Anne Waldman read first, several poems from Marriage: A Sentence and from a book I gather is forthcoming, entitled Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble, and which grew out of a visit to an old Buddhist temple in Java. Anne was definitely an "acting" poet; lively, emotional, she acted out the poems instead of merely reading them. So I guess it was appropriate that in addition to spotlights, the Housing Works people provided a footlight. (Actually, that was a little odd; uplighting the poets gave them a bit of the aspect of camp counselors holding flashlights to their chins as they try to scare the dickens out of you.) Probably the best received of Anne's poems was "Stereo," from the Marriage series, and which involves repetitions of words, as though you were hearing them through a distant and tinny loudspeaker. Funny, perceptive.
Ann Lauterbach read next, and was careful with her voice, as she's got a cold. She wished the audience a happy national poetry month, which was greeted with a dull and unenthusiastic cheer not unlike that given when it is announced that "they were forced to eat Sir Robyn's minstrels." I really enjoyed hearing her poetry out loud; on paper I've had trouble getting into it, but hearing her read I found it easier to follow...got one line down -- "tiem to rinse the dim effects of dream . . . and drink the apparition."
John Yau finished up. He has monotone poet voice. In addition, his voice is kind of low and gravelly, which unfortunately, had the effect of making me very sleepy. I didn't really wake up until his final poem, which was really wonderful. He said he wrote it after wondering what would happen in his daughter's life after he was, well, dead. The poem involved empresses, aliens, and gorgeous ophthamalogists. I wonder if having such a wonderful poem about you sets up a kind of unmeetable expectation, though. Your life has been mythologized in advance of its actual happening.
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