(Nope. As you can see--bro' been pokey...)
This
is another one I doubted would see the light of day. But, rather than dwell on
that issue, let’s get straight to the heart of the matter. As this was the
first time in possibly 20 years that mi espousa mousa had graced me with her
presence for the turn of the anum, I actually had company during my vigil. But also, being that most beings do not like to sit still for 10 hours, this one is a bit shorter. Like it matters.
That
aside, this year’s particular crop was the one with the least amount of
superstars in memory. But let’s not dwell on that either.
In
the main, what was startlingly absent was the center of outraged polemic.
Almost nothing about Trump; and even less about the #meToo movement. Far be it
from me to criticize or attempt to offer insights on the slightest of
non-evidence, but, best guess? — sometimes you find yourself so exhausted by
events you simply withdraw into the world in which you find some measure of
surcease, or at least control. Or, simply, what Bob Rosenthal (#34) said: “I
want to avoid politics and embrace family…” Then again, all you’re guaranteed
at a St. Mark’s poetry marathon is a bunch of disparate voices, frequently
crying out in the wilderness… Often from a wilderness not farther away than
Avenue D or Brooklyn Heights.
1.
Bob Holman - Christmas Carol redux, “the invisible line”
2.
Dave Morse - “dubbing”
3.
David Kirschenbaum - (perhaps, something entitled “I am Wilder”…but for sure)
“on transportation”
4.
Rami Karim - “there needs to be a different word”
5.
Jennifer Firestone - “to the poets”
6.
Trace Peterson - “the other members with my ID”
7.
Adeena Karasick - “Salomé” & “one for Johnny”
8.
Nicole Sealey - in a sort of chanting song, “the first person who’ll live to be
100 has already been born”
9.
Leila Ortiz - “I’m an apocalyptic punta”
10.
Jennifer Bartlett - “dear Andrea” & “dear Jen”
11.
Rachel Levitsky - “where it goes”
12.
Omotara James - “self portrait as a queer block party”
13.
Marcella Durand - “the green line the eats Mars” (…and something else)
14.
Katy Lederer - “polar bodies” (sort of a sci-fi/surrealist excursion)
15.
Lisa Jarnot - “a few more days”
16.
Karen Weiser - (this might be something about, or for, Carolina Hershel [sp?],
but uncertain)
17.
Grey Vild - “M for Tea” (or “M4T” or “M40”—no idea—but might be some sort of
appreciation of the guys you’d find on GRINDR, but whatever — really funny)
18.
Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib - “…a poem about Popeye’s fried chicken…”
19.
Avram Fefer - music
20.
Anna Vitale - “it’s you and me”
21.
Shelby Cook - “at the end of August”
22.
Olivia Grayson - “I agree that the guy is a pretty heavy concept…”
23.
Tracey McTague - (something about a trip to be Biblios [sp?] in Lebanon where,
perhaps, “unknown goddesses survive”)
24.
The Double Yews - this is Eleanor Naumen and Ellie (whose last name I didn’t
get) singing, more or less poems, one of which was based on the melody of
“Clementine”…
25.
Andrew Durbin - “nothing good ever happened to me in Stuyvesant town” (short
story)
26.
Martha Wilson - as has been her want since the trumpocalypse, she appears in a
suit with very long tie, orange makeup, and a bouffant to beat the band. This
time, she ‘sings’ two songs: one based on the melody of “tea for two” and the
other entitled “the coming of the solid state”
27.
Sarah Schulman - this is something she calls a murder mystery… “Five days of
July 2017”
28.
Elizabeth Willis - “take this poem”
29.
Jameson Fitzpatrick - “boys in the woods”
30.
Fran DeMusz - “dance with reaper”
31.
Jaye Bartell - music
32.
Dawn Lundy Martin - (things she’s obsessed with) “mother at 83”
33.
Purvi Shah - with reference to being an “anti-colonial revolutionary in India”—
“if they ask you who you are, say you are a rebel”
34.
Bob Rosenthal - “I want to avoid politics and embrace family…”
35.
Don Yorty - song
36.
The Washington Squares - Best musical cameo, this faux folk
group, which dates from 1983, still epitomize 1980s’ meta-referential
irony…which we need a lot more of today. As far as can be told, this is three
quarters of the original group (composed of various denizens of Post-Punk/New
Wave downtown groups) who haven’t played together since 1994 — not that it matters.
With acoustic guitars, striped sailor shirts, berets and sunglasses, if they
are not the last beatniks on the planet they should be.
37.
Tom Savage - “tulip frenzy (for John Ashbury)”
38.
Brendan Lorber - “if your house was on fire and you could remove just one
thing…” (I also appear to have written “Capt. Ahab in rehab” which I have no
explanation)
39.
Abigail Child - “we know T word” (or “we no T word”?—which makes less sense,
from a manuscript on war)
40.
Alan Felsenthal - “the altar of alterity” (unsure of transcription)
41.
Camille Rankine - “this is what I do instead of dying”
42.
Chia-Lun Chang - “English (is not yours)”
43.
