Friesan on cello. Whales, chipmunks, Church Rhythms.
Haba: Not like previous programs; each poet to read one poem by themselves and another by another. "I constrained each poet to five minutes, insofar as you can constrain poets."
Peter Cole.
Andalusia. Primordial->nothing.
Coleman Barks.
"Poet and president," When Whitman and Lincoln met?
Grief and future, no news here.
Li-Young Lee.
Frost's "Directive," from memory, by God! Rachel Hadas introduced me to that poem. "Words for worry," about being a father. Went overtime, as this afternoon. What can you expect from someone with the sense of time he has? Two years ago, I believe he described the Chinese concept of time and the future, constantly moving backwards.
Brenda Hillman.
Her own: "Wind Treaties."
Alice Notley's "When I was alive."
Edward Hirsch.
His own "The widening sky," about walking off the boardwalk onto the beach and the widening sky.
Nazim Hikmet, "On Living."
Heather McHugh.
Dying words of Jude: “I fear my sentences are becoming grammatically incorrect.”
"Fast"
Emo Philips on dying: "I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, and not screaming, like his passengers."
Snippets from the Yarob people of Nigeria.
Taha Muhhammad Ali. (Peter Cole to translate.)
"Agha fights the superpower" A small portrait of just an ordinary Arab guy.
Then ibn Arras, 11th c? Four lines in Arabic, then Cole to do a larger section of the same poem in English.
R Bly
Yet another reason for me to avoid reading Robert Bly. This is not a poet of the first rank, but a cheerleader sloganeer. Iron John, indeed. Anti-war protest? Screw you. I came to hear poetics, not polemics.
His own, "The Russian."
14th c Sufi, I can't hear what he says...
Politics over poetry: some people here are just cheerleaders and politicians, rather than lovers of the word, the well turned phrase, and ideas. I wanted to walk over and slap each and everyone of those cheering against the war on the back of the head. If a poet deserves praise, it should be for the crafting of words, not the political position he or she holds.
It's amazing to me how many Americans hate America.
Lucille Clifton
Much as I respect her work with words, it was disgusting how she said that though the towers falling was upsetting to her, she could not understand why people thought that these things could not, should not happen. Of course it could happen, and not believing that was misguided and fatal. But. Is she implying that it should have happened? She's a poet, and should have more care for the implications of her words.
"I am changing one of the words in this poem, to make it more inclusive: 'God:'" Stafford, one of my favorites: ...and the darkness around us is deep.
Her own "Blessing the Boats"
It's good that they're going towards the Dylan Thomas model, allowing poets to read from other poets as well, or rather forcing them to.
Music by the Paul Winters Consort band.
Robert Hass
His own "Sunrise." always a lover of words.
Czeslaw Milosz, "Day at the end of the world." mispronounced name? isn't it chesh-waf mee-woss?.
Amiri Baraka.
Amina Baraka, "Hey there's pain" or "Hey there Spain" for Toni Morrison. One of the things that bothers me about the Barakas' poetry is they always end their lines with Latinate words "revolution" "imperialism" but I suppose that's an intended effect, these words are supposed to jar the ear.
"Mind of the president." childish, but funny.
Grace Paley. "Oh, my." How does one follow the irrepressible LeRoi Jones?
Yehuda Amicai, "An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mt. Sinai."
Her own poem was "Walking in the woods" I think. Introducing it: "I was supposed to write something about the future, but I don't seem to write about it much. I wonder why?" (An age joke.)
Robert Pinsky.
Cavafy. "Waiting for the Barbarians" of course, Cavafy was a Greek exile in Alexandria, as a result of the barbarians eventually did come and transform Constantinopolis, so the poem could be ironic as well. Though Rachel Hadas was my teacher, I must confess my knowledge of Cavafy is poor.
He read his own "Immature song" written this very afternoon. "Forgive my chutzpah."
Gerald Stern
Another of my favorites.From the introduction: "Remember that while there is no justice without love, there is no love without justice." Not much applause from the confused anti-War folk, who clapped for the first clause, but petered off for the second. Is he for them, or against? The best thing about a good poet is, you can't tell. "Short Words"
"I stole my book back from Edward Hirsch." Nazim Hikmet. "The Cucumber." From the introduction: "I hope that one day everyone in the middle east [where the cucumber is most eaten] will be united under the flag of the cucumber."
Rita Dove.
Her own "The Situation is Intolerable" about the Rosa Parks boycotts, one of a sequence of Rosa Parks poems.
A pantoum by Rebecca Watson, "What is your name?" A fourth grader did this? Some days it just doesn't pay to get up in the morning. This was nine years ago; RW will be someone to watch for in the near future, I'm sure.
Billy Collins.
He read his own "Dancing toward Bethlehem."
John Clare! "Invitation to Eternity." (Should I mention the ongoing copyright dispute? How the hell do you copyright a seventeenth century writer? One more reason for the pile on revising current copyright law.)
Adam Zagajewski.
"Houston 6 PM" "...Europe is sleeping... ...soon America will sleep..."
Czeslaw Milosz, "Ars Poetica?" "under unbearable duress...." get last line.
Stanley Kunitz.
A standing ovation of course. How can you not? This may be the fourth or fifth reading I went to of his. I went to his 90th birthday celebration at the 92d St Y some years ago, and of course as a co-founder of the GRD Poetry Fest, he comes to every one of these.
His first was Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Grandeur of God." He first came across it underfoot at the Harvard library where he was researching his thesis. He picked it up, and it was open to this poem. He was standing, but it rocked him.
"I hate the polluters of this world."
His own, "The Flight of Apollo," written in 1969 in the aftermath of the flight.
Thank God the organizers put the least overtly political poets toward the end. I was about to become sick in the first half. Cheerleaders behind me, cheerleaders ahead. If they wish to protest the war, let them go to Washington. Words for such people are a distraction.
After that program, Mark Doty and Marie Howe reading others' poetry, alternating, finishing each other's lines, with Paul Winter Consort playing. Mark Doty is much diminished this year. I hardly recognized him.
10:57:49 PM 
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