Equanimity

 
             

   
 
 

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

 
Nick and Alex's series continues to be serious. F'rinstance, Matt got a rise out of everybody with the title (I am getting it wrong) "Let's Record this Song Then Kill Ourselves," which he mentioned was the line of his [name redacted] singled out for praise one semester in Arkansas. (I rather liked [name redacted] poem in the NYer this double/week, but I'm already on the record as a fan.) Looking forward to seeing some of the Burning Chair readings -- the Winters on Aug 28, Ange and Valzhyna Mort on Sept 25. Disappointed to have missed Josh's reading the other day, my Sundays are erratic.


David's set was spectacular. I loved the mordant counterpoint of the books from To an Idea through After a Lost Original; although (I think) A Burning Interior included poems composed alongside those earlier books, it feels to me like a change of direction toward a lusher version of the maximalism he's been talking about since I've known him. He read several pieces from After, the Tsibi Geva catalogue published by Annina Nosei, yes those are old pieces, and he also read several newer poems. I remembered too late to remind the hosts to request a cd copy of the reading, wouldn't you buy a bootleg of David performing on the eve of his 35th anniversary, just returned from China, shrugging off the unpleasant pettiness of certain minor anthologists, improvising cadenzas and reciting lost love poems from memory? I would. I would put it on my iPod and put down the Nation, the TLS, the New Yorker, and play it until these poems are as familiar to me as "In mud and slush the microphones picked up" or "eating bread, not electrons / Madly in love with the earth."

When David growled "Well..." Tim and I jumped.

Jordan - #

 

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I'm Jordan Davis.
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Say hi: jordan [at] jordandavis [dot] com.

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