Readings in Contemporary Poetry
Bill Berkson and Matt Longabucco
Tuesday, February 17, 2015, Dia Chelsea
Tuesday, February 17, 2015, 6:30 pm
535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor
New York City
Introduction by Vincent Katz
Bill Berkson
Bill Berkson was born in New York in 1939. He moved to Northern California in 1970 and now divides his time between San Francisco and New York. He is a poet, critic, curator, and professor emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he taught art history and literature for many years. He has been a corresponding editor for Art in America since 1988 and has contributed to such other journals as Artcritical, Artforum, Aperture, and Modern Painters. His recent books include: Snippets (Omerta, 2014); For the Ordinary Artist with a collection of his art writings (BlazeVox, 2011); Not an Exit with drawings by Léonie Guyer (Junge Garden Books, 2011); Repeat After Me with watercolors by John Zurier (Gallery Paule Anglim, 2011); Lady Air (Perdika, 2010); Portrait and Dream: New & Selected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2009); and BILL with drawings by Colter Jacobsen (Gallery 16 Editions, 2008). Coffee House Press published a new collection of his poems, Expect Delays, in November 2014.
Surface Codex
The trouble with makeup
when the face speaks in measured breath
sisters to a faintly large
farming operation
whose planets abide in the dark
mutter of our kind
feed the beast
let convenience have its serious say
the mail is here
her given name is Gravity
not a dead unit in sight
slow turn of syllogism to equal person
blanket promise ineptitude
the gross outcome of a gnat
the little girls all laugh and say
a funny place for a foot rub
the germ in your life celebrant best
appreciated should you pick up the phone
when the face speaks in measured breath
sisters to a faintly large
farming operation
whose planets abide in the dark
mutter of our kind
feed the beast
let convenience have its serious say
the mail is here
her given name is Gravity
not a dead unit in sight
slow turn of syllogism to equal person
blanket promise ineptitude
the gross outcome of a gnat
the little girls all laugh and say
a funny place for a foot rub
the germ in your life celebrant best
appreciated should you pick up the phone
Matt Longabucco
Matt Longabucco is the author of the chapbook Everybody Suffers: The Selected Poems of Juan García Madero(O’Clock Press, 2014). Other work has recently appeared in Capricious, The Brooklyn Rail, and Parkett. He is also a cofounder of Wendy’s Subway, a twenty-four-hour library, workspace, and meeting place for writers, artists, and readers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He teaches at New York University and lives in Brooklyn.
[every crazy person you’ve ever known]
every crazy person you’ve ever known
has suffered from fixation
so you try hard not to dramatize your
own life, but as a result have to belittle
everything you care about, to starve
precisely what calls out for nourishment
and it’s just so much identity, which is
a drag, since you’ve long known
not interiors but the points of contact
between them change the code that lets
the world mutate with the necessary
vitality into and through the hostile
environment of the future’s Being
it’s not that you’re afraid of going crazy
or wouldn’t even in a way prefer it
but simply that you’re so determined
to pass in full awareness beyond the break
has suffered from fixation
so you try hard not to dramatize your
own life, but as a result have to belittle
everything you care about, to starve
precisely what calls out for nourishment
and it’s just so much identity, which is
a drag, since you’ve long known
not interiors but the points of contact
between them change the code that lets
the world mutate with the necessary
vitality into and through the hostile
environment of the future’s Being
it’s not that you’re afraid of going crazy
or wouldn’t even in a way prefer it
but simply that you’re so determined
to pass in full awareness beyond the break
Books
Readings in Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology