Moon man

By day, Jim Dwyer works under a fluorescent hum in a secluded corner of Meriam Library as a bibliographic services librarian, updating catalogs and databases and developing English, theater and journalism curricula for the library. By night he’s the Rev. Junkyard Moondog, a poet-on-the-town fighting the good fight at peace rallies and poetry slams. He’s gained a deserved reputation as one of Chico’s most passionate and generous arts and peace activists, and he’s really a nice man. A Seattle native, Dwyer came to Chico in 1986 for the library job, and in 1996 he published his first book, Earth Works, a guide to books about nature and the environment. He has a second, Where the Wild Books Are: A Field Guide to Eco-fiction, in the works.

Besides librarian, how do you describe yourself?

I describe myself as a peaceful warrior—I’m a poet, a percussionist, a peace and environmental activist, a dancer and a singer/songwriter who can’t sing and doesn’t play the guitar.

How did you come to be known as the Rev. Junkyard Moondog?

The true Moondog mysteriously appeared in, like, three poems [of mine] in the course of two months in 1993. The big one was I had kind of a spiritual experience of viewing the moon and the stars through the steam from a fumerole (not really a geyser), and a herd of deer was having the same experience. We were both there staring at the moon and occasionally looking at each other. That’s more or less when I became Moondog. And, because of my sometimes preacher-like oratorical style, and also because the term “junkyard Moondog” appeared in a haiku [of mine], I became the Rev. Junkyard Moondog. “Junkyard Moondog howling through the clouds/ chasing heartsick thieves away.”

Do more people call you Moondog or Jim?

It depends. More campus people call me Jim. More community people call me Moondog.

I’ve seen you perform many times, but the most memorable has to be when you appeared at the Naked Poetry Slam wearing only a jock strap with silver Christmas tinsel attached. What’s your memory of that experience?

[Laughing loudly.] It was a lot of fun. We were exposed to a lot more than poetry.

Got a poem to share?

How about a little piece of a song called "Simple Pleasures"? "Simple pleasures/ more than cheap thrills/ they’ll fill your heart up/ you know they will/ they cost you nothing/ and yet they paint/ the very best moments/ of every day."