Imaginary Readings

Amy Winehouse will perform poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt tonight at 7ish at the Noli Me Rehab Cafe.

Note: audience members will be tested afterwards. Notetaking is highly encouraged; group work will not be accepted despite the collaborative nature of the artistic project.

Tonight being just another night, ten poets you’ve never heard of will gather at a cafe of no special significance despite the claims on their special drinks blackboard. At the usual time, after dinner but before the bar down the street brings in a band, they will begin to read. Attendees may remember a line or two for a week or two thereafter.

I would list the poets’ names here, but I’ve already forgotten them. You will too if you attend, even if you feel guilty about it. I know I do.

Tonight, the Bushel Light Cafe will host a group reading honoring the life and work of William McGonagall. Works read will include the poems of William himself as well as works inspired by him. Expected readers include yet-to-be-named neosurrealists who will at long last admit that they were inspired by McGonagall’s rich images such as that described by his illustrator, Charles Nasmyth:

When I read those lines from ‘The Tay Bridge Disaster’ which went ‘When the train left Edinburgh/ the passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow/ but Boreas blew a terrific gale/ which made their hearts for to quail…’, I had a vision of Victorian ladies and gentlemen sitting in a train, their chests bursting open and their hearts turning into quails and flying off.

(quote via)

Tonight, in art museums across the country, patrons able to elude security guards by hiding in the bathroom at closing time, will witness a remarkable experiment in innovation. Paintings and sculptures from across the ages will recite their own poetry during the first annual ArtSpeaks! Slam! Organizers intend to make this an annual event, so if you are detected tonight, you will have all year to find a better hiding place for the second reading.

Note that while some individual photographs may choose to participate, the International Union of Photographs has advised its members not to do so, as it might endanger their vérité.

Organizers admit that last month’s zombie poetry reading was an absolute disgrace. Not only did the readers devour their audience before the promised open mic even began (instead of slipping out quietly before the end as featured readers, and a good portion of the audience, are wont to do at such events), but it also turned out that poetry written by zombies is little more than moans. (Though survivor reports say that they rhymed enough to please some proponents of formal verse.)

This month’s reading, however, promises to be better, as it is not the readers who are zombies but the poetry that is undead, thanks to too-frequent reports of its demise.

(Image of the end of last month’s reading from doviende on Flickr)

Tonight, starting at 7 PM, two poets who have not been heard from in decades, Lew Welch and Weldon Kees will read for an hour or two. The only catch is that interested audience members will have to find them first (and buy them drinks).

Reports are surfacing today of an open mic in which multiple poets performed without a single warmed-over Ginsberg tribute being read. Conflicting reports on the location of this reading put its reality into question, but its significance if it is true is such that even unfounded rumors cannot and should not be renewed. We’ll keep you advised if any further information is forthcoming.

On the other hand, reports of an open mic in New York which did not include at least one attempt to be funny that failed miserably must be assumed to be false as the world is still here today.

Friedrich Schiller’s skull will read from the works belonging to the once whole being tomorrow night at an as-yet undisclosed location. Reading will be followed by an open mic with the two skulls suspected, until recently, of being Schiller’s as hosts.

Tonight or tomorrow or one of these nights, Jorie Graham will read from her new collection, Sea Change. The cracks in time represented in this book will allow her to invite a coterie of guests to read along with her. Appearances by Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot are confirmed. There are rumors that guest readers will also include poets who are not dead white men, but they have no authority.

Taking his recent Ruth Lilly Prize not as an honor for his poetry alone but, rather, as a sign of his responsibility to the poetry community, Gary Snyder has arranged a series of Friday-night readings at the Firewatch Cafe. He believes that, by headlining a group of otherwise unknown poets, he can bring attention to work that too often goes unrecognized. This week’s reading will include women whose nature poems have been dismissed as wishywashy, non-intellectual, or otherwise too feminine.

No word yet on whether the Firewatch Cafe is in New York, Northern California, or the Great Pacific Northwest.