I recently undertook a bit of a poetry adventure. It was across the pond, in a place called New York. I heard once that a lot of poetry comes from there and I went to see for myself. And it’s true!
The rules and agenda for this adventure were simple:
1) Find a starting point. I chose Poets House, where they hold a number of interesting events and a fine collection of books. It’s a new development on the lower west side of Manhattan, having moved from its old location, and is well worth a visit.
2) Find out about, and read at or attend, as many events and open mic slots as possible. For this, you will need a calendar. Someone at the poets house pointed me towards this very useful online resource. Using this calendar, it is very easy to plot your week (or even arrange your own US DIY tour – something I intend to do more fully before long). Something similar should be set up across the UK and Europe, I think, if it hasn’t been/isn’t being already.
3) At the first open mic or reading, get a recommendation of where to go for the next, and follow it. Then repeat.
And, naturally, all the while, I was leafleting and spreading the gospel of The Rialto.
This being New York, and the people being friendly and co-operative and generally used to welcoming strangers, I ended up with far more recommendations (to add to those given to me before I went over) than I knew what to do with. There were usually at least three things to choose from each afternoon or evening, of all shapes and sizes, and I ended up reading in curry houses, cellar bars, back rooms in pubs, outdoors and in a living room.
The variety and sheer volume of cultural ‘stuff’ going on in New York is well-documented but nonetheless slightly overwhelming, even panic inducing, when you sample it for real. But it also gets very easy to find your way around very quickly and after about a week you feel much more like a local. Something about having absorbed so many immigrant populations over the centuries have made the place, while imposing, also very easy to get to grips with.
But, to be helpful, here are a few extra places worth a visit, to get started, if you ever intend to construct your own, similar, solo poetry adventure:
KGB Bar, Cornelia Street, St Marks Poetry Project, Poetz Calendar, Stain of Poetry, Chin Music, Jackie Sheeler’s Creative Mayhem Broadcast, Son of Pony
There are many, many more besides – for example, I didn’t get to much in Brooklyn (still represented in the above list), which many consider the place that things are ‘really’ happening in NYC…
If you found this blog useful, and would like to know more, drop me a line. Similarly, if you have things to add, please do so – I’ll be making further trips over the next few months and I’ll probably blog in future about a few differences, as I see them, between the NYC and UK/London/Norwich scenes.
[thanks go to Roddy Lumsden, Peter Carlaftes and Philip Fried, for help with the above]
