John Amen and Daniel Y. Harris
Mon. Oct. 3 at 7:30 PM
R25 at 1719 25th Street
Host: Bob Stanley
John Amen is the author of three collections of poetry: Christening the Dancer (Uccelli Press 2003), More of Me Disappears (Cross-Cultural Communications 2005), and At the Threshold of Alchemy (Presa 2009). In addition, his work has appeared in numerous publications nationally and internationally and been translated into Hungarian, French, and Spanish. He has released two folk/folk rock CDs: All I’ll Never Need (Cool Midget 2004) and Ridiculous Empire (2008). He is also an artist, working primarily with acrylics on canvas. Further information is available on his website: http://www.johnamen.com/. Amen travels widely giving readings, doing musical performances, and conducting workshops. He founded and continues to edit The Pedestal Magazine (http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/).
from Portraits of Mary
xv.
Mary deadheads a marigold, shows me her plant hospital,
blighted ivy, straggles of elephant’s ear, shy alyssum
soon to be potted. She mixes manure, topsoil, red clay,
coaxes sprout, leaf, blossom from a stubborn earth. Dusk,
robin-song. Wisteria, loyal as a door. Mary, alchemist-healer,
transforming her charges, the uncertain fingers of root.
The African gardenia revives, an orphan in a stable home.
The dogwood sheds its stutter. Mary scats in the lilies,
rapturous, demiurgic, conducting her motley troupe:
sopranos of forsythia, tenors of hydrangea, basses of iris,
contraltos of impatiens and peonies. The palm hums a coda.
Mary, immeasurable, chromatic. Could this vision linger?
What is it about beauty that lands me in the throat of grief?
Daniel Y. Harris is the author of Hyperlinks of Anxiety (Cervena Barva Press, 2011), Paul Celan and the Messiah’s Broken Levered Tongue (with Adam Shechter, Cervena Barva Press, 2010; picked by The Jewish Forward as one of the 5 most important Jewish poetry books of 2010) and Unio Mystica (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2009). He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Some of his poetry, experimental writing, art, and essays have been published in BlazeVOX, Denver Quarterly, European Judaism, Exquisite Corpse, In Posse Review and The Pedestal Magazine. His website is http://www.danielyharris.com/.
