Tonight’s high-spirited readings by poets Cecily Parks, Major Jackson, and Charles Bernstein capped off the 2008 Poets Forum, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. The New School provided the space, where we in the audience were pleasantly crowded together to hear these voices. And to nosh.
During the reception following I spoke with Taylor Mali about the poetry slam nationals, held this past august in Madison, and next year not-in-madison (Boo. Hiss). Taylor has been kind enough to send material for air on Wordsalad, but this is the first time we had met. He alerted me to upcoming performances in the Page Meets Stage series at the Bowery Poetry Club (Ross Gay vs. Jeanann Verlee; Aracelis Girmay vs. Christa Bell) .
Charles Bernstein channeled Lenny Bruce for a while tonight. I hadn’t seen this “in your face” aspect of his work before, and it was strong. Charles said he has plans for a new series of his excellent Close Listening show on Art Radio WPS1.
Heads up: Listen for work by Lee Ann Brown and David Henderson in upcoming Wordsalad shows.
