The Unlikely Poet

She skipped classes in high school to run with the wild crowd. She spends her weekends riding a Harley-Davidson and considers herself a bit of a rebel. Her “real job” is running a local home-security company, and she can always be found in jeans and a comfortable sweatshirt.

One look at Yolanda Coulaz and the stereotypical image of a poet goes out the window.

“I’d love to be sitting in my cottage with a mountain view, sipping tea in my long flowing white dress,” the 40-year-old Coulaz laughs, “but that’s just not the way it goes. That’s not me.”

Ironically, going against the grain in the world of poetry worked for Coulaz—according to the poet, the adjective most often applied to her latest book, Spirits and Oxygen, is “accessible”: if not necessarily the highest compliment a poet might be paid, then certainly a word too infrequently associated with the form. Coulaz jokes that her greatest accomplishment as a poet is that her dad (a noted poetry hater) can get through her book “without falling asleep.” She knows that poetry is too often daunting. Notes Coulaz, “A lot of the reason poetry scares people and students is they are told they have to memorize these long poems that they can’t identify with.”

However, Coulaz does not feel that the medium is inherently highfalutin or obscure. “Poetry doesn’t have to be difficult,” she says. “It’s about descriptive language. It’s about getting your audience to feel what you are feeling. And even if they translate it for themselves, if you’ve reached them you’ve done your job as a poet.”

A Dying Breed, or Not

When asked if poetry is a dying art form, especially on Long Island, Coulaz answers optimistically. “No,” she says. “If anything it is experiencing a resurgence.” In the last five years Coulaz has read for organizations such as Loving Touch Animal Rescue, LI Poets for Darfur and was the guest speaker at the United Nations where she read her poem “Saving Grace” at a Gift for Life luncheon, an organization that brings children from other countries to the United States for lifesaving medical treatment. Currently, Spirits and Oxygen is used as a text book in SUNY Stony Brook’s advanced poetry class.

Coulaz believes that poetry is indeed thriving, and not entirely because of events like the ones she’s been part of, but because of local audiences and the younger generation finding new interest. “A lot of kids think they don’t like poetry until they see it doesn’t have to rhyme or be difficult to understand,” says Coulaz, who teaches workshops in middle and high schools, and participates in the Young Poets Mentoring Program of Suffolk County. “It’s tough times right now, there are angsty people trying to be heard. Poetry can be their venue. It’s a good way to be heard.”

Taking It To The Streets

One of Coulaz’s main objectives is to make poetry something that is available to everyone, both figuratively and literally.  “It’s the audience that keeps poetry alive,” she says, but admits that sometimes finding a showcase is more difficult than not. Coulaz names a handful of venues where she and the close-knit group of fellow LI poets hold events and readings, including the Poetry Barn in Huntington, the Book Shoppe in Rockville Centre, Poncho’s Border Grill in Bethpage and the Farmingdale Library, but laments, “We need a bigger audience, we need more non-poets in that audience.”

She also knows that there are no celebrities in poetry, and those who work in the medium are truly working. “Nobody has an edge when it comes to poetry,” says Coulaz. “No matter who you are, or how many books you have we’re all working hard to be heard.”

Coulaz kicks off a new series of readings at Maxwell and Dunne’s All Natural Steakhouse in Plainview, called “Poetry Night at the Green Room.” The inaugural reading will be Thursday, Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. where Coulaz will be the featured reader. Each month, a different budding poet will take the podium and share original readings. For more information contact Yolanda Coulaz at yolandacoulaz@msn.com or at 631-420-0425.