Author Archives: Don Yorty

Maria Lisella reads new and published poems

I went to Maria Lisella’s apartment in Queens, a walk from the train, the elevated N. She thoughtfully had prepared a meal for me, soup, bread, cheese, grilled vegetables. Her cooking like her poetry takes what is everyday and … Continue reading →

Drawings by Akash

14 Jan ’22

I became friends with the Bangladeshi artist, Akash, on Facebook a while ago. I’m not sure when or why, but since then, I’ve enjoyed looking at his work and watching his progress. He is a student practicing his craft … Continue reading →

Julia Knobloch reads from Book of Failed Salvation

12 Jan ’22

Many of the poems in Julia Knobloch’s new chapbook, Book of Failed Salvation, are love poems that are secular, but explore the divine as well. The poet may try, as impossible as it may sound, not only to embrace a … Continue reading →

Dean Kostos reads from Broken Color

6 Jan ’22

In Broken Color the poet looks at art, but the poems are not, to my mind, ekphrastic; the poems are more about the looking than what the looking is looking at, pleasure after thought; they are poems about being, more … Continue reading →

Two Sonnets and Three Drawings

30 Dec ’21

158 Like the dried up dead wasp with its venom gone rolled up on the windowsill like a ball of dust my mother slumbers with her head bent near a bowl of fruit Pat Maples sent listening … Continue reading →

Reuben Gelley Newman

26 Dec ’21

I read with Reuben Gelley Newman at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn a while back and enjoyed his work; he sang a song too, which is something I always like. I asked him then and there if I could … Continue reading →

Ridgewood in the House: poems by Ama Birch

19 Dec ’21

Ama Birch got funding to talk to people in Ridgewood, Queens, hear their stories, and then make poems out of what she heard. Ridgewood is where Ama lives, and she knows it like the back of her hand. This … Continue reading →

Tim Milk’s Woodcuts

16 Dec ’21

About a half year ago, I began to notice that Tim Milk was posting some of his work on Facebook, woodcuts that he was doing, profiles, mythic people, beasts, trees and flowers. I was really drawn to them and … Continue reading →

El Perro

27 Nov ’21

One of my favorite paintings, El Perro (The Dog) as it is called—I think you could call it The Abyss—was never given a title by Goya who painted it on the wall of his home between 1819 and 1823 … Continue reading →

Wayne Koestenbaum reads from The Cheerful Scapegoat, Camp Marmalade, and Ultra Marine

20 Nov ’21

In October Wayne Koestenbaum read at the Segue Reading Series at Artists Space in Cortlandt Alley, right off Canal. Lonely Christopher, the curator and host, introduced him, and is letting me include his introduction here. His introductions are so well-read … Continue reading →

Celebrating Paolo Javier’s O.B.B.

13 Nov ’21

On Saturday October 17 there was a reading at the Moore Homestead Playground in Elmhurst, Queens in celebration of Paolo Javier’s new book, O.B.B. (The Original Brown Boy), hot off the presses, published by Nightboat Books. A lively group … Continue reading →

Jonathan Wells reads from Debris

11 Nov ’21

On Monday night, November 1, I went to KGB to hear some poetry. Jonathan Wells was the featured reader. I didn’t know his work (there is a lot I don’t know) so when he got to the microphone, I was … Continue reading →