Life, we all come to realize, even if we never read Heraclitus, is in constant motion, which is one reason why I walked over to 2 Horatio Street last Monday to record Elaine Sexton reading from Drive, her new book of poems about to […]
Category Archives: American Poets
Maya Angelou reads “Still I Rise,” “No No No No,” and “On the Pulse of Morning”
Some poets become so famous that other poets who are not famous, and there are many more of those, think that something must be wrong with a poet who rises so high in her own lifetime that even people who read no poetry at […]
Reuben Gelley Newman
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 include him on my blog, […]
Ridgewood in the House: poems by Ama Birch
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 current work is reminiscent of […]
Melinda Wilson reads at KGB
I was so happy to go and listen to Melinda Wilson read at KGB that I couldn’t wait to get there. Her poems are sexy and witty and when they are angry, they smile. Her ability to focus on an image and stay there centers […]
Terence Degnan reads from I Can Wonder Anything
Earlier this summer, just as the pandemic was easing up, and we could gather in crowds, out in the open air again, there was a poetry reading in Gowanus that I went to, right by the canal, a beautiful spot, and I got to […]
Lamont Steptoe reads Etheridge Knight
Etheridge Knight and Lamont Steptoe were good friends. Shortly before he died, Etheridge laid his hands on Lamont, and his last message to him was: “Keep poetry alive!” When The Painted Bride Quarterly put together an issue dedicated to Etheridge Knight, Lamont contributed. This […]
Frank Walsh reads a poem
In the 70s when Frank Walsh and I were both going to Temple, me for the second time and he for the first—we worked on a poetry magazine called Hybris, half hybrid, half hubris—It was Frank’s idea. We managed, by hook or by crook, […]
Matt Proctor reads from City Life
Matt Proctor’s diary, City Life, spans from March to May of this year so it is hot off the presses, and full of little axiom poems that I enjoy: thought isa mirror it shows you who you are my left side is mygood […]
Marc Nasdor reads from Insurgentes/Avenues
Marc Nasdor and I arrived in NYC around the same time. I remember when he curated the Monday Night Reading Series at Saint Mark’s Church with Chris Kraus back in the day. Marc (a/k/a Poodlecannon) is a well known world music DJ in New […]
Jet Wimp reads new poems
If funny and witty had to arm wrestle with surrealism and reality for the right to be a Jet Wimp poem, they would struggle, elbows on the table forever going from the big picture down to the tiniest significant details, which some say God […]
Sharon Mesmer reads from Even Living Makes Me Die
A few years ago, Sharon Mesmer, through a bit of serendipity and endeavor, began to discover remarkable women poets of the Americas that she knew little about, or had never heard of. As she began to find more, she wrote poems to them as […]
