Over the summer, I heard Bruce E. Whitacre read poems from his new book, Good Housekeeping, at Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, which is, by the way, one of the best bookstores in Manhattan. Since then, I’ve wanted to get him on the blog, but NYC living being what it is, it often takes time…
… The writer, Djelloul Marbrook, once told me a personal story. Years ago when he was a journalist working in Washington DC, he got very depressed and nothing, not booze or drugs would do the trick. At lunch, he started to go to the National Gallery of Art. There he saw paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot…
… When The Beloved Community by Patricia Spears Jones was published by Coffee House Press last year, I bought the book immediately, but put off reading the poems until after my cataract surgery which was scheduled for the spring. My vision was getting so bad that life was becoming a blur including the words, and…
… I recorded Dennis Cooper on my iPhone at the Poetry Project reading last week. I am not technical so the heads of the audience are seen with clarity while Dennis, who is off in the distance, is a bit of a blur though his voice is loud and clear. Being a little blurry and…
When I heard that Joan Larkin had a new book of poems coming out, I asked her if she would come over to my place so I could record her reading from it. Although she lives in New Jersey, she is often in the city, and among her many admirable traits, she is a…
Larry Fagin, John Godfrey, and Ken Angel Davis in an eternal momentary triumphant triumvirate of art and poetry. Enjoy. .. … John Godfrey at KGB 11/21/16 … …
When I read Steve Turtell’s poems, I enjoyed them so much I asked Steve to come over so I could record him reading some. He brought Heroes and Householders and read from that book. Steve is a poet and a cook. Baudelaire says that poetry and cooking are the highest art forms because each…
…. Some poets spend time with the language and know its foundations, its rhythms and its gifts of color and sense, and in the act of writing a poem, like a stone mason who works each stone, put words where they belong, a sculpted whole that can endure the blowing winds of fads and time….
Ken Angel Davis likes to make art out of a poet’s poem. He did this with Anne Waldman, a short poem that you will hear with delight below. Ken did it and it happened. Enjoy. You can check out Ken Angel Davis’s YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ken+angel+davis …
… I read Tess Taylor’s Work & Days on a subway ride from Manhattan to Brooklyn. There was a delay, but I wasn’t in a hurry, and actually welcomed the time to finish the book because the quality and rhythm of the poems drew me along as naturally as a minute becomes an hour and…
… For a long time I wanted to record Scott Hightower reading from his newest book, Imperative to Spare. I’d heard Scott read elegies written for his partner of forty years, Dr. José Fernandez, who collapsed and died in his arms on the sidewalk right outside their home on the way to work on a…
… It was a treat making it over to Poets House to hear Molly Peacock read from A Friend Sails in on a Poem, a collection of essays and poems about her friendship with fellow poet Phillis Levin. For anyone who likes essays with poems in them, A Friend Sails in on a Poem is…
