Don Yorty

Sonnet 193: rocks and friends

… Like all of human kind the rocks along The narrow beach are all somewhat alike Yet each entirely different. We Pick them up, Honey and I, searching for The ones we want, the ones that touch us. They Are … Continue reading →

Lydia Cortés reads from Whose Place

11 Aug ’17

… Lydia Cortés was a Nuyorican poet before there was a word for it. She and her peers defined and were the definition. Everyone has a mother tongue. Often our mothers teach it to us, what we know of pride … Continue reading →

Kazumi Chin @ Bryant Park, July 25, 2017

3 Aug ’17

… I went to Bryant Park to hear some poets read one evening last week and was happily surprised by a poet I didn’t know from San Francisco, Kazumi Chin, reading from his new book, Having A Coke With Godzilla, … Continue reading →

John Ashbery reads @ NY Public Library, 9/19/13

28 Jul ’17

… On Thursday evening I decided at the last minute to go see John Ashbery at the Public Library on 5th Avenue where the lions stand guard. There was a long line to get in, but once inside I made … Continue reading →

Joel Allegretti does poems from Platypus

28 Jul ’17

… I sometimes think of Joel Allegretti as part Jersey boy and part Pop artist rolled into what he is, a poet. He came over to my place last week to read from Platypus, his new book published by NYQ … Continue reading →

Zack Haber reads from Horrible Places

26 Jul ’17

… Zack Haber is a poet who lives in Oakland. Over the summer he has been making his way across the USA. He stops at places he loves like Chicago and New York. And sometimes he stops at places he … Continue reading →

Simon Pettet reads from As a Bee

25 Jul ’17

… Simon Pettet came over to my place on the hottest day last week, one of those NY muggy days in the 90s, sweat in your eyes and crevices, a mopping of the brow and swallowing drinks of cold water … Continue reading →

The Note by the Door

17 Jul ’17

… About a year ago Akram wrote something on a sticky note pad and stuck it by the door, the last thing he looked at before he went out. He was working at a clinic at the time and left … Continue reading →

Smell Bad Tofu

13 Jul ’17

… I am going to include an entry from a journal I kept in Wuhan in 2006 about eating Smell Bad Tofu for the first time. This entry was one of the first on my blog when I began it … Continue reading →

The Reverend Billy Choir in La Plaza do The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

10 Jul ’17

… Yesterday, Sunday, July 9, 2017 folks gathered at La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez at 9th Street and Avenue C in NYC to say goodbye to the weeping willow tree that was planted by Latino youths in the mid-seventies … Continue reading →

Les Chercheuses de Poux par Arthur Rimbaud

9 Jul ’17

… My favorite poem by Rimbaud is innocent and sensual; and there are those who would call it repulsive. It’s all about a boy’s sexual awakening. The boy has run away from home and is now dirty but found by … Continue reading →

Vincent Katz reads from Southness

30 Jun ’17

… I was immediately drawn to Vincent Katz’s new book of poems, Southness, by the beauty of its cover, which comes from a painting by the artist Etel Adnan from a work called Untitled, 2014. Southness reminds me of paintings. … Continue reading →