Song of a Reformed Headhunter

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...

Thomas Fucaloro read from his new book at Cornelia Street Cafe last evening. inheriting craziness is like a soft halo of light , published by Three Rooms Press, collects poems about family, love and the commercialization of modern life, and their persistent tone is comical self-deflation. The speaker in them almost always manages to be bathetic and pathetic at once. The main poetic strategy is one of juxtaposition, of different registers, images and situations. Thomas is a very likable reader, and his poems make plain their desperation to please. This desperation is a source of the poems' strength, but it is also a cause of their weakness. They are made to give a big pay-off only at the end, but occasionally the ending does not deliver. The last poem he read last night "Tom and Jerry" delivered in his quite inimitable manner. What seemed to be a poem about sexual appetite wound up to be a poem about self-division. It is refreshing to approach existential angst through t...

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...

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...