This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to participate once again in ongoing Easy Art Salon series, hosted at the beautiful
Brooklyn home of scholar and writer
Robert Reid-Pharr. Instead of reading I served as curator, and invited award-winning poets
R. Erica Doyle and
Reginald Harris, both of whom have new books out this year, to read and talk about their work before an intimate audience. One of the hallmarks of the series is its laid-back feel, and it was an increasingly warm and muggy evening so everyone was probably a bit more relaxed than usual, but both poets brought their own special heat and the event to a lively crescendo.
Erica read first, from her first full collection
Proxy (Belladonna Press, 2013), and led us into a world bracketed by 9/11 and loss, and animated by the politics of desire and sex. Erica is a brilliant storyteller, and drew upon her narrative skills in creating a poetic portrait of a life in and out of crisis. Reggie read from
Autogeography, his second book, which won this past year's Cave Canem/Northwestern University Press Second Book Prize. A map of a self or selves, Reggie's poems guided us, as Erica superbly put it during the Q&A, like thread through a needle into his distinctive vision. As part of the event, artist
Ricardo Osmondo Francis exhibited selected works, all of which were for sale, at $100 and under.
Afterwards, the reading turned into a little party, a great way to close out a beautiful Sunday evening of poetry and art.
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The readers, Reginald Harris and Erica Doyle
(your truly at left in the striped shirt)
(photo by David Barclay Moore) |
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| Reggie watching as Erica reads from Proxy |
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| Two members of the audience (Mark at right) |
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| The audience |
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More members of the audience
(Robert at right, in the salmon shirt) |
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| Erica watching as Reggie reads |
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Artist Ricardo Osmondo Francis
with some of his artwork |
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