Skip to content Skip to footer links

Readings in Contemporary Poetry

Christine Kanownik and Ron Horning

Tuesday, April 18, 2017, 6:30 pm, Dia Chelsea

Event Details
Tuesday, April 18, 2017, 6:30 pm

This reading, which was originally planned for March 14, has been rescheduled for April 18.

Dia:Chelsea
535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor
New York City 

Readings in Contemporary Poetry curator, Vincent Katz provided an introduction for the evening's reading.

Free for Dia members; $10 general admission; $6 admission for students and seniors 

Advance ticket purchases recommended. Tickets are also available for purchase at the door, subject to availability. 

Christine Kanownik
Christine Kanownik is the author of a book of poems titled KING OF PAIN (Monk Books, 2016). Her poetry can or will be found at Fence, Huffington Post, Jubilat, and Poetry Crush, among others. Diez Press published her chapbook We Are Now Beginning to Act Wildly in 2012. She lives and works in New York City. 

Ugly Room
Meet me in the ugly room

No, the ugly one
that one is fine

I mean the one I can't stand to be in

Bring an axe

This is not a metaphor
This is what I actually want from you

If I'm ever going to love again
I need you to bring an axe to the ugly room

I need to speak with you directly
about failure & disappointment

since we've both learned to identify things

their origins at least

Objects can give pleasure

holding them at least

When you were gone
I held everything belonging to you

I felt a twinge                                              

Ron Horning
Born in Ohio, Ron Horning grew up in Peru and Brazil and, after moving to New York City, worked as a bookshop clerk, a short-order cook, an advertising copywriter, a freelance journalist, and a financial editor and analyst. He lives with his wife, the artist Anna West, in Beacon, New York. His poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Vanitas, and the Hat, and he’s written prose for Aperture, Village Voice, LA Weekly, index, and Brooklyn Rail. From 2001 to 2005 he edited the poetry newsletter I Saw Johnny Yesterday. In 2014, Color Treasury published a trio of poems titled From Philip Drunk to Philip Sober; in 2016, Untitled brought out a collection of three more poems, Blind Date. 

Interior
Eva lives in one room overlooking a narrow cul de sac
near Union Square, Market Street, the financial district—
beyond the other end of Chinatown. And I find the place,
so the instructions she gave me at the MDR were good.

Upstairs, we drink our tea sitting on the floor, the lack
of any furniture except a thin pallet proof of her strict
attention to detail, like the pale rose climbing her face
with a soft glow that’s kissable. But she knew I would.

After we dress, though, there isn’t quite so much to say,
and the hardwood floor lights up as the room darkens.
All at once I remember a friend I’m supposed to meet.

We’d planned to have dinner. We’ll do that another day.
The shine from the floor deepens as the room darkens.
We hug goodbye in the alley. I walk out onto the street.

 

 

Books

Photo: Don Stahl

Readings in Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology

View details

Get Dia News

Receive Dia News and be the first to hear about events and exhibitions happening at our locations and sites.