Davidson Garrett

Davidson Garrett (born September 11, 1952), also known as King Lear of the Taxi, is an American poet and actor living in New York City, New York. He drove a New York City yellow taxi cab from 1978 until 2018 to supplement his acting and writing career. Garrett has authored six books of poetry, and has been published in many literary magazines, and poetry reviews.

As an actor, Garrett appeared in verse plays of William Shakespeare, W.H. Auden, and T.S. Eliot in New York City. As a member of SAG-AFTRA, he worked for many years in television and film appearing on All My Children, The Guiding Light, Spin City, Oz (TV series), The Sopranos, Law and Order, New York Undercover, As the World Turns, and on PBS in the award-winning documentary, “Something Within Me.”

Garrett also toured in theater extensively in the United States and Europe. In 2016, his spoken word play, “Conspiracy Theory: The Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen”was performed for the Boog City Poets Theater.

Early life
Garrett was born September 11, 1952, in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he studied drama for two years at Centenary College of Louisiana. Garrett moved to New York City in 1972 to pursue an acting career and also because he is gay and was looking for a supportive community. He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and acting with Alice Spivak at the Herbert Berghof Studio in Greenwich Village. Garrett graduated from The City College of New York with a B.A. in Liberal Arts, and M.S.in Education.

Garrett lived at the McBurney YMCA in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea from 1978 until 2000, which was the famous YMCA that the Village People based their pop song anthem on, “Y.M.C.A.”

Poetry
Poems and other writings have appeared in The New York Times, Xavier Review,from New Orleans,' '2 Bridges Review,’ from City University of New York,'The Paddock Review, Sensations Magazine,”Impossible Archetype,”First Literary Review-East,”The Paterson Literary Review,” ”Reverie Magazine,” The Ekphrastic Review, The Stillwater Review, The Episcopal New Yorker, Marco Polo Arts Magazine, Conceit Magazine, Thorny Locust, and Podium'', the online literary journal of the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. His poetry has been anthologized in several anthologies including, “The Arcade of the Scribes,”(Rogue Scholars Press, 2023), “Stonewall’s Legacy,” (Local Gems Press 2019,) ''From Somewhere To Nowhere: The End of the “American Dream” (Autonomedia, 2017), “Beyond the Rift: Poets of the Palisades” (The Poets Press, 2010), and in “Pears, Prose and Poetry” (Poets Wear Prada / Eggplant Press, 2011).

Garrett has authored six books of poetry, including his most recent title, “Cabaletta: Poems of a New York City Taxi Driver” published in 2022 by Finishing Line Press. ‘’Arias of a Rhapsodic Spirit,” a full-length collection was released in 2020 from Kelsay Books, and two chapbooks, “What Happened to the Man Who Taught Me Beowulf? and Other Poems”, released in 2017, and “Southern Low Protestant Departure: A Funeral Poem”, released in 2015. An earlier chapbook “To Tell The Truth I Wanted To Be Kitty Carlisle and Other Poems” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2013. Garrett's first full-length collection, “King Lear of the Taxi: Musings of a New York City Actor/Taxi Driver,” was published in 2006 by Advent Purple Press.

In 2013 Garrett was invited to take part in a taxi drivers' writing workshop organized by the poet Mark Nowak and sponsored by the PEN World Voices Festival. He with two other members of the workshop, Seth Goldman and John McDonagh, read their taxi poems at "Watching the Meter: Poetry from the Taxi Drivers Workshop" at The Public Theater's Joe's Pub in New York City. The New York Times reviewed this event dubbing the three taxi drivers, “The Bards of Gridlock.”

In November 2017, Garrett's poem "A Taxi Driver's Die Gotterdammerung” was included in the poetry anthology, "From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream,” which was published by Autonomedia, a nationally known publisher of radical books. This poem documents Garrett's actual experience when his yellow taxi was parked under the North Tower of the World Trade Center at the moment the first plane hit the North Tower on September 11, 2001.

On May 1, 2023, Garrett was invited along with other members of the PEN Worker Writers School to celebrate International Workers Day in a reading of cinquains in Brooklyn Bridge Park sponsored by the Dia Art Foundation. As the poet/workers read an individual cinquain, the cinquain was projected on the stanchion of the Brooklyn Bridge. This was the first time in the history of the Brooklyn Bridge that poetry was projected on the bridge.

Spoken word, performance
Garrett has been performing spoken word plays, poetry and more, primarily in the New York City region.

In the autumn of 2005, Garrett’s satirical verse play, “The Tragedy of MacCheney,” premiered in a staged reading that was held at Grover Cleveland Birthplace in Caldwell, New Jersey, with Garrett performing all the characters in front of the fireplace in the historic living room. The event which featured poets reflecting on the U.S. Presidential Election of 2004 was part of Sensations Magazine’s Creative Events Series.

