Mikhail Horowitz (born January 18, 1950) is an American poet,

performance poet Performance poetry is a broad term, encompassing a variety of styles and genres. In brief, it is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe ...

parodist A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

, satirist, social commentator, author and editor.

Biography / Career

Mikhail Horowitz was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from

Erasmus Hall High School Erasmus Hall High School was a four-year public high school located at 899–925 Flatbush Avenue between Church and Snyder Avenues in the Flatbush neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It was founded in 1786 as Erasmus Hall Aca ...

in 1967 and went on to attend

State University of New York at New Paltz The State University of New York at New Paltz (SUNY New Paltz or New Paltz) is a public university in New Paltz, New York. It traces its origins to the New Paltz Classical School, a secondary institution founded in 1828 and reorganized as an a ...

where he performed in a production of

Carlo Gozzi __NOTOC__ Carlo, Count Gozzi (; 13 December 1720 – 4 April 1806) was an Italian ( Venetian) playwright and champion of Commedia dell'arte. Early life Gozzi was born and died in Venice; he came from a family of minor Venetian aristocracy, the T ...

's '' Turandot.'' He frequented on and off-campus poetry readings and performance gigs, reading his own poetry, playing the recorder and harmonica, and performing with local musicians, including Raoul Vezina, Richard J. (Rich) Rizzi, and others. In classic '60s style, he dropped out of college in 1970 to work full-time on the ''Gargoyle,'' the Hudson Valley's first alternative or "underground" newspaper, which he helped to start in 1969 in New Paltz, Ulster County, NY – then a major center of student action, antiwar protest, assisted psychotropics, and artistic renaissance. While working on the ''Gargoyle'' Horowitz changed his name to Mikhail ("Mik") Horowitz, as he was often confused with Michael Horovitz, a widely published post-Beat British poet who was enamored of jazz and who orchestrated the Poetry Olympics in London, and Michael Horowitz, author, activist, a friend of Timothy Leary and later the father of Winona Ryder. The deciding straw was receiving a mistakenly delivered packet of galley proofs from one of Michael Horovitz’s publishers. Beginning in 1973, Horowitz spent five years on the road, mainly on the West Coast, as the 'Null' half of the comic duo Null and Void. 'Void' was his comedic partner Francesco (Frank) Patricolo. Horowitz referred to this collaboration as "a metaphysical stand-up tragedy team." The partnership, but not the friendship, broke up in 1978. After this, he continued to perform on his own, with musicians and a variety of performance artists in the Mid-Hudson Valley, New York. In 1989, he teamed up with Paris born/American-raised Gilles Malkine, a musician and composer. Malkine performed with Tim Hardin at the original Woodstock Festival, 1969; through the years he worked with many other musicians, including John Sebastian and

Billy Faier Billy Faier (December 21, 1930 – January 29, 2016) was an American banjo player and folk music evangelist. He, along with Pete Seeger, was one of the early exponents of the banjo during the mid-20th-century American folk music revival. ...

. Horowitz and Malkine continue to perform together actively into 2009. They have presented more than 750 performances in New York, New England, Michigan, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington (state), Ohio, and Ontario to date. Their repertoire varies greatly but often contains audience favorites, particularly routines with literary motifs and references to American culture, particularly the 60s/70s and ewish culture In 1978 City Lights books published ''Big League Poets'', baseball card collages of imaginary historical and literary baseball players. From 1986 through 1999, Horowitz's principal occupation was as a journalist, first with the ''Daily Freeman,'' a daily serving Kingston, N. Y., and then the ''Woodstock Times,'' whereas arts editor he was listed on the masthead as "Cultural Czar." From early in his career Horowitz was performing music. He plays blues harmonica and alto, soprano, and sopranino recorders, and occasionally blows kazoo, pennywhistle, and various wooden flutes. These instruments are a regular part of his performances. He maintains a singularly unique style of recorder playing, as it is cocked to the side of his mouth as one might imagine impish Pan might hold it. As a performance poet and stand-up cultural commentator/singer, Horowitz has performed at hundreds of diverse venues, from the Village Gate, Westbeth Theater, and the Image Theater, in New York City with repeated visits to the

92nd Street Y 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) is a cultural and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the corner of East 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Founded in 1874 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association, the ...

; the Bumbershoot Festival, Seattle, Washington, the Taos Poetry Circus, Taos, New Mexico, a variety of not-so orthodox synagogues; the Rosendale Caves,

Rosendale, New York Rosendale is a town in the center of Ulster County, New York, United States. It once contained a village Rosendale, primarily centered around Main Street, but which was dissolved through vote in 1977. The population was 5,782 at the 2020 census. ...

; a headliner at several the Woodstock Poetry Festivals and many other events in Woodstock; Unison, New Paltz, NY; Clearwater Great Hudson River Revival Festival in Croton, New York; and many other locales. His solo poetry, prose, and artwork continue to be published in numerous anthologies, including ''City Lights Journal, The Stiffest of the Corpse, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry,'' ''Brilliant Corners,'' ''Elysian Fields Quarterly,'' and ''Yellow Silk Anthology.'' He has collaborated with or shared the bill with,

Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and ...

