like smoke touching everything
Thursday, February 21, 7:00pm
Blessing the Boats: A Tribute to Lucille Clifton
LOCATION: CUNY Graduate Center, Proshansky Auditorium, 365 5th Avenue
Readings by Sherman Alexie, Tina Chang, Toi Derricotte, Michael Dickman, Timothy Donnelly, Cornelius Eady, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Nick Flynn, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Marie Howe, Sharon Olds and Tracy K. Smith, with musical interludes by mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran.
Enjoyed this reading, although overwhelmed by the decorousness of poetry audiences. The little audible breaths, smatterings of applause, the implacable reverence…
The high point was Cornelius Eady‘s reading of “some dreams hang in the air” in a low pulsing breathy voice:
Some Dreams Hang in the Air
some dreams hang in the air
like smoke. some dreams
get all in your clothes and
be wearing them more than you do and
you be half the time trying to
hold them and half the time
trying to wave them away.
their smell be all over you and
they get to your eyes and
you cry. the fire be gone
and the wood but some dreams
hang in the air like smoke
touching everything.
Lucille Clifton