In December, 2008, at the Robinson Plantation House, a historic home built in 1690, in Clark, New Jersey, Garrett performed all of Shakespeare’s King Lear monologues in a program titled: “The Poetry of Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” The event was sponsored by Sensations Magazine.

In 2009, 2010, and 2016, Garrett performed in poet Joel Allegretti's tribute to Leonard Cohen, You Know Who I Am, which was produced by Greenwich Village's legendary Cornelia Street Cafe.

Garrett was cast in the play, “Ishtar Redux,” by poet John J. Trause that was staged in 2013 at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in an evening of performance works produced by the performance artist journal, “Nerve Lantern.”

In August 2015, Garrett was invited to the Boog City Poets’Theatre in the East Village, Manhattan, to perform a new poetic monologue with incidental music titled Nine Meditations on the Nothingness of Now. He collaborated with the musician, Michael Skliar.

Flushing Town Hall, a cultural arts organization in the Borough of Queens, invited Garrett to give an outdoor poetry reading in Diversity Plaza in June 2016, as part of a cultural program celebrating LGBTQ Pride Month in Jackson Heights.

In December 2016, The William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative of Southern Bergen County, New Jersey, invited Davidson Garrett to be the featured poet for their monthly poetry series. Garrett performed his entire funeral poem, "Southern Low Protestant Departure" at the William Carlos Williams Center for the Performing Arts in Rutherford, New Jersey.

In January 2017, Garrett was invited to read his original poems about the 1960s in a series of four spoken word shows at Cornelia Street Cafe, titled: "What Were The Sixties Really Like?" which were produced and curated by the poet/playwright Kathyn Adisman.

In 2017, Garrett’s spoken word play, “Conspiracy Theory: The Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen,” was performed at the Boog City Poets’Theater Festival, curated by poet, Joel Allegretti. The play was published in Issue 8 of the performance art journal, “Nerve Lantern.”

In December 2020, 2021,and 2022, Garrett was invited by the Church of the Transfiguration, Episcopal (Manhattan), also known as the Little Church Around the Corner to give special poetry readings commemorating World AIDS Day.

Awards and honors
Garrett’s manuscript, “Taxi Dreams” was a finalist in the 2000 Gival Press chapbook competition. That chapbook evolved into Garrett’s first poetry collection, “King Lear of the Taxi.” In 2009, Garrett was featured in an entire chapter about an incident with street walkers and an angry John who destroyed his taxi in Amy Braunschweiger's book Taxi Confidential: Life, Death and 3 a.m.:Revelations in New York City Cabs.

Garrett’s poem about HIV/AIDS, “Death in Harlem Hospital with Straussian Overtones:1986,” received Honorable Mention in December, 2007, for Poet of the Month by The Foundation For Creative Expression in San Francisco, and was published on the website of that ciry's Beat Museum.

Garrett was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011, and in 2012, he was featured in New York (magazine) in an article titled:”I Drive A Taxi But I Also….” by award winning journalist, Kate Lowenstein.

In June 2014, Garrett was awarded first place in the 2nd Annual Juanita Torrence-Thompson International Poetry Competition sponsored by Amulet Poetry Magazine. Garrett has been featured reading his poetry on WNYC Radio’s Morning Edition, and also WBAI radio in New York City.

Curation
In August 2016 and September 2018, Garrett was the curator for Poets' Theater at the Annual Boog City Music, Poetry and Theater Festival, presenting eight short plays both years at the legendary SideWalk Cafe in the East Village, Manhattan. For 2016’s program, Garrett presented excerpts from poet Zhang Er’s opera libretto, “Tacoma Method.”

On September 30, 2018, Garrett was invited to be the poetry curator of "An Afternoon of Poetry in Albert's Garden,” a half century old Community Garden near the Bowery. For this reading, Garrett invited the poets, Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, John J. Trause, Hilary Sideris, Austin Alexis, and Jessica Nooney to be featured with readings from their recently published works. Garrett served as Emcee for the special event held in the beautiful Shade Garden, and he ended the reading with his recently published poem, "Texas Wildflowers in Spring: In Memory of Lady Bird Johnson."

Filmography
In 2019, Garrett was the subject of the short film: “The Taxi Cab Poet: Davidson Garrett,” by filmmaker, Zardon Richardson. The film was screened at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC Radio, as a part of the PEN World Voices Festival.

In September 2008, texts from Garrett's book, “King Lear of the Taxi” were used for the short film, "Taxi Driver," screened at the Portobello Film Festival in London, U.K. by director Ray Andrew Wilkes, with Garrett recording the voice-over for the film.

In 1993, Garrett was featured in the award winning documentary, “Something Within Me,” which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Audience Award Documentary. The documentary profiled St. Augustine School of the Arts in the South Bronx where Garrett taught arts education for several years. Later the film was broadcast on PBS and shown on Public Broadcasting stations throughout the United States.