Umasked by Paul Kachoris, MD: Poetry of Self-Expression: A Book Review

I first met Paul Kachoris at a men's retreat about 1990-91 where he was on the leadership team. I remember he found me getting into my car at the end of the weekend and telling me he was friends with Kevin Fitzpatrick and knew I was Kevin's friend too.

It was the beginning of a complex relationship between the three of us and the work of running men's retreats. Paul and Kevin later became leaders of this weekend and asked myself and another friend to help them staff the experience. It was enormously fulfilling and it's true I idealized Kevin and Paul. They meant everything to me a the time.

I could tell Paul was enthralled with the complexity of these experiences with groups of men. He used his talents in poetry to calm the process by reading some of his poems to the men who were raptured by his words.

Paul's book of poetry exemplifies the lyrical way he connects words to the human spirit.

Seeing the dates of his poems, I learned he has been writing poetry for many, many years. I recognized some of his themes, like the chapel and sculpting out of thin air, as potentially related to his work on men's retreats. I especially took note of the shadow themes, like in the poem, Ambush, (pps. 92-93) where he explores the inevitability of screwing ourselves over because we lack awareness and self-knowledge.

However, the depth and breadth of his themes relating to his own psyche, relationships with his family, and the disconnect/connect with his family's homeland in Greece suggested more of Paul's deeply empathic abilities. His search for "safe place" a location in which to ground himself is evident in his poetry and his life.

As the son of Greek-Americans, he jostles back and forth between his American birth and family roots in Greece. Where does he fit in, where does he belong?

As anyone jostling between two "places" in their lives, there is a sense of loss in the journey from the place of our roots and an ambivalence to the location we find ourselves in the present. Paul's love of Greece, it's language and culture, is a principal theme that evolves from his writing. It's beautiful.

He writes eloquently about his roots and cultural connection to Greece, but there is a hollow, empty space as it relates to his family, friendship, and professional relationships. His writing tells us who he was and where he came from, but not about his vision of his personal and professional passions.

In Paul's writing, I see glimpses of the famous Greek writer, Nikos Kanzantzakis who gave us the classics Zorba the Greek and the Last Temptation of Christ. I could feel myself wanting more of Paul stepping out and helping to make sense of the world we live in. I know he had opinions. He has chosen to keep them to himself or hidden in the complexity of his poems.

I've wondered to myself and in some of my own writing how his legacy might have been expanded had he connected in some way with the Warrior weekend's international efforts.

Had he chosen to become a leader in the ManKind Project, he would have had many more opportunities to grow as a person and a leader of men. In Victories, one was anointed as a leader, rather than earning it through volunteerism and trainings.

He would have learned how to be a team player, leader and nurturer of men. He would have known his place, because other men would look him in the eye and tell him and he would have learned to tell them too.

The founders of the program to which Paul has been devoted, most especially Buddy Portugal who is deceased, were too jealous of his deep masculine energy. Portugal took every opportunity to demean and ridicule Paul.

I understood the jealousy. Paul was a respected psychiatrist, tall, slender, handsome and wealthy. He easily related to the men who participated in the weekends.

Portugal, on the other hand, worked hard at creating a persona, both in his way of dressing and also in the look of his professional office. He wanted people to believe he was the magnificent leader of this small mens' program, but his exaggerations, I know now, were subtle lies he told about himself and his work.

As Portugal writes in his book, he was attracted to Bob Mark because of his "brain", meaning he wanted to be associated with Mark as an intelligent person. For him, Mark's intelligence would rub off and be absorbed by Portugal. I learned Portugal had a learning disability and did not read much.

This explained to me why his method as a therapist involved listening, nodding off to sleep, and telling stories where he was the hero and someone else, usually Paul Kachoris had the short end of the stick.

Mark and Portugal had a close relationship, yet an ambivalent relationship with other men. These were not men you would go out for pizza and yuk it up in the evening. They kept others at a distance, but could be aggressive and emasculating towards other men with whom they had conflicts. who they saw getting close to their secrets and illusionary beliefs (see my review of Robert Mark's book here ) about their own grandeur, their shadow, as Paul would say. They were the masters of pseudo-mutuality creating a world where everyone acted like they loved each other by denying and avoiding any of the conflicts around power, wealth, status, sexuality and sexual orientation.

