World-Class Writers and Musicians Come Together to Commune with St. EOM

“Eddie loved spoken word,” John Charles Griffin explains of why it makes perfect sense to hold his annual poetry reading event at Pasaquan.

Home of the late Eddie Owens Martin (aka St. EOM), Pasaquan was built by the mystic fortune-teller and artist on his family’s seven acres deep in the piney woods outside of Buena Vista, Georgia, to serve as as a sacred shrine to welcome aliens from out her space set to arrive with the promise of a kinder, gentler future based on empathetic telepathy. Once suffering from neglect and disrepair for years following St. EOM’s suicide in the ‘80s, Pasaquan over the past decade has been restored to mind-blowing splendor thanks to stellar stewardship by Columbus State University.

Known for his “Dirt Road Visionary” style of hyper-intense, vivid-imagery poetry, Griffin is a beloved icon of Deep South counter-culture, a motley group of musicians and artists still majorly influenced by Martin even a couple generations after his death. It’s in that freaky-cool festive spirit that he hosts Poets at Pasaquan, now in its fourth year, coming up this Saturday, May 11, bigger and better than ever before. Besides the writers, the free-admission event will feature live music by rising-talent Matt McMillan, already a master of banjo, mandolin, and guitar at age 25, and bodacious bluesman Neal Lucas.
“We love to use Southernisms when we read our work — makes the words come alive and more fun to listen to,” Griffin, the Macon maverick, says of what makes this particular poetry reading unique. “We got all the characters and all their supporters coming. Everybody brings something to the table.”

Indeed, the 2024.edition of Poets at Pasaquan features an incredible roster of readers: some well-known Columbus writers (Nick Norwood, Mamie Willoughby Pound, Dan Veach) along with some of national renown, widely read for their searing talent and authentic connection to seminal American hippie heroes. This includes acclaimed Atlanta Poets Society founders (along with Veach) Kodac Harrison and Rupert Fike plus Michael Pierce, whose countless adventures includes a job making tofu sandwiches for the Grateful Dead and whose very existence is a beautiful art form, and Tom Patterson, a close comrade of absurdist genius, the late Col. Bruce Hampton, who literally wrote the book on Eddie Owens Martin, “St. EOM in the Land of Pasaquan,” published in 1987.

Patterson headlines his year’s Poets at Pasaquan and will read passages from his forthcoming memoir, Way Out There, a follow-up to his fantastic fist memoir, “The Tom Patterson Years: Cultural Adventures of a Fledgling Scribe.”

Patterson, along with Columbus folklorist/artist Fred Coulter Fussell, are widely credited with saving Pasaquan from certain ruin in the ‘80s and ‘90s. His first-hand connection to Martin and his home give Patterson a unique perspective and, during a recent phone interview, says for him the best part of coming to Pasaquan form his home in North Carolina is the beautiful, pain-staking care that has preserved the place in such pristine condition.

His advice for those attending Poets at Pasaquan?

”Just show up,” Patterson answers in true fashion of fathers of the Just Be philosophy. “Just come out and enjoy it.”

By Frank Etheridge