son of a pony
Last night I went to a live reading, the “son of a pony” open mike, at Cornelia Street Café. A few highlights:
- Many poems about Hurricane Sandy.
- Heard an echo of Emily Dickinson in a long poem, with much repetition and off-kilter rhymes. I didn’t catch the name of this poet, but his reading was mesmerizing.
- Remembered how much I enjoy surrealism. The transparent tigers and mushrooms under the pillow of Valery Oisteanu. The Frenchman who threw himself into the Seine, then composed poetic observations as he floated down river.
- Piano accompaniment for Oisteanu’s reading. It really adds a lot. This is known as “jazzoetry.”
- A woman read about her father’s death. It suddenly occurred to me that I could try to memorialize the fathers who have left, or are soon to leave: John, Tom, Angelo.
- Noticed a woman who I later found out was Yuko Otomo. She didn’t read though. Came late, left early.