, Peter "P.D.Q. Bach" Schickele, Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders & The Fugs, Robert Bly, Bob Holman, David Amram, Marilyn Crispell,

Andrei Codrescu Andrei Codrescu (; born December 20, 1946) is a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio. He is the winner of the Peabody Award for his film ''Road Scholar'' and the Ovid Prize for p ...

Artie Traum Arthur Roy Traum (April 3, 1943 – July 20, 2008) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and producer. Traum's work appeared on more than 35 albums. He produced and recorded with The Band, Arlen Roth, Warren Bernhardt, Pat Alger, Tony Levin, J ...

and Happy Traum, Jay Ungar,

Molly Mason Molly Mason is an American musician and composer and performs as a duo Jay & Molly with her husband Jay Ungar. Jay's composition, Ashokan Farewell, became the title theme of Ken Burns' The Civil War on PBS. The soundtrack won a Grammy and Ashoka ...

Phil Donahue Phillip John Donahue (born December 21, 1935) is an American media personality, writer, film producer and the creator and host of ''The Phil Donahue Show''. The television program, later known simply as ''Donahue'', was the first talk show forma ...

, Amy Goodman,

Natalie Merchant Natalie Anne Merchant (born October 26, 1963) is an American alternative rock singer-songwriter. She joined the band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and was lead vocalist and primary lyricist for the group. She remained with the group for their first se ...

, Kate Pierson (B-52s), Raoul Vezina, and Ron Whiteurs, among many others. Through the years, Horowitz's stage style and content have been compared to

Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...

Lord Buckley Lord Richard Buckley (born Richard Myrle Buckley; April 5, 1906 – November 12, 1960) was an American stand-up comedian and recording artist, who in the 1940s and 1950s created a character that was, according to ''The New York Times'', "an unli ...

, and sometimes, mistakenly, to Brother Theodore. Horowitz's style is both more playful and erudite, with a Shakespearian penchant for satisfying the audience's predilection for the bawdy. As of 1989, Horowitz lived in Saugerties, New York with his partner of over 20 years, artist/illustrator Carol Zaloom. He has for several years remained on the editorial staff of Bard College Publications, Bard College,

Annandale-on-Hudson Annandale-on-Hudson is a hamlet in Dutchess County, New York, United States, located in the Hudson Valley town of Red Hook, across the Hudson River from Kingston. The hamlet consists mainly of the Bard College campus. Municipal services Emerge ...

, NY. He is a member of Actors & Writers, based in Olivebridge, New York.

Books

*''Big League Poets'' (City Lights, 1978) *''The Opus of Everything in Nothing Flat'' (Outloud/Red Hill, 1993) *''Rafting into the Afterlife'' (Codhill Press, 2007) *''Ancient Baseball'' (Alte Books, 2019)

Selected anthologies

*''Laugh Lines'' (Vintage Books, 2007) *''Line Drives'' (South Illinois University Press, 2002) *''The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry'' (Thunder's Mouth, 1999) *''Baseball Diamonds'' (Doubleday) *''Yellow Silk'' (Crown) *''The Sacred Theory of the Earth'' (North Atlantic Books)

Selected journals, magazines, and papers

''Abraxas, Archae, Arson, Brilliant Corners, Chiron, City Lights Journal, Davka, Elysian Fields Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse, Graffiti Rag, Hanging Loose, Heaven Bone, Hunger, Io, Long Shot, Matter, New York Times, Pig Iron, Rattle, Spitball, White Pine Journal''

CDs

*''The Blues of the Birth'' (Euphoria Jazz!/Sundazed, 1999) *''Live, Jive & Over 45'' (with Gilles Malkine, self-produced, 2000) *''Poor, On Tour, & Over 54'' (with Gilles Malkine, self-produced, 2007)

DVDs

"Too Small To Fail" (with Gilles Malkine, a Carlos Fernandez Dish, 2011)

Compilation CDs

*''Bring It On Home,'' Vol. II (Columbia/Legacy Records) *''Unison Arts 25 Years Compilation Album'' (private release) *Several of the Diamond Cuts CDs issued by Hungry for Music, 2002–08 *''A Chanukah Feast'' (Hungry for Music)

References

External links

*"Ballpark Figures," exhibition review of ''The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball,'' American Folk Art Museum, New York City, ''Elysian Fields Quarterly,'' 200

*"Black Hole Hums Deepest Note Ever Detected," ''NY Times,'' August 3, 2004

(Poem) *"Merciless Mnemosyne: A Gloss on a Story by Borges," ''Frigate Magazine,'' 2002 (Essay

*"Poem for Joseph Cornell," ''Hunger Magazine,'' 2000

(Poem) *"Take Me Out To Parnassus," a review of ''Baseball and the Lyrical Life,'

(Essay) *"The Shooting of Dan's Guru,

1996 (Parody/Poem/Performance piece)
M. Horowitz on WorldCatNull and Void's Final Performance
(Mikhail Horowitz and Francesco Patricolo)
Official WebsiteVideo performance of ''The St. James Wellness Facility'' and others
*''We Cannot Know the Mind of God,'' —a play. (Performed in Texas, the Adirondacks, and for an audience of 18,000 (not a typo) at Willow Creek Community megachurch in Illinois.
Actors and Writers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Horowitz, Mikhail 1950 births Living people American male poets American satirists State University of New York at New Paltz alumni Writers from Brooklyn Erasmus Hall High School alumni American male non-fiction writers