| CHRISTIAN BÖK & K. SILEM MOHAMMAD |
| THE DE YOUNG POETRY SERIES |
| SAN FRANCISCO 5 SEP 08 |
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Labels: BAY AREA READINGS, eyeballs
06 September 2008
| CHRISTIAN BÖK & K. SILEM MOHAMMAD |
| THE DE YOUNG POETRY SERIES |
| SAN FRANCISCO 5 SEP 08 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Labels: BAY AREA READINGS, eyeballs
8 RIDERS:
Everything looks empty there.
LUCAS! Sorry I missed you.
And I miss you, Clay, more than words can express.
yeah, i was just gonna say: so no one went?
people should know by now that no one wants to PAY for poetry-- hearing it, or reading it.
There were people there. I took the wrong pictures. I didn't feel like taking the right pictures. This group of photos doesn't mean anything.
The reading was terrific. Worth $12.
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There were plenty of people there. It was worth so much more than 12 dollars. I felt blessed that's all it was.
Scenesters pay more for their cute little drinks! Priorities I guess...
That's me in one of those photos, reading.
There weren't that many people. Seemed to be about 30 or so people. 50 tops. A good number seemed to be students from the poetry curator's class and I bet they were comp'ed.
Christian Bok was especially great to hear. He's a performer as much as a poet, seemingly hasn't written lots or much of any new stuff, but heck I'll check him out forever on the strength of his (1) reading through the big dictionary all those times all those years ago and putting together Eunoia, and (2) fervent love of sound and ability to persuasively show us how it's done.
K. Silem was great in part. The google-search poems to me just don't make it, mostly. Maybe it's just the limits of the retrieved material. And I've a hunch that K. Silem is not always particularly inspired when it comes to word sculpting, to use his term. At least not to me.
On the other hand, K. Silem's Shakespeare sonnet anagrams were freakin' fantastic. The lmitations of the letters and form (and the limits required by the form) make most everything shine. Clever thought provoking absurd beautiful. It's a very exciting project (he said afterwards he's going to do them all).
I'll praise the DeYoung Museum for having poets come in but it is one weird place. They try to draw a crowd on Friday nights by having music in their huge, echo-y lobby. Every time I've checked it out the music if not fairly boring (Friday night was a big swing era style band) is completely overwhelming -- so loud that conversation is impossible, and badly distorted audio.
Paul's students did not get their tickets comped.
If as apparently was the case, the students had to pay the full price, then I salute them. At $12 a ducat, it wasn't cheap (though members go for for free).
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