This morning a Black man in some sort of uniform wearing a gas mask pulled out a canister that temporary blinded people and then shot those within a subway car going into the 36th Street Station in Brooklyn.
The sun is bright this day. The air is crisp.
My neighbors and my landlord are doing repairs on buildings up and down Macon Street. The planet is spinning–there is so much rage. War in the West. War in the East. War on almost every continent on our globe. Wars in ourselves.
So how best to remember that like my neighbors hammering, good and useful things happen at the same time as catastrophes. Here’s a brief riposte.
So it is good to just say that I am grateful for all who celebrated with me this past Friday, April 8 when I was honored by The Poetry Project at its gala celebrating the Project’s 55th year–the other honoree was Rene Ricard who departed in 2014 after an often tumultuous but poetry driven life. Vincent Katz and Arden Wohl were the Gala’s co-chairs and Kyle Dacuyan, the Project’s ED set a generous and convivial tone to the evening. Here are a few notes from my part as honoree:
Jason Kao Hwang played a beautiful violin solo and it was definitely my part of the program. Lorraine O’Grady was filmed talking about my work in A Lucent Fire, and she read “The Perfect Lipstick”‘ a 3 minute reel about me included Cornelius Eady, Alice Notley, Maureen Owen, Guillermo F. Castro, and Charlotte Carter; and then Tyehimba Jess basically testified on my behalf and read “Love Come and Go”.It took just about everything in me to not cry. And then it was me and yes, i was on point. I found a poem I wrote back in 1974-75 as a way to show just how long I’ve been associated with the Project and then spoke about the importance of the Project and I ended the speech by reading “Seraphim” with the last line “And unto joy” which seems utterly apt. We see such horror, terror, rage, and we write about them-if there is one thing we can try and do as artists and writers and humans on this planet is remind ourselves that joy abides as well.
