Reportage

Some of you may have noticed a retardation of the once rapid rate of reading reportage here at the blog formerly and still sometimes known as Brand New Insects. There are several reasons for this, one being I have been too busy to go to many lately, another being the summer season is traditionally slight for such events, and another being an uncomfortable scrutinizing of reported events, the fishbowl or big picture window effect.

So I was gonna report on the Tarpaulin Sky reading I saw last weekend but then didn't. I was gonna say how I enjoyed all of the readers, particularly the amazing Mrs. Staples who read a poem with an epigraph from one of my poems and what a blush-pooling-in-the-dimples wonderful surprise that was and Michael Gottlieb's long catalog-copy list poem re: September 11, 2001 which took a thread of American consumerism and teased it into an actual emotional tangle. It was an object object object chant until some human beings human being human beings got collated in toward the end. I was choked up by catalog copy! The kind I write everyday!

I was not going to report on the reading last night since everybody knows who was there and nothing "off-book" happened but might as well. Everybody read the one poem in the volume except Ashbery who read his contribution as well as one new unpublished poem that I think I would have enjoyed had I not been busy thinking "I'm next I'm next I'm next." It was a lovely evening, despite an attack of nerves. Apparently the larger the group of poets the more panicky I feel and this is perhaps, in addition to the availability of social lubricants on tap, why I prefer venues like Pete's or the Four-Faced Liar. Still, a wonderful occasion, very ceremonious if somewhat chilly and luckily I had Jason Schneiderman (and his poem "Moscow") to snuggle and Paul Muldoon could read the telephone book and make it sound like a best American poem. He read Donald JUSTICE's weird little poem and it's a weird little poem. Edward Field's poem about his prostate brought down the house. The audience totally loved Stacey Harwood's poem "Contributor Notes" and told her so. Susan Wheeler impersonated her mother. Speaking of mothers, Vicki Hudspith, reading her poem "Ants," looked like a younger version of mine who is gorgeous and that's a frivolous thing to say, but I can't help remarking. Matthew Yeager's poem about a very large ball of foil was terrific and my nonpoet sister's favorite. I could only see the top of Marilyn Hacker's glasses over the podium from where I was sitting in the front row. A small personal posse went with me out for Mexican after skipping further officiousness. I regret not getting my book signed by everyone but there's only so much a girl can manage while doing her best not to pass out or slip on her new heels (like she did outside of the 4th floor restroom) in front of American Poetry. Jennifer Michael Hecht is glowing, so you know what that means, and she said she knows Anthony Bourdain, another of my chef crushes so he knows I gotta thing for him because I admitted it in my backofbook note.

And also I went to see the Million Poems show this week, but you should read Drew's report. Drew left out that we had planned in advance to go all Jerry Springer and I was supposed to cry on cue and maybe throw a chair. I thought Jordan's tale of circling round and round Ithaca but being unable to reach it was quite simply mythological. Oh, and my curse word was "c*ntweeds" but that's not actually my favorite. That's a secret. [expurgated]'s was "d*uchebag." Somebody wrote "pigf*cker" and another person wrote "c*oter" which Jordan didn't seem to know was the same as "p*ssy"--I think it must be regional, I have only heard one other person say this. One of Anselm's onthespot lines was something like "I was so upset by having to write a line containing the word 'c*nt'...[long pause]...that I thought of [expurgated]." And I have to agree about Leslie Mendelson and wonder why I didn't buy her CD and spend all night reminiscing about the old days in my room singing along to Olivia Newton John whom I then wanted to grow up to be so much that I saw Grease 14 times.