It's LITQUAKE time people! LITQUAKE started the 5th of October and goes until the 13th, be sure and check out some of the events. Last night I attended North Atlantic Books’ tribute to the wonderful beat poet Lenore Kandel. I had such a wonderful time! First of all, there was no traffic! And so I've decided that Eventpocalypse was not as scary as we all thought it would be. I rode in with the wonderful Kat Engh, one of the organizers of the event. Everyone involved did such a tremendous job.
The evening began with some belly dancing, which always sets a fun mood. Then we heard from different writers. They read from the Collected Poems of Lenore Kandel, and some writers also read some of their own work as well. I'll get into the readers in a minute. Before that, I'd like to say how much I was in love with Lenore Kandel's poetry. I used to write a lot of bad poetry in high school, and there was a time that I read a lot of poetry as well. I haven't in a long time. I think it's hard to know who to read, and I'm (ever so slightly) busy these days and so reading poetry falls off my to do list. It's not a priority for me, and that might be changing after last night. I heard poetry written over 30 years ago, and it blew my mind how relatable and fresh her words sounded in this day in age. I love the way she described sex with so much detail (oh yeah, check out her first book of poetry The Love Book) and and it was never once gratuitous or cheap feeling. On the contrary, she made sex feel like a religious worship (which is what she thought it was) and that is beautifully reflected in her words. PS, her poems aren't all about sex, so even if you think sex is too taboo, buy her collected poems! You will not regret it.
Okay, now for the readers…. The event was hosted by Evan Karp who has an expansive knowledge of poetry, and is an all around cool guy. He's also founded Quiet Lighting, they do readings of new work (8 minutes max) in the city! And take blind submissions. Be sure and click on the link… http://quietlightning.org/, to find out more. Okay… There were six readers last night, and I'm not going to tell you about all of them, but I will tell you about the ones that really got to me.
I met Liz Demi Green after she read some of her own poetry as well as a few of Lenore's. She's super rad, and a playwright! I love meeting more lady playwrights. She is someone to check out, for sure!
Sarah Maria Griffin was also one of the readers. She read this poem called “Butcher” and she had me at the title. It was such a moving poem, in such a surprising way. I loved it.
And there were more readers, (6 in all) and they were fun and great to listen to. They were: Kyrsten Bean, Brenda Knight, and Joanna McClure. There was one more gentleman, but he's missing from the program and I can't recall his name!
All in all, a fantastic evening. Go check out the LITQUAKE website (http://litquake.org/) and find more events. There's a ton of wonderful things happening this week, and some events are FREE! Remember, I had a great night, and you can too!