Posts Tagged ‘poetry’ |  

A friend forwarded this video of the poet Kevin Young reading four selections.  Last Saturday we had a whole crew of kin over to the place for a meal that included a big ol’ tank of pork in various forms, and Mr. Young is right on the money regarding the joys of that meat (“Ode to Pork”, commencing at roughly 4:35 in the video, but I’d watch the whole thing, this is good stuff) (and catch that “B/babe” joke in there).  Kevin Young will be appearing here, by the way.  Based on our schedules, we’ll likely cross each other in the airport.  The “Ode to Boudin” is a gorgeous thing, a poem for his departed father, the universal intersection of grief and food and joy and memory: …his sisters/my aunts dancing/in the yard to a car radio...

A woman who greatly influenced my writing is gone.  We were not acquaintances.  I seem to recall seeing her speak once, but I might have been remembering a video I watched in a Bruce Taylor poetry workshop long ago.  Her work is on my bookshelf, and – if she would allow me to say so – between the lines of my own pages.

Some of her work is here.  Hear the power of her reading here.  [Sometimes that audio link doesn't work.  Here's the text of the poem she's reading.]