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Wesley McNair, Maine’s Poet Laureate, Reads at Plymouth Church

Wesley McNair, Maine’s Poet Laureate, Reads at Plymouth Church

By on March 28, 2012 7:07 pm in Events, Poetry

Yesterday evening the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn held its annual poetry event at Plymouth Church. This year’s featured poet was Wesley McNair, professor emeritus and poet in residence at the University of Maine, Farmington, and Poet Laureate of Maine. He began by expressing his delight at being, for the first time, in the church of Henry Ward Beecher, whom he regards as a very significant figure in American history. He then read a selection of his poems. Continue Reading →

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Last Minute Weekend Suggestion: Brooklyn Poetry at BHS

By on October 20, 2011 10:38 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Events, Poetry

This in from the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street (corner of Clinton):

Poets and editors Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Michael Tyrell of Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn will discuss their work on the anthology and share samplings from the book that express the borough’s rich and diverse literary history. This event is jointly sponsored by the Center for American Literary Study at Pennsylvania State University and is free with museum admission.

The program begins at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, October 22. Museum admission is free for BHS members; $6 for adults; $4 for seniors (62 or older), students 12 or older (college students must show ID), and teachers; and free for children under 12.

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DUMBO Arts Festival This Weekend

DUMBO Arts Festival This Weekend

By on September 21, 2011 3:00 pm in Arts and Entertainment, brooklyn bridge park, DUMBO, Events, Fun, Kids, Literature, Music, Parents, Poetry, Theater, Visual Arts

The DUMBO Arts Festival returns this weekend, with plenty of treats for eye, ear, and mind, and perhaps even for your backside if you choose to perch on one of the rocks upholstered by Elizabeth Demaray, an artist and Rutgers professor with a background in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, shown here working on a project for the Festival, done in conjunction with the design collective Pillow Culture, called “24 Stones I’d Like to Know”. Continue Reading →

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Busy Sunday in Brooklyn Heights: Summer Space and Book Festival

Busy Sunday in Brooklyn Heights: Summer Space and Book Festival

By on September 18, 2011 11:39 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Events, Fun, Literature, Music, Pets, Poetry, Video

Karl is on hand with cam to catch all the action, from opera by Martha Cardona Theater to the BHA’s Dog Show to palmistry to yoga to great photos at Summer Space on Montague Street, then to the Brooklyn Book Festival on Borough Hall Plaza, starting with literary troubadours covering the 1961 Tokens hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and ending with a talk about erstwhile Heights resident Truman Capote by Evan Hughes, author of Literary Brooklyn. Continue Reading →

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BHS Hosts 9/11 Program

By on September 7, 2011 2:51 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Events, Literature, Poetry

The Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street (corner of Clinton), in conjunction with the Brooklyn Community Foundation, will mark the tenth anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks this Sunday, September 11, starting at 2:00 p.m., with a program on the topic “Doing Good in a Post 9/11 World”. The Foundation has supplied these details:

On the tenth anniversary of 9-11, we invite you to join us in discussion with acclaimed author Julie Salamon (Wendy and the Lost Boys, Hospital) as we examine the reasons people choose to do good in the world—the first program in our new Why We Do Good philanthropy series. Continue Reading →

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Poet Laureate Philip Levine Reads a Poem About an Incident on the Promenade

By on August 10, 2011 11:57 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Poetry

english.illinois.edu

Philip Levine, newly named Poet Laureate of the United States and a Detroit native, now divides his time between Brooklyn and California. The New York Times has a video of him reading his poem about a strange non-encounter while he was strolling on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade several years ago. See it here (there’s an ad first).

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BHS Poetry Reading Tomorrow Evening

BHS Poetry Reading Tomorrow Evening

By on March 31, 2011 5:16 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Events, Poetry

Tomorrow evening (Friday, April 1), starting at 7:00, the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street (corner of Clinton) will hold the first in what is promised to be a series of poetry readings. This reading, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Girl, is presented in cooperation with A.I.R. Gallery and Cave Canem, and will be held in the society’s beautiful Othmer Library. Readings will be by E.J. Antonio, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Robin Coste Lewis, Kamilah Aisha Moon and Aracelis Girmay. It is free and open to the public.

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Writer Ponders Walt Whitman as Social Media Pitchman

Writer Ponders Walt Whitman as Social Media Pitchman

By on February 24, 2011 9:14 pm in Poetry

Our pals at W.W. Norton ponder what it would be like if Brooklyn Heights legend/poet/newspaper guy Walt Whitman was alive today and writing for Groupon, the social media deals thingy. For one thing, he’d WOULD SO be rockin’ that hipster haircut in the photo here and most likely ride his bike to work. And yes he’d TOTALLY order the hibiscus tea at Iris Cafe. Continue Reading →

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Poetry Event at Park Plaza Diner Saturday

Poetry Event at Park Plaza Diner Saturday

By on February 3, 2011 12:26 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Events, Poetry

Brownstone Poets will present a poetry reading, with open mic, this Saturday starting at 2:30 p.m. at the Park Plaza Diner, 220 Cadman Plaza West (at the eastern end of Pineapple Walk). Poets featured at this event are G.P.A. the Poetic Unsub (photo above) and Jeffrey Cyphers Wright. Admission is $3; food and drinks extra. More details are here.

