I attended the poetry readings at the Lillian Vernon house where Alex Dimitrov read from his book Begging for It and Marie Howe read from her book a Kingdom of Ordinary Time. The first thing I realized when I heard Alex read his first poem is that the artist knows how to read his own poem. Honestly, I would not have liked his poetry as much if I had read them without hearing him reading it first. One poem he talked compared a mosquito to a lover. One line was about the mosquito drawing blood from his body so cruelly he mistook it for love. Dimitrov's poetry is very relatable to the current generation, and he writes about homo-eroticism and other traditionally controversial topics "without shame", as the person who introduced him said.
Marie Howe, interestingly, was Dimitrov's teacher and mentor. She currently teaches at NYU, and is an impressive figure. When she began talking, I could not help but be absorbed in her voice. The most important thing I learned from Howe was that even the greatest poets rely on their friends for help, and benefit from coincidence. She described how one of her books of poetry won 2nd place, and 3rd place at many competitions, but could not reach the 1st place plateau. Then, one of her friends reorganized the book, and it began sweeping in all of the rewards. Also, she recounted a conversation with a psychic where she was deciding between "Kingdom of Heaven" or "Ordinary Time" for the name of her book, and the psych said the name should be "Kingdom of Ordinary Time". Howe said, "Well, of course it is."
Overall, attending the reading was a great experience. It taught me how personal poetry is.
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