Take a seat and read the writing on the stall

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

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by Karen Schafer

Staff Writer

Click here to enlarge this photo

Rachael Golden⁄The Gazette

Regina Coll posts her poetry in public restrooms, hoping to capture a whole new audience.

Once safely seated, it’s hard to resist reading what’s written on public restroom walls. Whether the topic is scatology, sex or supposedly ribald wit, Silver Spring poet Regina Coll figures she has found the perfect sit-down-and-stay-awhile audience. She decided to elevate the 1,000-year-old form of self-expression into art. And, yes, it is that old: Archaeologists have found graffiti in the ruins of Roman bathrooms.

Although writing in public spaces may be considered a minor misdemeanor, The Bathroom Poetry Project isn’t ‘‘gorilla graffiti,” Coll points out, describing the usual scratches and scrawls associated with public prose. She hopes to bring high-minded ideas to the masses — or at least to the folks entering the first stall of the women’s restroom in downtown Silver Spring’s Borders Books.

‘‘I write about myself,” Coll admits, sounding just a tad embarrassed.

The poet says she draws from her personal frustrations, which include taking on motherhood and a full-time nursing career while trying to write. Her poetry has a decidedly female point of view, and most of her work is posted in women’s restrooms. But she has enlisted her teenage sons and husband to place her work in men’s restrooms, too.

Since September, Coll has been putting up her poetry ‘‘on the sly.” The poet has taped her ‘‘professionally”-typed tomes — each properly encased in a plastic sleeve — to bathroom stalls inside some 20 book stores, restaurants and coffee shops around Montgomery County and as far away as Leesburg, Va.

She thought long and hard before placing poetry in public potties. In this ultra-private sanctum, people are obliged to sit still for at least a minute or so. For years, she may have collected a file full of rejections from traditional poetry periodicals, but inside these tiled walls, she has a captive audience. And for a fraction of time, she has their undivided attention — and very little competition.

‘‘I keep the poems intentionally short, under 30 lines, figuring it should be something people can read in three minutes, five at the most,” Coll notes.

New to this bathroom poetry endeavor, she returns to the scene to check if the poem is still posted. If it is, she replaces it with another. So far, the District’s Kramerbooks & afterwords Café & Grill has kept them up, while the poem in Politics and Prose has been removed.

Time is a huge factor for Coll, and simply getting to each location on a regular basis has been challenging. Her goal is to develop a relationship with the business owners, so her work will stay in place – officially.

Coll has long-term plans as well. Noting her Web site http:⁄⁄bathroompoet.net at the bottom of each poem, she hopes other writers will submit their work. Writer’s Center instructor Anne Becker of Takoma Park has come aboard, posting her poems in Kefa Café in Silver Spring and on the refrigerator at Bamboozled in Bethesda.

Since the project’s inception in September, Coll has received ‘‘mostly positive messages,” with many people calling the idea ‘‘fun” and ‘‘interesting.” One viewer wasn’t thrilled, calling it a ‘‘travesty” to poetry and poets. The reaction didn’t bother her.

‘‘People are either hot or cold,” she observes.

Becker isn’t fazed either, figuring poetry is intended to ‘‘talk about anything and go anywhere.”

Gotta write

Coll claims to have hated reading and writing while growing up in Buck’s County, Pa. She learned to appreciate reading while studying history at at Temple University, but didn’t discover poetry until the early 1990s, while perusing the offerings in a bookstore.

The timing was perfect. Like most overworked and overwhelmed parents, she rarely had a moment to herself — except for ‘‘three to five minutes sitting in the bathroom.” Coll had no time for a 300-page novel, but had a few minutes for a poem or two. These meditative moments became progressively more meaningful and like many poetry readers, she says, ‘‘I decided to try writing.”

Still, this go-getter didn’t wish to write in a safe suburban vacuum. In 1996, Coll started submitting her work to publications — and was summarily rejected. She has had more luck with online poetry sites. Having opted for something a little less safe and sanitary, she is making her mark in the world’s public restrooms.

With a wealth of Web sites devoted to bathroom graffiti and reading material, Coll is likely to find an audience. It’s in the can.