Free Cell

Years ago I had the pleasure of hearing Anselm Berrigan read from a wonderful long poem, "Have a Good One", at the Poetry Project. Since then, at so many random regular moments, when I hear myself saying "have a good one" to someone, I hear echos of that poem. So even though it took me over five years to finally sit down and read it, I feel like it's been a part of my quotidian life all this time, in a way that I thoroughly enjoy.

Free Cell contains three poems: "Have a Good One"; "Let Us Sample Protection Together"; and "To Hell With Sleep". The first and third poems are long, and the central poem is a sturdy two pages.

The book works marvelously as whole. I was mesmerized throughout "Have a Good One", drawn in and out through the writer's perceptions, images, declarative statements, and play with language. Humor woven through the whole, wry and quiet and smart.

Like I said, the phrase that the poem hinges on is such a familiar and regular utterance. Seeing it beginning each section, had a strange effect, as if I were walking through the poem and greeting each section as it began. This poem, and "To Hell with Sleep" are beautifully arranged on the page in non-traditional forms. My favorite sequences were those that began to the right and slanted down left. This did two things: something about it was vaguely trance-engaging, as the downward motion seemed accentuated; and something about it was jarring and disruptive, as the eye has to move counter to reading habit. The length of the poem is just perfect, the roaming quality, and the soft release at the end.

There are so many segments I want to share here, but most of my favorites are on the page in a way that I know this blog won't capture, so here's one that I particularly like and is all left justified:

Have a Good One

They went for it is not
the droid I'm looking to

for convivial disengagement
from soul. For that I've come

to your cadaver's waltz
of a special place for

lonely childhoods. I wasn't
lonely until just now, love

all around like an historical
landmark. They'll be

expansive, those original specs.
That rusted gate has to meet

its own dignitay. Get
as they say, your own.

Loneliness will merely gnaw
at our vocabulary.


The final poem, "To Hell with Sleep", has a veering, into and out of consciousness feel to it that also engages language through disruptions of expectations. Like "Have a Good One", it carries emotion and social observation within these lovely frames on the page.

The middle poem is really spectacular. I won't quote it in full, but it can be read here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/240736

I am looking forward to reading more Berrigan poetry books!

Without/Color (Part II)

I was able to catch the second part of Figureworks' exhibition Without/Color yesterday. The first part explored the absence of color in three artists' work. On view now features three different artists. In these pieces the figure bursts forth. The richness of color in the two rooms carries nuanced levels for experiencing color and the human form.

Fred Hatt's drawings place various figures against a black background. They are drawn in differently colored lines, and looking at them is a marvelously dizzying experience where you see one form enter the next. Adding to this effect are 3-D glasses for the viewer. This separates out the different colors on the already dynamic drawings -- pulling forward some and enhancing the layering.

Each room of the gallery includes an arresting sculpture by Howard Eisman. These two pieces are made of fused glass on hammered copper, and in each a figure appears suspended. These pieces have so much going on in terms of sheen and the delight that comes through the surface of the sculptures. The seafoamy blue/green background of one turns to a deep indigo surrounding the joyfully embellished female.

Arlene Morris' paintings are truly fascinating. The surreal juxtaposition of imagery -- interiors alive with wildlife, including a blanket of blue owl faces -- provide a new take on the portrait and still life. Kahlo and H. Rousseau come to mind. I could look at these singular worlds forever, as each painting contains many discoveries and secrets.

The explosion of color in all three artists' work is even more powerful in the context of the earlier part of the show -- the memory of Without is a lovely unseen backdrop for this art. This show is on view until March 15, 2015 at 168 North 6th Street in Williamsburg.

(Pictured top is a detail from one of Hatt's drawings; next a detail from Eisman; two details from Morris' paintings)

Don't Let Me Be Lonely

Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine is a beautiful reflection on mortality and subjectivity in the late post-modern contemporary age. It is a prose poem divided into segments which are separated by images, usually a TV screen filled with static. The static seems to represent the noise of the larger commercial world that we are continually bombarded with and through which and in spite of which we strive to find perspective.

The writer's voice is filled with a warm sadness; it creates a gentle intimacy with the reader. The writer's subject is condition of being a body in the social world. Don't Let Me Be Lonely contains both longing and acceptance, mourning and loss, and finding "in this life in this place indicating the presence of."

An excerpt:

"It occurs to me that forty could be half my life or it could be all my life. On the television I am told I don't want to look like I am forty. Forty means I might have seen something hard, something unpleasant, or something dead. I might have seen it and lived beyond it in time. Or I might have squinted my eyes too many times in order to see it, I might have turned my face to the sun in order to look away. I might actually have been alive. With injections of Botox, short for botulism toxin, it seems I can see or be seen without being seen; I can age without aging. I have the option of worrying without looking like I worry. Each day of this life I could bite or shake doubt as if to injure or kill without looking as if anything mattered to me. I could paralyze facial muscles that cause wrinkles. All those worry and frown lines would disappear. I could purchase paralysis. I could choose that. Eventually paralysis would sink in, become a deepening personality that need not, like Enron's 'distorting factors,' distort my appearance. I could be all that seems, or rather I could be all that I am -- fictional. Ultimately I could face reality undisturbed by my own mortality."

