HOAGLAND, YOUNG, TRETHEWEY & DUNN: The last two evenings have been spent at poetry readings. On Wednesday, it was the 60th anniversary reading for The Georgia Review at the Margaret Mitchell House. Natasha Trethewey and Stephen Dunn were the features. Last night, Tony Hoagland and Dean Young featured at the Poetry at Tech series. Talk about wildly different evenings. Dunn read from his books and threw in a dirty joke for laughs. Natasha read exlusively from Native Guard, which won her the Pulitzer earlier this year. She sounded great and I always admire her for being able to get through those emotional poems about her mother's murder without breaking down. I don't think I could do it.
Hoagland and Young -- who are good friends -- made quite a duo. They both decided to try new work, some of it totally raw and messy. Hoagland read a funny poem about Britney Spears and had trouble deciphering his own handwriting. Young's reading was mostly poems he had written several weeks ago during a challenge to write 15 line poems. They were abstract, maybe not as fully formed as they will eventually become, but it was a treat to hear all this fresh, unfiltered work. Favorite line of the night was from Young: "Driving anywhere with Tony is an adventure. He drives like he's in a cartoon."
Atlanta poet Dustin Brookshire is raising money for the AIDS Walk by auctioning off autographed books of poetry. He has books signed by Denise Duhamel, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Alan Shapiro, Cecilia Woloch, Kurt Brown, Kate Evans and one of the last copies of my own Slow To Burn. Visit his blog to find out more and help him raise money for this worthy cause.
Tonight is the CRUX anthology release reading/signing party. I'll have an update over the weekend.
Comments
Glad you had a good time!
Tony is pretty eccentric, so not surprised by his author photo one bit. It suits him perfectly. lol