Calabasas poet creates ‘digital Blake’

Anthony Pecoraro

The largest body of unpublished poetry and metaphysical writings in this country–perhaps in the world–exist like hidden treasure amid the clutter of Anthony Pecoraro’s tiny home office.

Pecoraro, 49, began writing his compendium of poems and essays more than 20 years ago while working in Hollywood as a bit actor and voice-over artist.

While others networked on the set, Pecoraro spent his free time focusing on his manuscripts and his writings. He continues to produce at the prolific rate of sometimes half-a-dozen poems a day.

Pecoraro’s 62-volume work, stacked in the closets and along the walls of his small Calabasas apartment, goes by the title, "Cosmic Encyclopedia and Cryptic Poetry."

A few of the unbound volumes in Anthony Pecoraro's collection.

Ambitious isn’t the word. Voluminous doesn’t come close. The "Cosmic Encyclopedia" stands worlds apart just in terms of its sheer effort. For Pecoraro, it’s the whole of his life’s work, a Summa Theologica for modern times.

"I say it’s a 37-year-work and I’ve completed 22," Pecoraro says. "Somewhere in the ’80s I made an outline, a goal. Like everyone else I was searching and looking for meaning. I just kept working."

The collection of bound and unbound volumes comprises thousands of Pecoraro’s observations on everything from the nature of a bird feather to the condition of the human spirit. Writings include Pecoraro’s perception of Venice Beach homelessness, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hubble Space Telescope–even constructs based on the field of entomology.

"There’s over 3,500 poetry titles and 700 metaphysical essays. I keep track of it, but my wife says that’s not a good idea. It’s not about the numbers."

Musing at Ladyface Mountain and Malibou Lake for one of his volumes, Pecoraro combines words and pictures to interpret the natural beauty of the Conejo Valley.

Pecoraro says his work is akin to a "digital Blake," referring to the great English author, painter and printing engraver. Authors George Bataille and Rudolf Steiner also have influenced his work.

Pecoraro, like Blake, received little formal education when he was young, and writes in the same, arcane style as the 18th Century romanticist.

Blake frequently is described as a mystic, but in truth, he wrote deliberately in the style of the Hebrew prophets and apocalyptic visionaries. Pecoraro follows a similar tack in his poem, Tree & Rose:

From fingertip

Through so rosy flow,

I too become tomorrow’s Rose

And Tree to shade

Stunning new lands

Other, more combustible titles include Tribal Gazer, Burden Ignites and Myriad Fiery Fathers.

"What Blake did is he wrote poetry and supplemented it with his art," Pecoraro explains. "Likewise, this is a private mythology coming out with the modern art and technology of the 21st Century."

In the beginning, he compiled his work on a rudimentary Commodore 64 and even wrote by hand. Pecoraro’s tools today include a high-speed computer, several digital cameras with an eight-times magnification lens adapter and reams of great literary works upon which to draw his ideas.

Digital and moving images accompany many of his poems and essays––a bird in flight, for example, or an ant pictured next to a grain of salt.

Pecoraro says his manuscripts are similar to a "Da Vinci style inquiry into nature and futurity."

"It’s how nature affects me and how the poet leaves something for the reader to inspire them."

While Blake didn’t become widely recognized until later in life, Pecoraro is hoping to be discovered sooner. A CD of his work sits on the desk of several major publishers and he currently is looking for a corporate grant to finish what he says are the final 15 years of the project.

If he dies before "Cosmic Encyclopedia" is published, however, Pecoraro has made arrangements to donate the entire collection to the Royal Court of Denmark.

Pecoraro ran away from his home in Brooklyn as a teenager and traveled to Denmark where he met his wife of the last 30 years.

"Think of it as a kid from Brooklyn with an attitude who experiences the wonderment of life in Northern Europe. It gave me culture and art and life."

Now, Pecoraro says, "My goal is to support the work for the next 15 years and to preserve its entire embodiment for perpetuity."

The Royal Library of Copenhagen called Pecoraro’s project "most beautiful and interesting." The Barnes and Noble Digital Book Group described it as "breathtaking."

"Poetry is not something I do, it’s a life I live," Pecoraro says. "Each day there’s a different poem with a different theme and a different image."

But while Pecoraro is a dreamer, he’s also a realist.

"When I die I don’t want this to go in the garbage," he says.

It might not fit.