Category Archives: American Poets

Elaine Sexton reads from Drive

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 … Continue reading →

Maya Angelou reads “Still I Rise,” “No No No No,” and “On the Pulse of Morning”

28 Feb ’22

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 … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Bishop’s Sandpiper

8 Feb ’22

Sandpiper The roaring alongside he takes for granted,and that every so often the world is bound to shake.He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake. The beach hisses like … Continue reading →

Two Elegies by Scott Hightower

24 Jan ’22

Last year on January 30th, my friend Dr. José Fernandez died of a heart attack on his way to work at a nearby hospital. He collapsed on the sidewalk in front of his home. It was an unbelievable shock. … 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 →

Melinda Wilson reads at KGB

9 Nov ’21

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 … Continue reading →

Terence Degnan reads from I Can Wonder Anything

14 Sep ’21

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 … Continue reading →

Lamont Steptoe reads Etheridge Knight

21 Jun ’21

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 … Continue reading →