Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Having a boyfriend is not good for blogging. But a blog cannot hug you at night. Last night, Bob Heman's 12th Big Clwn Wr Event took place in the Community Room of the Westbeth housing for artists, in the far west of the Village. A number of Pink Pony regulars or ex-regulars read, but also a couple of exciting discoveries. Adriana Scorpino had a strong long poem about the Williamsburg Bridge that spiritualizes it far more convincingly than Hart Crane did with the Brooklyn one. Liza Wolsky read a terrific poem about her father trying to revive a drowned man. George Spencer read sexy poems sauced with learned references. Thomas Fucaloro is getting better and better: he read a very funny poem about a TV nature show that mounted a camera on a lizard. Judy Kamilhor entertained with her short pieces inspired by haiku and senryu. I read two poems from Equal to the Earth , a poem by Bob Hart ("From a Winslow Homer Painting"), and a poem from my next book Seven Studies for a S...

Two women whom I always enjoy hearing at NYC readings have recently published chapbooks. Elizabeth Harrington's The Quick and the Dead  (Grayson Books) is a suite of poems about an intestine transplant that saved her life. Let Me Be Like Glass (Exot Books), by Adriana Scopino, takes the poet's very young children as its primary preoccupation. The subjects of both books are liable to receive mawkish treatment. What fascinates me is not how both poets avoid this pitfall, but how they skirt round its edge, and maintain a hair-raising balance. They do so principally through their economy of words. Most of the poems are shortish. The longer poems, significantly, are less successful than the short ones. Within the chosen limits, the words feel essential. These poets are not loquacious. They speak because they have to, at least that is the impression the poems give. But they sound different in their few words, Harrington authoritative, wry and sexy, Scopino, hesitant, marveling and...

It was a wonderful evening that, as Nemo put it, focused on the right thing, the work itself. Bob's book Lightly in the Good of Day collects poems written over the course of a decade. They are about family and friends--real and imaginary--nature, art and the trying conditions of existence. The turnout at Cornelia Street Cafe was strong. There was only standing room when the open-mic began. Valerie Mendelson, the painter of the landscape that appears on the book cover, came with her husband, JF. For the feature, the readers, Jane Ormerod, Adriana Scorpino, R. Nemo Hill, and Thomas Fucaloro, chose poems from the book that matched perfectly their very different reading styles. Jane read "In That Petal Flesh," Adriana read "Going Inside--Especially To Feel," Nemo read "Man, Can They," "Inside Your Expensive Watch"and "After Such Fall", and Thomas read "Take This Rose." The No Chance Ensemble, consisting of vocalists Bruce a...