Poetry

"When the Towers Fell,"* by Galway Kinnell.

On the closing day of PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, I had front row seats to listen to two giants of the literary world, Harold Bloom and Wole Soyinka. Both events took place in the exquisite Beaux-Arts Celeste Bartos Forum at that temple of the book, the New York Public Library. First up, From Anxiety to the Anatomy of Influence, where Paul Holdengräber picked the octogenarian mind of the often controversial Harold Bloom.

Short of traveling the world, the best way to learn about other people and cultures is through literature. Yes, yes, yes… the news, nonfiction, movies, and other media are fine conduits for showing us glimpses into the lives of others. But nothing delves into the essential psychology of people like literature does. Nothing can get into the hearts and minds of the beautiful and dastardly people of this world like good fiction. Literature allows the time and space necessary to really mine a person’s psyche, the context of a situation, and the dreams and nightmares of people and places so far… far… away.  

In this interview with activist poet Steve Bloom, we discuss the role of the arts and poetry in social justice movements, the trouble with bringing art and culture to the Left, and the issues with bringing poetry to the masses in the United States. Bloom ends the interview with a reading of his poem, "April 10, 2006: New York City."

A year of big change! That’s all I’m going to write this time around. Enjoy the video!

Saturday's poetry event co-sponsored by PEN and the Poetry Society, the oldest poetry organization in America, showcased five poets from four continents reading selections of their poetry to a small crowd in the intimate Grand Gallery of the National Arts Club near Grammercy Park in Manhattan. Of little to note other than the poetry itself, I have included some poems from each author in the order that they presented their works during the course of the night. Have a read and click on their names under the "panelist's bio" section to read more from each of these amazing authors. 

Somewhere I had read (or at least I think I had read) that Neruda preferred that his poetry be read aloud. And why not? Poets throughout time, from Homer to Emerson, wrote poetry to be read to an audience, and for the audience to read out loud in the quiet of their homes or in lonely moments in nature. Previously I have read Neruda’s Selected Poems aloud, as well as collections by Gary Snyder, A.E. Housman, Allen Ginsberg, some ancient Greeks, and the poems occasioned upon in places like The New Yorker, World Literature Today, and other periodicals. There’s just something about forcing the words (and their underlying rhythms) into the vacant air.