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Leon Freilich’s Ode to Brooklyn Heights

By on October 1, 2010 12:35 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Poetry

Poet Leon Freilich rhapsodizes about our neighborhood in “The Streets of Brooklyn Heights”, on open salon.

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Poet John Ashbery to be Honored at Book Festival Sunday

By on September 7, 2010 1:40 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Downtown Brooklyn, Events, Fun, Poetry

The distingushed New York poet John Ashbery will be honored with the “BoBi” award at this year’s Brooklyn Book Festival, to be held at Borough Hall Park this Sunday, September 12. At 1:00 p.m. Sunday, Ashbery and renowned Brooklyn novelist Paul Auster will have a conversation on the stage of the St. Francis College auditorium, at 180 Remsen Street, between Clinton and Court streets. Admission is free, but tickets are required, and may be obtained from the Brooklyn Book Festival information booths located on Borough Hall Park, beginning at noon on Sunday.

From the Festival’s press release:

Ashbery’s connection to Brooklyn and New York runs deep. His biography includes work as a reference librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library and co-director of the poetry MFA program at Brooklyn College. (He has also taught at Harvard and Bard College.) From 2001 to 2003, he was poet laureate of New York State. Continue Reading →

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Mr. Junkersfeld’s Take on the Whitman Festival

By on July 3, 2010 2:05 pm in Arts and Entertainment, brooklyn bridge park, Events, Poetry, Video

Mr. J. arrived at Pier 1 for Thursday’s Whitman event before I did, and saw some of the earlier acts. Clearly underwhelmed, he went to video some skilled piano players further north on the pier.

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Whitman Celebrated in Speech and Song, but North Heights Residents Suffer

By on July 2, 2010 7:25 pm in Arts and Entertainment, brooklyn bridge park, Events, Poetry, Video

Holly Anderson recites Walt Whitman’s “A Locomotive in Winter”, accompanied by Jonathan Kane’s February, a band whose influences seem to include Steve Reich, Hüsker Dü, and Mississippi John Hurt, at last night’s Whitman festival on Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park, sponsored by the Brooklyn Heights Association in collaboration with ISSUE Project Room.

This very 21st century celebration of Brooklyn’s great 19th century poet drew a large crowd to Pier 1′s harbor lawn to hear readers and musical groups, some of the latter inspiring, like February, others less so. Continue Reading →

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WSJ Plugs BHA’s Pier 1 Whitman Blast

By on June 29, 2010 10:49 pm in Arts and Entertainment, brooklyn bridge park, Events, Fun, Poetry

Reminder: the Brooklyn Heights Association’s celebtation of Walt Whitman, produced in collaboration with Issue Project Room, will be this Thursday evening, from 5:00 to midnight, on the harbor lawn of Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park. According to today’s Wall Street Journal:

So while a mobile, marathon reading of “Leaves of Grass” begins at 5 p.m. and occurs all over the park, Animal Collective sidekicks Prince Rama will mix Sanskrit chants and synthesizers, and Shannon Fields, from the band Stars Like Fleas, will lead a seven-piece ensemble in songs inspired by 19th-century shaped-note singing—that most democratic of American musical forms. Other performers, from avant-garde jazz bassist Henry Grimes to funk and folk acts, will lend music to Whitman’s words.

Also participating are the Wingdale Community Singers, a group that includes novelist Rick Moody, author of, among others, Garden State, The Ice Storm, Purple America, and The Diviners.

For more information, see the BHA website.

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Brooklyn Heights Poet Daniela Gioseffi Outs Emily Dickinson as “Wild” Heterosexual

By on June 22, 2010 7:39 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Poetry

jsw_daniela_gioseffiPoet, novelist, literary critic, and Montague Street resident Daniela Gioseffi has had an eventful career. The most recent anthology of her works, Blood Autumn, won the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. She started the Brooklyn Bridge Poetry Walk which, in this year’s incarnation, included actor and poetry enthusiast Bill Murray. She is also poet-in-residence for Brooklyn’s public schools.

See Ms. Gioseffi's comment below about this photo.

Now, Ms. Gioseffi has delved into the writings and archives of perhaps America’s best-known woman poet, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). Though dissed, along with fellow New Englander Robert Frost, by Simon and Garfunkel in The Dangling Conversation, Dickinson’s reputation as a poet whose verse anticipated modern poetics and presented profound observations in terse style has grown in recent times. (Publisher’s Note: See Ms. Gioseffi’s comment below about the photo on the left.)

Continue Reading →

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