Song of a Reformed Headhunter

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...

Betsy's new book , winner of the 2010 Grayson Books Chapbook Competition, is about how she was saved by an intestine donation from a 13-year-old boy from Minnesota. After hearing her read from the book at Cornelia Street Cafe last Friday, the audience responded with full-hearted applause. A number gave her a standing ovation. EN put it well, the reading was full of life and full of poetry.

Elizabeth Harrington asked Jackie Sheeler and me to read with her last night, and the reading at Cornelia Street Cafe was seamed with gold. Without prior consultation, all three of us read poems about family. Perhaps with Thanksgiving in our minds, we read about childhood, sickness, loneliness and loss. Jackie's poems deployed detail and imagery in a most telling way. Her assured performance elicited every response from the audience the poems aimed for. Betsy's reading voice was quieter, and perhaps more hesitant, but her poems came out of the deep pit of self. I read mostly new poems, about my grandfather, my father and TH, and did not quite find my groove. Afterwards EN pointed out perceptively why. I was influenced by Jackie's accomplished reading, and so semi-consciously tried to read like her to get the same audience response she did, although my poems are built differently. EN and I thought it was my competitive streak showing up again. But this morning I think it h...