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Poetry is she seemed to be injured by the dust museum. All of a sudden it means you're. Useless. You need. The title of the exhibit is the width within. Me look at it spirits within the woods. But part of that with it's within you and that part of that nature is who you are. You can take any kind of dancing that exists in New York City. It's not just learning steps. It's expressing yourself. It is made possible by Dorothy and Louise Coleman T-Birds Charitable Trust and the Susan and Ellen Hugh rose foundation. Funding is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. The New York City Department of Cultural

Affairs through the cultural challenge program Sylvia and Ralph and the members of 13. On any given night there are probably 20 going on. City people want to just see the poetry they want to go to. They want to read poetry. This is continuation of a tradition. Otherwise poetry is in the. Play. What could be a better way to spend a couple of hours on a Friday. What could be more nourishing and refreshing. Yes. Wow.

Thanks thanks. Thanks. Thanks. And what's this this. This from 7:00 in the morning to the afternoon and still refuse to. Have a lot of useless behind me or tree it seems to be owned by the dust museums. All of a sudden it means speak out. So thank you for the way shrieking because I'm free now. And if you don't like it. Son your. Expensive watch designed and tested based on the. Poetry is cutting through decades of meaningless

verbiage and all of a sudden implanting a co-op in your left ventricle you know it is it is it is it is were words I want to make love. She was an item of light in the light and it was a night in the life of the see through this before why did you stop. This is New York City. You know brothers drive certain cars up into the streets near or around certain types of people on a special occasion yeah. So they got hold of me and on the stand over beers on this game. Oh he's on the scene you know all the pins on all the pins on this is on this this just. Like you. Know listening.

To or reading. There's this terrible intimacy that goes on. It's engaging on the deepest level between strangers. A group invoking the sort of the sign and. My mother always had to read your own tune to stations in New Orleans. So pretty much I mean true lines blues jazz there's a certain kind of music in language. So I was. I'm still reading some real music. You know the purpose of reading a poem is like the purpose of sex is to get it over with as slowly as possible. Ladies and gentlemen I'm delighted to welcome you here tonight. This country's most distinguished poets how easily happiness begins by dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter slivers and swirls across the floor of the saute pan.

Especially if it's errant path crosses a tiny sliver of olive oil. I turn that way. I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again and depending on I like to make a difference. I go down to fifty eight thousand twenty two names half expecting to find my own and letters like smoke and the black. A woman is trying to erase names. She's brushing a boy's hair. Somewhere you write for the record here. Is another. It was also a part of your psyche part comes. Speaking clearly since all star wars we don't know where we're going to get this over here. From Arizona I think that's the life and the words everything's coming together.

Poetry is a very private and often not terribly public way of assessing ourselves and I think that when we go deep and deeply enough what we find is something that's a bit more comforting and soothing and I think people need to do that and they need to give it to one another. One can buy a butcher anywhere but especially New York City. Because there's so much. Detail so many faces so much contour and texture. Does that mean the split was time out while your lips taste like sweet nectar from God's Divine Love this points out how much it inseparable. Paul you know I never recall saying way back in the day.

But are you listening are you listening closely to the fireworks in your head. It's night in the city and there's fireworks to find. About Sunset Boulevard St. forty second Hollywood and Vine. Christopher Farley Boulevard Provincetown Key West Palm Bay Miami Beach London Paris Rome Milan Montreal and every gay ghetto street listed in the book and I'm still looking for the perfect lover. I'm just a woman for a solid year and had tits. Thank you. I've been a whore a saint a sinner a healer a heathen an actor a poet a drag queen a straight man a teenage zombie a punk rocker greaser a clone a faggot a streetwalker a sky writer a vegetarian a teacher a student a wanderer a caretaker. How I've been lost found confused absolved punished and rewarded. I've stared death in the face and wondered why not me yet. There's excitement there whether you like it or not is being thrown at you every hour of the day. Poetry's feeds this great hunger that people have I mean the this this culture is

is as good as it is in fact content is also. Most people are on starvation diets and in their souls. They want something else. Thank you. This is a piece that is titled Strange Fruit. I wanted to really kind of talk

about lynchings in the south and turning it around in in a way a lot of the imagery I may write me carry and I'm very sad. But the women that I've known are kind of very defiant actually pleasuring herself not to shock anyone. My mother is African-American and my father is German Scottish. I think it's definitely what's drawn me to explore African culture. That's. Something that I really don't know until the pieces come to town. I think specially with these people because they're so large.

