raining. we were sliding. we were going up mountains and sliding back. and we tried climbing over the mountains and the swiss were shooting. but they weren't trying to kill us. they actually went over our heads to warn us to go back. so we did, we went back to innsbruck, bedraggled, a mess, hungry, no money. we had given it all to the people who tried to guide us.

now they weren't trying to steal money. they tried their best to get us across. it was obvious that door was closed. period. sitting in the railroad station in innsbruck in the middle of the night, there's nobody else there. and we know any minute they're gonna pick us up. because it was obvious. we were refugees. and we are there an hour, maybe two, not knowing what to do. a woman walks by, the only person around. she doesn't look at us, but she says, "follow me." well, we had nothing to lose. so we followed her across the street from the railroad station to this several story house. she opened up the door to this apartment, had us come in after she looked around the street, there was nobody out. and she said, "what are you trying to do?"

and we said, "we're trying to get back to vienna." she said, "well, let me see what i can do. in the meantime here, why don't you get some sleep?" and there was a bed, a double bed. and there was a couch for me. i've always been an insomniac. they were asleep right away. i was awake and i hear voices. i opened the door. remember i'm 10 years old. and i see this woman talking to a man that's obviously her husband. closed the door, i didn't want them to e me seeing them. and i finally went to sleep. in the morning, she woke us. she made breakfast for us. and she said, "now, look, you see where the railroad station is? you go straight over there. you don't look at anybody. you don't say anything. you get on this number car. you have the tickets and it's going stight to vienna.

you don't have to change." we get to the train station. now the place is just packed with people going to work and this and that. and then i hear the boots. (footsteps tapping) i'll never forget that sound, boots. (footsteps tapping) i didn't say anything to my parents. remember i'm 10 years old. and i'm looking up and i see this man, ll leather ni outfit and i'm looking up the astikan his arman, black leher inhe boots and yoknow wha itas the same man who'd been in that apartment. he saved ourives. and i didn't tell my parents or anybody this story because i was afraid in my head they would catch up with him and he probably saved other pele. but here we were on the train crossing border,

wondering if we were gonna get stopped. because they always do border checks. (crowd chattering) all right, now close your eyes and just travel with ruth, 10-year-d ruth on a trn ride, okay? (gentle music) bypass linz. a collage. december, 1938. 10-year-old ruth is on a train from vienna to amsterdam. mind flaes mixed with the landscape and the click, click of the wheels.

the train passes linz, hitler favorite city. how much further to cross the border? how much longer? the wheels slow. the wheels stop. the wheels start again. on and on through the long night. i pass linz. the journey is just begun. but instead, again, the angels help. the visa was waiting for us. and we got it just before the last train was allowed to cross the border to go to holland on the 31st of december, 1938 and that's where we are gonna catch our ship.

(thunder rumbles) so then for the next 11 days, and it was winter and we had some big, bad storms. and of course i packed my doll and i had the fairy tale book with me. and i was in the upper bunk, my parents were in the lower. but my doll crashed the floor and her head crack. and it's a very special doll, it's made in a special part of germany. you see, my parents did not have much money, but they had a need, whatever they bought had to be the best quality, which is little. i only had o doll my whole life. and they told mef i ever lost it or broke it or anything, that would be , i'd never get another one. that was the way my parents were. of course i cried. i mean, the whole world's going up. but you know, kids. - ruth still has a bit of survivor's guilt

from being one of the only ones of the family to survive the nazis in austria. ruth's story iso deep. there's a lot joy and azement, but it's also a very y of 20th century america. and if ruth iss and her family hadn't made it out, our culture wouldn't be like it is now. there would be no jazz poetry, jazz beat poetry. there would be no snapping the finger. i know that the men to credit for that, buruth weiss, that was ruth's innovation because she has such a genius musicality in her poetry and she has that timing. her timing is true genius. and if ruth anher mily hadn't made it on that last trainut, our lture would not be as is. - my parts were able to help my mother's closest friend,

mimi, come to united states. and en they came back, she brought me a doll. oh, god, she's dusty. here she is. you see how the fingers are made. and it's a company called turtle and there's a turtle right here in the back. we like to tell stories, don't we? yes. (ruth giggles) - [woman] so what's her name? - susi. s-u-s-i. right? susi. - [woman] and how many years have you had her for now? - well, let's see, i arrived '39, about 77 years. i don't know. her number was not called. she was not there to be given a number. she was 10. she sails away.