When my friend and I were first asked to lead a non-residential weekend, we were asked to meet Portugal and Mark at their favorite restaurant and "take them out for dinner."

We arrived and they were already there at their favorite table in a far corner sitting in darkness. It was there they tried to explain about their relationship and how it was the cornerstone of the weekend we were expected to lead.

It was one of the most uncomfortable and wierd restaurant experiences I have ever had. I don't think I ever recovered from it and thereafter held both men at a distance, observing, and judging them and their ambigous relationship.

It's no surprise these founders required men in their program not discuss politics, work, or religion, lest there be disagreements. Even in the realm of sexuality, these founders established an ambivalence between hetero-bi-gay-queer sexuality by ignoring the vital differences in these orientations. They encouraged men to love men in a non-sexual way and allowed the underlying sexual tensions to meander in subterranean pathways, not visible, but always moving.

In the shadows, they were skillful at creating chaos, keeping others off kilter, ensuring they would be at the center of everything, their fingerprints everywhere. With no real conflict resolution process in place, the founders were able to maintain their centrality and diminish the influence of others. Have a complaint? "We'll get back to you!" :) They left the organization fragmented.

I looked for hints of the inter-personal struggles I knew Paul to face, but was unable to determine any visible themes in his poetry. Perhaps, there are themes embedded in the symbolism of his words arcing above the earthly battles of wits and shadows. I will continue to search.

When I had influence, I ensured Paul would be on the marketing video for the organization back in 2004 and then in 2007, encouraged the concept of the organization's new program committee be built around Paul as the Chairperson. I thought he was the one to bring some clarity, intellect and humanity to this key element of an organization struggling to evolve. I was wrong about this at the time.

There was so, so much competition and unresolved conflict within the men's program where Paul worked his personal growth was constrained. Paul and his leader partner Kevin spent years trying to advocate for their so called "Shadow" program, only to see it falter and never really being successful. I have written elsewhere about this ill-fated program and wish it had never been conceived.

The ManKind Project and its Warrior weekend would have embraced Paul's gifts and the leadership program would have challenged him and chiseled his spiritual and intellectual muscle.

Rather than being forced to defend his creative ideas internally, he could have been a leader within a powerful, international program structure leading men into the sacred realm of the masculine. I know the Warriors would have welcomed him doing both programs and what a model that would have been of inclusion in the men's work world!

Rather than forced to defend himself and try to create the "best" program among other self-absorbed and defensive leaders, Paul could have embraced the Warrior training and allowed his less expressed Warrior/King aspects of his psyche to emerge. There is still time for him and wonder if he has ever thought about it...adding to his leadership skills by becoming an integral part of the Warrior program.

One of the poems in this book resonated with me, "On a Train With No Windows" (p142).

Paul writes:

Boarded up in my windowless train

on a one way ticket to Somewhere.

Just followed the crowd;

Jumped aboard when young, with baggage in tow.

Not asking: "Where am I going?"

Clickety clack

????clickety clack

????????clickety clack.

Down the one-way track

to some imagined, pre-ordained destination.

-an oasis waiting.

This is a beautiful poem evoking feelings of uncertainty, dependency, wonderment, journey, regret, promise and many other feelings. Are we all on a track with a pre-ordained destination and is it an oasis? Did we all freely choose to be in men's work or were we driven by internal needs for attention, power, fame? How would we have been different?

In Chicago, unlike any other city in the world where MKPI developed, therapists and men with leadership abilities really had to choose between the smaller program and the Warrior weekend. What would it have looked like if we all were a part of the larger Chicago and international men's community?

I think the notion of a pre-ordained destination suggests our lack of awareness ensures where we end up may not be where we planned, as my reading of Paul's poem suggests.

Paul's poem reminded me of my favorite song, "People Get Ready" written by Curtis Mayfield, a song in the liberation theology genre common in the African American community. Unable to speak truth to power for fear of being lynched, castrated, tortured, African Americans used religious language to express their desire for freedom, their salvation.

Like Paul, Mayfield writes,

"People get ready

There' a train a-coming

You don't need no baggage

You just get on board

All you need is faith

To hear the diesels humming

Don't need no ticket

You just thank the Lord."

The clickety-clack of the train wheels on the rails to freedom, no ticket needed for the "oasis waiting."

Like me and the rest of us, Paul is not perfect, but he is perfectly human and the world is better for him. At a significant time, he wrote to me and I appreciated it.