Poetry Is Awesome

I had almost forgotten how much I love poetry and why. After applying to grad school, and getting in, but finding myself unable to currently truly afford it without putting holes in numerous pockets of numerous pants that I have yet to even own, I had almost forgotten why I was drawn to words in the first place. Especially words written in form, following ancient structures that seem to have no relevance in today's world, speaking codes. But then tonight I saw Mark Strand read in the back of a bar in Alphabet City and couldn't stop myself from grinning from ear to ear and remembering why and how it had put a spell on me all those years ago, as a teenager, as a college student, as a recent graduate--grasping and sighing dramatically over the mastery of the person's mind before me on the page, or at the podium.

And what a reader. Like slow, patient music. He let the words come soberly and strong. Punctuated and measured. The space between the words helped shape the words themselves. It was simple. It felt pure. And I dizzyingly fell in love all over again.

More than once, I thought, "I have loved your words for years now, how wonderful to hear you and see you as a human being. What courage. What hope. You were the poet laureate. But even more so, you made me see the world in a different way. You have always taken me by the hand and led me to peek over the precipice at death, at life going on without me, at myself wondering over it, and seeing it as a dream." (Ha, yes, that, exactly, more than once over the course of 30 minutes. Hyperbole, you're a good friend.)

And before Strand went on, I found a new poet's work to love: Rick Halles. He made me swoon at his imagery, lights like stars piercing hearts, leaving stains on shirts. I can't wait to read more of him for years to come.

And I left feeling (get ready for more drama): These are my people.

I must stalk the people who organized this reading. Thanks, curators of Reading Between A & B. They created a homey environment, one where I felt just fine sitting by myself for 20 minutes, smiling, listening to other people's conversations, just sitting there, feeling at home. And loving the fuck out of New York City. This is what I came for. So I finally got to the right place a few years late. I've never claimed to be prompt. I'm just glad I made it.

Viva Argentinian Film!

Below is a quote from my new favorite director, Lucrecia Martel, about her film La Niña Santa, which she described as "an erotic film about a girl who thinks she's a saint." In reality, the film is far more complex than that, and celebrates negative space. At the end, I fell in love with the movie. The tension built and...well, you should just see it. It's pretty incredible and interesting, as is this quote:


Q: Why does La Niña Santa take place during a medical convention?
"There is something between medicine and holiness that interests me. The sick bodies and the healthy bodies. The lepers of Job, where God and the Devil hide. The saints sick from saintliness and their miraculous cures. The wounds of stigmata and the concept of the Passion. The doctor of the soul. The sick so sick that they look like monsters. In ancient times the appearance of a monster, somebody physically malformed, was a sign of the divine. The monster, the one that shows, that reveals divine intentions. Monsters have mutated with time and then came the degenerate ones, those without the Arian standards, the serial killers dressed in human skin, the poor in general who represent a menace with their monstrous needs. We are a monstrous species that betrays all that is foreseeable. Generations and generations of freaks that do not allow us to give anything for granted, that should oblige us to review the laws all the time, to think again about the meaning of happiness, about the possibility of finding a sense of happiness sufficiently diverse so as not to leave anyone out, to see each newborn as an infinite mystery of possibilities. La Niña Santa is a sort of surgical story that intends to draw a line between live tissue and moral prosthesis."

Read more about her in this Telegraph interview.

There's something about her that's kind of hot. I watched a documentary after the film about how it was made, and she's great to watch work.