Into the city and the first reading there since 2007. No nerves, this is Brooklyn. A day or two to settle. Strung on little sleep but feeling good. My friends started rolling in the door while I sat with the other readers eating a hearty (and free) meal in back of the restaurant. MP the painter, Frances the poet and art critic, Karl the source, Jen the dancer, Todd the poet and runner, Regis the travel writer, Chris and Mary the engaged poets...
Carley read first and started with some new work she was unsure about. Then into poems about raising a daughter. Sex education. Wry.
I followed, reading a bit short, but feeling comfortable and feeling like the whole thing came off. I mentioned the Tibor de Nagy show I had seen earlier in the day, which raised a chorus of "ooh, yeaaah"s from those who had seen it. Quoted O'Hara writing to Larry Rivers about art as theft.
Tracy wrapped up the night reading from her forthcoming book "Life on Mars" - where the poems ranged from her father's work on the Hubble telescope project to the dark sides of human nature we see in today's media (think: that guy in Austria who kept his daughter and their offspring in the basement). Super tight work.
Afterward we hung around until midnight, then Chris and I headed back to his place to sip whiskey and talk a mile a minute and listen to Ian Svenonious records until after three. I slept in my clothes, then rose to take a train out to Long Island to have a three hour long lunch with Carlen.
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