Point Reyes Light - July 29, 1999
Inverness Park poet finds verse in adversity
Inverness Park's Xerxes Whitney, the athletic director at Tomales High School, began a career as performing poet on a dare.
He'll again enter new territory at 8 p.m. Friday night at the Dance Palace, when he reads from What's Your Name, his self-published book of poetry with an accompanying compact disc.
Several years ago, in an effort to encourage a friend to play her guitar in public, Whitney agreed to read some poems at an open-microphone night at Marshall Arts.
His friend overcame her stage fright, but that night Whitney maybe made the larger discovery - he found the courage to share his personal poems with an audience, and he found that people wanted to listen.
A few weeks later he read at another open-microphone gig at Smiley's Schooner Saloon in Bolinas, in front of an "altogether different crowd." He recalled that "when I got on the mike, most of the bar became like a little community and quieted down and tuned in to what I had to say."
Whitney, 28, was born with cerebral palsy. In spite of this potential obstacle he challenges his audience - through his poetry and by the way he leads his life - to live more fully and to accept their own imperfections, as he has learned to accept his.
The poet Whitney explores common obstacles we all face: finding love, securing a satisfying job, and maintaining a semblance of control over our lives. Indeed, Whitney's problems are just like everyone else's.
But he also opens a window on his own, unique difficulties, and often does so by mixing humor with blunt self-observation. "Mess Maker" conveys his frustration with the simple mechanics of getting a piece of pizza out of a box, or eating a chocolate Easter egg.
In "Glass of Water" he describes the ordeal of drinking without spilling:
"...why should I care/ I done so many things that appear so much harder/ than picking up a glass of water/ but why is it so hard to be different/ people are always wondering what's wrong/ when they meet me/ They will always remember that first time/ I spilled that glass of water..."
The irony of Whitney's life is that although he may stumble with some of the small motions most of us do effortlessly, he has accomplished more than most poeple have by his age.
Whitney graduated with a degree in Economics from UC Santa Cruz, where he wrote for the campus newspaper and was assistant coach for the men's tennis team. He went on to the Indiana University, where he earned a Masters of Science in Kinesiology, Applied Sports Science. He also coached tennis at Pomona and Pitzer Colleges in Southern California.
Currently he is athletic director and tennis coach at Tomales High School, and he's working toward his teaching credential at Sonoma State University.
What's Your Name concludes with a poem written not by Whitney but by friend Felicia Priutt. Commenting on Whitney's tenacity, she tells him: "...in this race, we, who were not/ tripped at the starting line/ are, in fact, eating your dust."