Yesterday evening, Halloween, our beloved Philadelphia poetry friends, the Suppose an Eyes group, had a reading. The reading took place outside the Woodlands Cemetery main building. The format was a round-robin style performance on the steps of the Drexel family’s mausoleum. There were lanterns, not a lot of light, a lot of bats, and rain. The rain was calming at first, but quickly escalated to intolerable, and so the audience made the exodus indoors. The Suppose an Eyes poets finished off in a splendidly vigorous mode, their words haunting, crushing, quiet, loud, and poignant.

Then the lovely organizer of this particular event, Francesca Costanzo, introduced Debrah Morkun and I as performing representatives of the New Philadelphia Poets. Debrah read a poem by our dear fellow NPPer Sarah Heady, and then jumped into her newest work on breath-poetics, Ida Pingala. Following her, I closed the reading out with some poems on murder and the process of murdering and the fantasy of murder, as well as some stuff I’ve been writing while working at Olney High School West, and some poems on metaphorical/metaphysical monsters that we human types all tend to deal with.

The turnout was great. The audience was very diverse and attentive the entire evening. The refreshments were great. I remember some candy corn that was shaped like corn and tasted like bananas. And peanut butter cups that weren’t made by Reese’s. The use of this unique space was impressive and admirable. I really hope that more innovation continues. As my second reading as a feature here in Philadelphia, I couldn’t have asked for more–except that more of the New Philadelphia Poets could have taken to the stage with me–but next time for sure! My thanks go out to the Suppose an Eyes group, as well as friends and strangers who attended the reading. I can’t wait to see what comes next!

Oh yeah–the entire evening was recorded. The outdoor portions do not have “excellent” quality, but can be heard if you turn the volume up real loud so that the speakers are smoking like a chimney. The indoor segments are much better in quality and you shouldn’t have a problem enjoying the entirety. The movement from outdoor to indoor, and the “surprise history lesson” we were graced with at the end of the night, were included for psycho-social-politico-religio perusal.

The tracklisting for the evening is as follows:

01: Suppose an Eyes Outside pt 1 (9:35)
02: Suppose an Eyes Outside pt 2 (9:39)
03: Suppose an Eyes Outside pt 3 (4:33)
04: Great Transition (8:21)
05: Suppose an Eyes Inside (5:16)
06: NPP Introduction and Debrah Morkun pt 1 (4:36)
07: Debrah Morkun pt 2 (7:49)
08: Greg Bem pt 1 (9:44)
09: Greg Bem pt 2 (8:06)
10: Closing Remarks and a History Lesson (3:25)

Go to this directory page to browse and download the recordings, which are available in MP3 format.

Thanks to Jeff Brennan for manning the recording device; thanks to Adam Meora for not begging me get the device back to him just yet.

Also, this is the broadside I designed for the reading. It was distributed among the audience right before I went on. It features my friend Jen Washington whose hand pose represents a zombie claw.

(click for full size)

Questions, comments, or complaints? Okay.