On February 21, to celebrate the publication of the Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, a tribute reading took place in the Graduate Center on Fifth Avenue. Tonya Foster began the evening by describing Clifton as a writer of intellect and intuition. Sidney Glaser went on to say how there was no canon of Clifton. Alicia Hall Moran, a classical singer of beauty and dramatic effect, began and ended the reading with sung versions of the poems, beginning with "Blessing the Boats" and ending with "The Lesson of the Falling Leaves."

I always sketch during poetry readings. It focuses my mind. The readers were excellent, the selections fitting for each individual voice. The hall was full of fans of Clifton. It was a glorious occasion.

Alicia Hall Moran

First Fridays: Poetry Reading at Narrowsburg Public Library

Taylor Mali

Marie Elizabeth Mali

Taylor Mali and Marie Elizabeth Mali performed at the Narrowsburg Public Library July 1.  It was a packed house.

They presented a well prepared set of poems beginning with a bilingual recitation (she recited the Spanish, he the English translation) of a love poem by Neruda which set the tone for what was to come.  Two people not only perform together, they live together, and love each other.  I have never seen anything like it before.  It was almost too good to be true:  two attractive, accomplished, funny and charming people who both write well and perform well together.

Taylor Mali is the more practiced performer, with his big voice and persona. He could command a stage as big as Yankee Stadium, so the small reading room in the Narrowsburg library was very cozy and intimate a stage for a poet whose poem about how to write a political poem begins "However it begins, it's gotta be loud."  His poems about teaching have inspired over 700 people to become teachers, and when he hears from 1,000 (hopefully by the end of August of this year), he will cut his hair and donate it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, a hair donation organization for women with cancer.  Even though he is best known for the poem, "What Teachers Make," he did not read it,  closing instead with "The The Impotence of Proofreading."  Marie Elizabeth Mali is no less accomplished a writer, but her subjects are more diverse and influenced by her background of Argentinian-Swedish family.

First there was the usual First Fridays open mike reading, with ten readers, closing with Vera Williams who recited her poem about how to make a peach sandwich.  Master of ceremonies was as always the charming Corinna, a teen, whose mother manages the programing at First Fridays.   Corinna recited one of her own poems, and then cheerleaded the rest of the readers.

Vera Williams

Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller

I got sucked into it willingly, this familiar Sue Miller terrain with its combination of realism, manipulation, and current events.  Once I was at page 100, I thought, why am I reading this soapy stuff, and then dashed through without coming up for air until I was done.

The thing about Sue Miller is that I sort of expect the worst for her characters. She has the ability to create  a feeling of suspense, as if something important is going to happen, just give it another five pages, and then the action I was expecting fails to occur.    I feel like a ninth grader unsatisfied with her ice cream choice.  Then why do I keep going?

I keep going because I am her audience. I am a middle aged, middle class, educated woman.  That is who Sue Miller writes for.  Her characters come from that class.  They are professors, doctors, architects, realtors.  They are in helping professions.  Some of them are teachers.  I recognize these people.  They are mostly married, and have sex in graphic detail.  One of the keys to happiness is orgasm.  You can tell how happy by how many orgasms the character has.

So there is this tie to the physical life of the characters in her narratives.  Lake Shore Limited is about a playwright whose live-in lover was killed in one of the planes on September 11.  Her new play touches on an act of terrorism that may have killed the wife of the main character while he is engaged in an affair and trying to break free of his wife.  When she is missing from the train that was blown up, he is at the brink of deciding whether to stay and play the dutiful bereaved widower or leave and begin his life with his new woman.

The book centers on the play and I thought why not just include the play in its entirety in the book, but the point of the book is to have each of the four main characters grasp the meaning of the play as it relates to their lives.

The structure of the book switches from each of the four characters at regular intervals. At one point, one of the characters says about another:  "Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier."  Exactly. Sometimes the characters seem awfully slow to catch on what is obvious to the reader. 

Still,  I have been mulling over this book, thinking about the dilemma of what your duty is to the dead who are killed in acts of terrorism.  It is a strange obligation that comes with the mourning of people instantly snatched up by the media and patriotism and other things unrelated to who the person was or what your relationship was with that person.   This is at heart a very thoughtful treatment of a new kind of subject.

Poetry Reading November 15

Went to a poetry reading in honor of Home Planet News
Donald Lev residing
summoning the spirit of his late great wife
Enid Dame

there was a water main break on Carmine Street
in front of the Greenwich Village Cafe
Flashing lights and jackhammers
People read regardless
an indomitable group of poets
shouting out their words
as the street caved in
and was opened up and scooped out
Waiters brought caskets of water in clear plastic
buckets for what? toilets to be flushed?
It wasn't clear
Every time the door opened
the noise increased tenfold
On this balmy November night
we closed up the windows tight
so that the words could be heard