At This Moment

On view at the Shirely Fiterman Art Center at BMCC is a wonderful exhibition of faculty art, At This Moment. It features a range of styles and mediums and is a thoroughly dynamic and impressive show that includes numerous beautiful painting. The artists in the show are:
Marina Adams; Yevgeniya Baras; Aisha Tandiwe Bell; Tess Bilhartz; Robert Bunkin
Lynn Braswell; Simon Carr; Betty Copeland; Josephine Culkin; Tim D’Agostino; Elisa Decker; Donelle Estey; Eric Holzman; Ana Garces Kiley; Pat Genova; Xico Greenwald; Joseph Haske; Sarah Haviland; Ann Hjelle; Dikko Faust; Michael Leigh; Susan Leopold; Eva Machauf; Charles McGill; Crys Moore; Kazimira Rachfal; Thaddeus Radell; Jessica Ramirez; Judy Richardson; Owen Roberts; William Reed; Erik Saxon; Adele Shtern; Rachelle Street; Janet Esquirol Sylvan; AC Towery; Joan Thorne; Michael Volonakis; Phil Weisman; Amy Westpfahl; Nina S. Young.

The works I am posting here that I photographed during my visit to the gallery are "Chair Study: Presence or Absence" by Pat Genova which I thought was particularly evocative; a close up of Robert Bunkin's intense "Egyptian Head - Barnes"; a close up of the delicate and beautiful "sucede que mecanso de ser hombre" by Ana Garces Kiley; and the energetic and fun "Lamp" by Josephine Culkin.

It's definitely a great show!

The Overnighters

The Overnighters is an intricate documentary. It is a portrait of a unique man a local pastor (Reinke?) who helps home hundreds of job seekers in a small North Dakota town. At the same time it is an exploration of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness in the US today.

Unemployed job seekers from all over the country were drawn to the town in North Dakota because of its oil fracking business and the relatively high minimum wage of $15 an hour. Upon arriving many learn that there is no available housing because prices have risen so much. In response, a local pastor lets the men stay in his church, setting up cots and allowing people to sleep on the floor as well. He has house rules but he doesn't seem to turn anyone away -- even people with multiple felonies. The documentary follows several of these men over time.

The drama of The Overnighters centers on the parish and the town's reaction to these transients in their midst. The pastor wants people to feel religious sentiment towards those suffering and struggling to overcome obstacles, but they respond with hostility. The pastor's inner conflicts about his mission to help the overnighters and his obligation to to his parish and his family are delved into.

I found this documentary to be very engaging, painful, important, and dramatic (in spite of rather slow pacing). Searching for information about it online I saw it somewhere described as a "modern day Grapes of Wrath".

Poet in New York

Frederico Garcia Lorca's Poet in New York is a lush collection of poems written during a nine month period he spent in the city (1929-1930). These poems are so richly lyrical. It is like eating the most high quality dense chocolates. His imagery is classic and naturalistic, and his sentiment is poetic and aching. These are poems of sad lament. These are poems that cry out, that mostly wail, though at times they whisper.

His language is unforgettable. Some favorite lines:

"Prepare your skeleton.
Hurry, love, hurry, we've go to look
for our sleepless profile."

"and the Jew pushed against the gate chastely the way lettuce grows coldly from its center."

"The architecture of frost"

"This is not hell, but the street."

"Look at this sad fossil world"

"While the people look for pillowed silences
you will pulse forever, defined by your ring."

"It's a capsule of air where we suffer the whole world,
a tiny space alive in the crazy unison of light"

"What matters is this: emptied space. Lonely world. River's mouth."

I also want to share something from the beginning of the volume, a note Lorca wrote to a friend describing his own passport photo: "

"It borders on the light of murder; borders on the nocturnal street corner where the delicate pick-pocket stashes his wad of money. The whimsical lens has captured, over my shoulder, a sort of harp, soft as a jellyfish, and the whole atmosphere has a certain finite tic, like the ash of a cigarette..."

Peter Bruno and Joe Elliot at The Shed Space

I attended such a marvelous reading tonight at The Shed Space, a lovely, intimate art space in Park Slope.

Peter Bruno read several exquisitely crafted stories from the manuscript, Garibaldi Avenue, that focus on the youthful experiences of Salvatore in New Jersey during the 60s and 70s.  I know it is totally corny to say, but these stories are tender and tough. They are finely detailed vignettes that capture a lost time. For instance the closely observed description of the boy's mother applying heavy makeup -- a suburban mom envisioning herself in her own mirror as a glamorous movie star. There were so many very moving moments in these bittersweet, and beautifully written stories. I can't wait for the opportunity to read the whole thing.

(Also an aside: "house dresses"! Where did they come from and why? And where did they go? -- what a blast from the past!)

The second reader of the evening was the amazing Joe Elliot, a poet I have heard about for years but never had the pleasure of hearing his work. These poems totally rocked. They are wry and funny but also depict a kind of profound awareness of the daily absurdity of life. These poems have an exuberant energy that is uplifting at the same time that they convey heavier and difficult truths. I just ordered two of his poetry books.