Ed Askew Band - music
44.
John Godfrey - (Yogi Berra quotes)
45.
Jayson P. Smith - (Pisces moon?) “To disembark”
46.
Steve Cannon - the legendary founder of the East village performance art
poetry/whatever scene called tribes does his thing, this time at the keyboards
with a gal on the mike onstage and some other musicians
47.
Wo Chan - “at nature”
48.
Joey de Jesus - something about HR 4900, with respect to taking over the Puerto
Rican economy…
49.
M. Lamar - looking as much like a
reincarnation of Prince (circa 1985), Lamar chords the keys and keens and
croons
50.
Brenda Coultas - “in the poppy fields”
51.
Patricia Spears-Jones - perhaps the most political bit today (outside the thing
about Puerto Rico) and in a nod to George Carlin, her intro notes the use of
“the seven words the CDC says you can’t use…”: The titles are — “the Lacanian
Tick[sp?]” and “the curse on us all”
52.
Foamola — what more can I say?
53.
Gillian McCain -
54.
Chavisa Woods - “seven gifts”
55.
DJ Ashtrae - (about utopia)
56.
Edmund Berrigan
57.
Sensation Play - this is the new Jon S Hall musical experiment
58.
Mike Lala - “points of return”
59.
Candace Williams - “principles of value” and “black sonnet”
60.
Erica Hunt & Marty Ehrlich - for a change, each does their own thing
instead of one together, so Erica does “sorrow song” and Marty wails on the sax
61.
Farnoosh Fathi - (it might be “dinner to drama in the spiders diaper” but your
guess is as good as mine)
62.
Joan La Barbara - the legendary vocalist or John Cage lives up to her
reputation and defies age
63.
Yvonne Rainer - as I recall, she was lip-syncing to a tape of something she’d
made but now that I think about it, I can’t remember what
64.
Jason Hwang - the master violin player instead of treating us to melody plays
with the instrument’s extreme capacities
65.
Bruce Andrews & Sally Silvers - the dynamic duo of words in motion maintain
the strain, without straining, literally, because for Bruce, is like falling
off a log, and for Sally it’s logrolling…
66.
CA Conrad - not only does he get the birthday song and celebrate his 30th
anniversary of vegetarianism, and come fresh from doing Carol card readings in
the back room… But also… “Sounds of extinct animals” (no, I don’t know whether
he made them or that was the title; tossup)
67.
Edgar Oliver - the poet/playwright of the old East village scene… With a voice
that sounds like it was marinated in velvet butter or 1940s Château LaFitte, or
something, his eccentric cameos, observed from quotidian experience,
freeze-frame a day with uncanny accuracy and insight
68.
Jonas Mekas - the fact that he still here is enough for applause, dammit!
69.
Joseph Keckler - the Maestro uncorks another miniature of Opera and pop, this
time getting a laugh along with the tingle
70.
Charity Coleman - “everything’s what you wanted it to be” & “hi, you don’t
know me but we are on a transformational journey together”
71.
Ariana Reines - “rats”
72.
Jennifer Monson - dance
73.
Penny Arcade - instead of her usual lament of her lost East village past in the
gentrification of the present penny actually sounds happy to still be here
74.
Aldrin Valdez - “my grandfather’s photograph”
75.
Anne Tardos - “…dedicated to George Orwell…” and is about the aforementioned
seven words
76.
Elliott Sharp - “I figured the way things are going right now we could all use
a little blues so here’s some Mississippi Fred McDowell…” And, of course, he
shreds it, as usual
77.
Anne Waldman & Fast Speaking Music - “patriarchus (for John Ashbury)” and
another number
78.
Anselm Berrigan - “poems self-consciously composed of first lines”
79.
Masha Tupitsyn - “lost highway” (one of my favorites of the day, a story, yes,
but seen in hallucinatory flashes, perhaps what one might see out of a car
windscreen while driving through the American West of Disney, Kerouac and
Hunter S. Thompson…)
80.
Yoshiko Chuma - in the old days, I remember there was this composer named Butch
who did these things called ‘conductances’. I’m not sure if her as the dancer
or the choreographer was more prominent tonight, but I don’t care; she can
stand on my piano bench anytime she likes…)
81.
John Yau - “if you are over 65” (a reprise from last year and even more
howlingly funny)
82.
Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte - so… There is this man (Pierre)…and
there’s this bird (Nicole)…and? “tuesday morning cormorant”
83.
Yvonne Meier
84.
John Giorno - not ageless, but gracefully, does not go gentle into…whatever,
this is a reprise, sure, but kinda apt for all that
85.
Steve Earle - his autobio is taking forever, true, but if this snippet about
the first time meeting Townes Van Zandt and hanging out with him is a fair
sample then well worth the wait
86.
Tammy Faye Starlite - the queen of scenes is on a Rolling Stones kick right now
(having seen her elsewhere do both "You Got the Silver" and
"Cocksucker Blues") and so goes the vamp sans amp (acoustic
accompaniment by Steve) of "Sympathy for the Devil" (which may or may
not apply as social commentary, as you may)