This is our grand space here it's really beautiful space to work with like these are kind of like. Some of the pieces in the collection which. They have a lovely collection of Rodin's upstairs. Really I think I've only got that exhibit. One. Terrible fate. Really strongly tracking these pieces and then you can collection just refurbished a couple years ago. That's what's been inspiring. She has sell so many different missions and people coming from many different cultural traditions all over in all cultures there's always tree spirit if you go to.

The right sort of menu legend and. I think. You would. Loving you. Get out. I did early age. I came to understand that anyone could make garden are being made out of anything and you know I think the most important thing you know terms of becoming an artist and making art is that you have a vision and that you have an idea and really believe in something. I'm very much interested and. Materials that artists don't normally found Tiriel these found ceiling 10. I carve them with a chainsaw and then I go back again with the chisel and do the finer features and then I cover them with the copper. It's always something that you know I before. Yes. Writing Raglan around a little bit. By.

Bit. It's a wonderful that by walking out the door from the book and you can walk into the Botanical Gardens and then hopefully get a sense of what I'm talking about in terms of the history of these changes in the sensibility of the street. It's a site and inside it is outside having lived and Chelsea without trees for someone to Brooklyn. It's really wonderful to be a mix of trees again. This community of Brooklyn is growing and it's a very special man and I hope that there's an his own they will be able to do more discipline on. Their hands. It was. Because the space is a big

deal you know what I mean it's. Just different everything here. Today in a world where so much fabric. To. Traditional carving figures are constantly rising. Upward. Motion possibly towards the ceiling they are once dignified and there is a monumental quality and Alison's work has always had a content pale meaning.

That is kind of a turn around in that when you look at it in the words part of that and that part of that nature of who you are. Patrick's three

years here. It's a very fine. Time and. When you look at the. Narrative. Here. To eat. To feel. The effects. Whew. I am. Good luck.

Good luck Will you stand. Thank. You. I want to have dance in New York it is extraordinary. I like Southside but.

You can take any kind of dancing that exists in New York City. It's not just learning steps. It's expressing yourself. My servant. You know it's like the fever. The. First thing I like to see for my students is listening to the music hearing feeling my first. Dance. Was. Cheery and those are my first thoughts. The phrase opportunity to feel different. I am weak. Because.

This is like a way to say well manage to see how. This is. Seen. Thank you. So. Much like. I am. So that might be the greatest dance in the world but you feeling what you. Think you get out on the floor and I got a smile on their face and I have been it. Hasn't been. I think up to. Something. And for me it's really about this proud woman not a frail skinny woman. It's the one dance that captures more than any other dance.

Real pride holding yourself up holding your shoulders back your back straight your arms really I mean all of those things are essential parts of forming. We have freedom of emotion and you have to tell them I want you to dance with your face. I always say to my students I mean I feel it this way. That's fine. Thanks. Says that oh it's so sexy it's so sexy it's not sexy. Yes some of them are. And those are scandalous. So other than the suggestion.

She's very tough. She will work us to the bone. But it's because she can't. She really cares. I mean she's committed enough to really ruin your day. I remember when I first started dancing I was so clumsy and I couldn't feel my hands and my feet I couldn't move them both at the same time. I remember feeling like this sounds kind of hokey but that I didn't need to learn the steps I needed to learn my clumsiness. That's why it's exciting to suddenly look in the mirror when she's gotten over your clumsiness and see this person this dancer coming out. Teaching.

Dance steps he teaches us the stories and the songs that go with the dance that we're. Hearing. In. My whole life. Professional. Computer consultant. I get rid of the garbage in the street. I bring it here and I leave it here. I just. Join. Like dancing with my spirit. The and.

The and. The and. The in the. City Arts welcomes your comments questions and suggestions. Please call us at 5 6 Lawrence. Who like to hear from. That's 5 6 0 0 0. On. The inner city arts continues online. Be sure to visit w net station on the Web where you can see all the artists and events we've showcased in the series get information on places and players linked to other artists websites and read in-depth interviews with fascinating personalities. City Arts on the Inet station its 13 online. City Arts is made possible by Dorothy and Louise Coleman Lou Esther teamers Charitable Trust and the Susan Ellen Hugh rose foundation.

Funding is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs through the cultural challenge program Sylvia and Ralph and the members of 13.