Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Watched Stranger by the Lake at Ty and Di's house last weekend. Good movie directed by Alain Guiraudie. Also enjoyed Argo , directed by Ben Affleck, though I couldn't see why it should win the Oscar, as so many wanted it to. It's just a well-made movie, not that special. Last night, after dinner with Tim, I watched X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Bryan Singer directed. Sexy scene with Hugh Jackman buck naked but he seemed strangely beside the point in a plot that really revolved around Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and her paramours Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (a very hot Michael Fassbender). Even minor characters such as Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Major Bill Stryker (Josh Helman) were more interesting. from Panama the first hummingbirds schoolchildren at a waterfall

Heard István Várdai play Bach's Cello Suites 1, 5 and 6 last night at Armory Park Avenue. Impeccable technique and dynamic shading. I thought that he lost the plot in some middle sections of all the suites. Suite 5 was especially moving. The experimental Sarabande--I want to hear it again. The performance took place in the recently refurbished Board of Officers Room. A stunning salon. Wine was served during intermission. The ticket cost only $25. A steal. damp clothes in a crowded bus late spring

in the sky a small plane leaves a trail of crumbs

John Marcus Powell launched his book Glorious Babe at Suite Bar last Sunday afternoon. Published by Nemo R. Hill's Exot Books, and designed and illustrated by Julio, the book was celebrated with the artistic respect and warm affection that John Marcus has garnered in years of reading poetry around New York City. Hosted by Cordis Heard and John Foy, the launch was the last installment of the Red Harlem Readers series this season. Nemo led off the reading, followed by Thomas Fucaloro, me, and David Yezzi. As Nemo observed, all of us read a little like John Marcus, so powerful was the influence of the man's voice on us. The original came on stage and read for a most entertaining half-hour. * I started posting the first two lines of a haiku on Facebook, and invited other people to complete it. The results were certainly interesting. a tiny leaf drops into my cup of tea Gwee Li Sui provided the humorous "I ask for refund"; Eric Norris the witty "like Basho...

Dorothy Wang invited, and we attended, a reading by John Tipton, Mary Margaret Sloan, and Michael Autrey at at Berl's Poetry Shop in Dumbo last night. Tipton read from his forthcoming book Paramnesia and his translation of Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes . The poetry of Sloan, a friend of Dorothy's, was more experimental. Autrey read from his book Our Fear . The rumbling of trains over the Manhattan Bridge made it quite difficult to hear the readers, especially since the men insisted on not using the mic. Before the reading, Dorothy and I had dinner at Almar, an Italian place just a block away from Berl's. We had a lively discussion, as usual, about poetry, politics, and friendships. divided on race while sharing a side of broccoli rabe

fallen clumps of shriveled blossoms Nabokov's brown wigs for Eric

hold your breath on a dandelion stalk full moon

spring morning one suit says to another be good

The Downtown Fair was better than I had expected. I especially liked the paintings of Sheba Sharrow, and the photographs of Eric Forstmann and Julie Blackmon. Too many boring color field paintings and pop nothings. a sandpiper miles from the ocean or a sparrow?

Jeremy Tiang hosted the third edition of the Second Saturdays reading series. Joseph Legaspi read as the feature. It was good to hear new and familiar voices reading their work: poetry, the opening of a novel, an academic treatise on the performing arts in Singapore, and the dramatization of a scene from local play. As before, the evening energized me for the work of writing and organizing. behind the blinds ruled like foolscap a crow calls

thank you, rain for calming down the dust

late spring outside reverse fold of early fall

sidewalk wet with hose down of dog shit

Heard Philip Lopate and Patricia Hampl read their essays at an ALSCW salon on Monday. The essays were about many things, and one of the things was about the writing of an essay. In reflecting on writing, both essayists traced their inspiration back to Montaigne. I particularly enjoyed hearing Lopate, whose writing was suffused with irony directed at himself. A modest life modestly lived. The essay will never attain the prestige accorded to the novel and to poetry. It is capable of great beauty and even profundity, but it is not as various as the novel nor as sublime as poetry. early morning smell of diesel in the garden

the spring sun is covered over curfew in effect

I met Henry Abelove at Dorothy Wang's book party, and was introduced to his book of essays called Deep Gossip . The title is taken from Allen Ginsberg's elegy for Frank O' Hara. After describing O'Hara as a "Curator of funny emotions," Ginsberg praises him for his ear "for our deep gossip."  The essays are as engrossing as gossip, an apt compliment if we think of gossip as the sharing of information between disempowered people. In these essays, Abelove  performs careful and gracious corrections to what has been underestimated, overlooked and sidelined.  Like many gay men, I have read Freud's letter to the American mother, but had not realized that it was his last riposte to the moralism of American psychoanalysts. In the next essay, the suggestion that other sexual practices besides "intercourse so-called" have been redefined as foreplay in the late eighteenth century is brilliant.  Since I am not a fan of marriage, Abelove's read...

thumbs up for the spring moon undamaged headlight

black the tarmac the rain glosses over

last cherry blossoms the tentative steps of old women

black blossoms racing down the rain waters