Poetry at 100: An Anniversary Reading - Live Webcast
Watch live online tonight at 8:15 pm ET as Poetry magazine celebrates its centenary with readings from The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years by Frank Bidart, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Don Share, Atsuro Riley, Christian Wiman and Charles Wright at 92Y.
If you’re in New York and want to attend, there are still some tickets available.
Rita Dove: On the Bus with Rosa Parks | 92Y Readings
“So what if we were born up a creek and knocked flat with the paddle, if we ain’t got a pot to piss in and nowhere to put it if we did? Our situation is intolerable, but what’s worse is to sit here and do nothing. O yes. O mercy on our souls.”
Those are the words of the silver-tongued poet Rita Dove, who visited the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center in May, 1999 to read from her collection On the Bus with Rosa Parks. The passage comes from a poem titled “Our Situation is Intolerable” – and it’s one of a few that Dove read that night at 92Y.
In observance of Black History Month, we’d like to share with our readers the chance to hear not only the beautiful words of Rita Dove, but also recordings of readings by other great black writers. Those readings – including James Earl Jones (reading the poetry of Walt Whitman), Chinua Achebe, Jamaica Kincaid, Derek Walcott, Lucille Clifton, Terrance Hayes and Yusef Komunyakaa – can be found at 92Y Poetry Center’s Virtual Poetry Center.
“To look for originality at all costs is a modern condition. In our time, the writer wants to call attention to himself, and this superficial preoccupation takes on fetishistic characteristics. Each person tries to find a road whereby he will stand out, neither for profundity nor for discovery, but for the imposition of a special diversity. The most original artist will change phases in accord with the time, the epoch.”
—Pablo Neruda, The Art of Poetry No. 14
From the Poetry Center Archive: Kay Ryan reads from her sixth collection of poetry, The Niagara River, at 92nd Street Y on November 13, 2006
“When I read my poems to any audience there’s a lot of laughing, but I always warn them that it’s a fairy gift and will turn scary when they get it home.” –Kay Ryan in The Paris Review
Come see for yourself this Monday night when she returns to 92Y. Tickets are just $10 for anyone 35 and younger.
In 2012, the United States Postal Service will honor ten poets with their very own Forever Stamp: Elizabeth Bishop, Joseph Brodsky, Gwendolyn Brooks, E. E. Cummings, Robert Hayden, Denise Levertov, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.
We’re doubly excited about this because Joseph Brodsky’s photograph was taken by the Unterberg Poetry Center’s official photographer, Nancy Crampton! Read more about this Forever Stamp series on Beyond the Perf.
Over on the USPS Facebook page, they are encouraging fans to share a favorite poem from one of the poets.
And the 92Y Poetry Season kicks off it’s 73rd season on September 26 with Seamus Heaney.
Are you 35 and under? Seamus Heaney and many other events at 92Y are available to you for just $10.
Summer Wanes And Blackberries Ripen
Nothing symbolizes the beauty of a long, hard-earned summer like a ripened blackberry. And no poet has written about this delicious fruit as eloquently as Seamus Heaney – who kicks off the Poetry Center’s 2011/12 season on September 26.
So, to summer’s end, and to the start of 92Y’s literary season, we give you Seamus Heaney reading “Blackberry Picking”.
And by the way, if you know where to look in New York City, you can find some blackberries on your travels.
