Or... How to attend 16 events at the Bowery Poetry Club and get a complete education in poetry
May Day! May Day! At the beginning of May, Friday night through Sunday we had a dream weekend at the Club: 16 events in two days and three nights! You could get a degree if you’d been there!
Friday opened with two young turks from Naropa, Gary Parrish and Tyler Burba, who’d been hanging at the Club the previous week, followed by Warhol superstar poet Taylor Mead (at 78 still the most avant garde poet in town), a Curbstone Press Party with devorah major and E. Ethelbert Miller, the jazz poetry stylings of Jay Clayton and her trio (all voices! Emily Dickinson’s words!), and closing the night, Amiri and Amina Baraka and Blue Ark. Saturday started with Ordinary Joe’s Open Mike (Respect the Mike!) at noon, Philip Schultz had a book party, Segue featured Deirdre Kovacs and Kamau Braithewaite, Long Shot Magazine celebrated its final Final Issue, Beat Bush! with editors Eliot Katz, Danny Katz and Nancy Mercado, and among the luminaries were Janine Pommy Vega, Bob Rosenthal, Liza Jessie Peterson, Andy Clausen, Donald Lev and then Americana slide show poet (you play guitar, he plays slides) had a performance and party. Joel Forrester’s jazz quartet opened Sunday, 4 Way Books brought us Susan Browne, Tina Chang, Ed Hirsch, Ira Sadoff, then punk language poet Ian Dreiblatt read “Wine Tastes Like Gasoline” with Danielle Stech-Homsy and Robyn Carliss, NYU’s MFA Program gave its monthly wonderful reading, 7 Stories Press had an amazing discussion of screenwriting with publisher Dan Simon and authors Richard Price and Barry Gifford, and we closed with Johnny O’s Open Mike featuring the cast of Off Broadway’s De La Guarda, which ended at midnight Sunday.
How about we take a closer look at seven poets? E. Ethelbert Miller, devorah major, Amiri Baraka, Kamau Brathwaite, Tuli Kupferberg, Ed Hirsch, Richard Price. You could start your study right there! Read these writers and you’ll have waltzed with some exciting partners, and staked a great view of the American Poetic Landscape.
