{"id":649,"date":"2010-07-23T12:44:42","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T12:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/?p=649"},"modified":"2025-02-03T12:10:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T12:10:28","slug":"new-york-a-little-poetry-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/2010\/07\/23\/new-york-a-little-poetry-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"New York: A Little Poetry Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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!<\/p>\n

The rules and agenda for this adventure were simple:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>1) Find a starting point. I chose Poets House<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

3) At the first open mic or reading, get a recommendation of where to go for the next, and follow it. Then repeat.<\/p>\n

And, naturally, all the while, I was leafleting and spreading the gospel of The Rialto.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

KGB Bar<\/a>,\u00a0Cornelia Street<\/a>,\u00a0St Marks Poetry Project<\/a>,\u00a0Poetz Calendar<\/a>,\u00a0Stain of Poetry<\/a>,\u00a0Chin Music<\/a>,\u00a0Jackie Sheeler’s Creative Mayhem Broadcast<\/a>,\u00a0Son of Pony<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"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…<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[thanks go to Roddy Lumsden, Peter Carlaftes and Philip Fried, for help with the above]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently undertook a bit of a poetry adventure. It was across the pond, in a place called New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[37,31,80,28,23],"class_list":["post-649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","tag-event","tag-nathan-hamilton","tag-new-york","tag-poets","tag-the-rialto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6917,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions\/6917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}