Got the event posters back from Printers today, high gloss broadsides, saturated reds and blues, real psych-stuff. The printman asked ‘Is the image supposed to be - what are those? Motorcycles? - Is the image supposed to be like this?’ Yah.
The first reading was absolutely phenomenal. Casey Pierce set a projector to the ceiling to lay above the readers his video piece. It was the seed and focal point of conversation more than once.
Sean Patrick Hill read with expertise, whose texture conjured the landmarks embedded in his poetry, slipping in and out of subtle oratory modes that flipped on themselves and turned overwhelming: autobiographical-confession, naturalist, cartographer, meteorologist, son, father. He said as much before his reading.
Meagen Crawford owned space and time with a mesmeric, almost otherworldly reading of “Non-Earthly Participant” (several of which are hand stitched and printed and await readers, perhaps she’ll throw in a copy for a special backer or two?
Dara Wier, poet of the night, traveler of the most miles to be with us for the first Spring Et Al. Reading of 2016, was stunning (and she brought Nashville legend, renowned hermit, former Silver Jews frontman, poet of some talent, David Berman with her!) As the headliner, Dara chose to stay put and read to us in the exact same spot from which she had enjoyed the other readers, sitting just at the outskirt, against a wall, with the rest of the sitting, crouching, standing audience! Dara got completely houseshow rad by reading face-to-face to the entire room while we reveled, clapping when we remembered to, in the approach and manner of her reading. I, to say easily, could’ve listened to Dara Wier read for hours.
She admitted that her poems may not make any sense, which is to say that I botched an introduction that attempted to say that Dara, in utilizing frequently used and common, even boring, language, was able to recompose a narrative, the networks of syntax, extended metaphor, and the fervor of her approach and use of the components in her poems.
Then she sneak show escaped away and out while everyone was re-constituting themselves after the reading! Each reader was spectacular, sublime.
Check the Et Al. Facebook page for event photos and other peripherals...
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