This was my first outdoor poetry reading. It was a very pleasant evening with some uncharacteristic clouds. Uncharacteristic as in there were clouds in the sky. They usually just roll away off the the mountains and reappear on the plains.
I read some David Ignatow, Robert Bly, and then two of mine. In Robert Bly’s magazine The Sixties, Issue Ten, a review of David Ignatow begins:
We expect a poet to take pleasure with his words, as he would with his own hands and body. His body shapes the words, until the style of his poem has become the style of the pleasure he takes with himself. David Ignatow takes few pleasures with himself. His poems describe a world of unresponsive faces and emotions. In place of people, guilt; in a place of light, brick tenements, and a a wall. Ignatow hammers against the wall flatly, undramatically. Yet he carries odd shaped stones out of his inner life, and piles them in place. The wall has no style, and the poet hates it. But he takes an odd comfort in knowing it is there. As Kierkegaard noted in his Journal: how much better it is to stand at the foot of a wall, devising strategies, even hopeless ones, to overcome it, than to wrestle with the pale phantoms drawn out of one’s own sleepless disposition.
The review continues for 14 pages. It was published by Crunk. And the contributors at the back note the following: Crunk this time is a guest crunk. Which I guess is an invited author with a pen name that’s not Robert Bly nor William Duffy.
The two of mine I read were:
I realized after today this is the third day out of four with live poetry performances. Friday’s Poetry on Tape, Saturday for the concert and now this. That feels like a lot.
By the way, most of the musicians do three songs in a 15-minute set. Two originals and one cover so I think that’s a good ratio to keep with the poetry. Although this time maybe I was slightly over on my “covers.”
But it’s so nice to read other people’s poems. I had someone come up to me afterwards who excitedly told me he was also a Robert Bly fan. Then I sat next to an author who is not yet on substack, but I hope he shows up in the near future.
I keep wondering if I will have enough material to keep going back. The musicians, for example, have all of their music memorized so I feel cheating a bit reading. But it really is so fun and I haven’t yet been booed of the stage :)
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