her doll's head breaks in the storm. salt of the sea mixes with tears that do not return. all the others, all the others into gas and smoke. she is 20. lives in a room e paintslack. vomits daily f 20 years. shaves her head. does not know why she's aliv doesot know the source of her pain. when i saw the statue of liberty, i wrote a poem about how america saved my life and i sent it to roosevelt. and i did get an answer, but i don't have that letter.

who would've kno that i needed archives, right? (upbeat music) and then we moved to chicago. and what did my parents do there? they always wanted me to take care of them. i'm jewish, right? they put me into a caolic boarding school. our teacher, sister illon was ju heaven. really wonderful. she encouraged my writing. i wrote a wholnovel that year, when i was 12, called tomboy at boarding school. (ruth giggles) i compiled two books of poetry that i stapled together and made covers for, and i even did a film script for it. and i went four years to high school in rogers park, chicago.

i took four years of math, which included solid geometry. i was the only girl in the class. i'm the only one who got a's all through it. same thing i took four years of latin and i was the only one who got all a's. i was in the upper 2% of the class for those subjects. except i had also taken typing. i am still today the worst typist in the whole world. d the teacher who had that class sai "you really should get an f, but i see your scholastic record. i don't wanna ruin it. i'll give you a d plus." to date, it's the only thing that i'm still using. 1946 is when i graduated. they sent me to school in switzerland. but i lived in a town called neauchatel

where they spoke french. i learned a little french. i learned more how to drk. i had lots of fun. two years pass, i'm 20, back to the states. we came back to chicago. so that was about the time i start, just starting my own life. and i heard about this place called the art circle. (gentle music) looming above its neighbors, this house or that house, to artists and poets this is the art circle. this is the art circle. it was a house right out of charles adams. and he rented out only too. you had to be either an artist or a writer. and then i met a couple of poets there

and one of them ll never forgeter is gwdolyn brooks, who is pretty well known in the poetry world. inact, there's a stamper of her too, gwendolyn ooks. i met her there and was wonderful, i really admired her work. they didn't have any musicians living there. but musicians, mostly black, came from the south side to come and jam there. one of those times i had a friend named ernest alexander, he was a painter, and he had brought these friends over. i was living downstairs in the bement and i paind it all black with a bl light bulb, far out. he came down the stairs and said, "hey, there's good jam." he said, "oh, yeah?" and he pulls the paper out of my typewriter and reads it.

he runs up the stairs. i said, "where you going?" he runs up the stairs and says to the musician, "you got to hear this." "all right," i said, "i'll read." and i started to read and they started playing music. they weren't sitting and listening, they were joint doing it. that's how my whole thing with music, jazz started. invited me in to share pizza reheated on coal and a glass of red to warm the soul. (speaks indistinctly) upstairs. through glass blink and fog blink. regaled me with tales i'll never forget nor remember.

i left the art circle, i moveto another little place and i lived with a saxophone player, alto sax. he had just come from new york and he lived with charlie parker. (gentle music) so it really opened my ears to bebop, which completely connected with the work i was doing. it pulled me in the rhythm. from there, i ended up hitchhiking to new orleans and i stayed there almost a year. and new orleans has been a very special place for me. walking a tight rope is like any other road, just believe your foot. now i did all kind of things there. that's where i painted my hair green.

there was a movie that came out called "the boy with green ha." these war orphans appear d they tell him he has to have green hair. so when people ask, "why do you have green hair?" because war is bad for children. so the movie was like an anti-war movie and also about being an individual. well, there were about 10 of us that had gone to the movie house and we went back to bourbon house, had a few beers and somebody said, "well, who's gonna do it?" "do what?" "wear green hair." i said, "i will." and for the next six months i had green hair. - so you will tell them, all the people all over the worl that there must not ever be another war. - i was living in new orleans in 1950 and talking to people, artists, and they told me about the fog. we had fog in new orleans. and they said, "oh, this is nothing, you should go to san francisco, really have fog."

and i love fog and i love fog hns. so one could say that i ca here for the fog and here we are. and golden gate bridge has always been a wonderful symbol of crossing a bridge and entering a golden time. (gentle music) this is from my book, "can't stop the beat." 1952. light waves in august. heat makes mirage. august and the road again. the road going west.