Pride and Poetry in the Park

Attending a pop up stage poetry reading in Washington Square Park during the New York City Pride Festival, I was struck by how political and protest oriented much of the work was. With all the assimilation and acceptance that’s been achieved in recent years, at least in urban parts of the United States and progressive outposts of the world, it was a reminder that a lot of queer writers historically wrote out of rage. Fear of the status quo and its obsession with “crimes against nature,” and a longing for a more tolerant and supportive environment drove a lot of LGBT people to put pen to paper. It also created alliances between the LGBT crowd and other oppressed groups, alliances which I hope will endure.

The participants read not only their own work but work of queer writers who have inspired them (June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Adrenne Rich, C.P. Cavafy, Judy Grahn, among others). Forgive me -- it was hot, the park was busy, and I can’t remember the names of all the participants or who paid tribute to whom -- but the overall effect was a remarkable tribute and celebration of LGBT poetry in the heart of gay old Greenwich Village, now overrun with Starbucks and strollers. Pardon my digression.

It’s always nice to see poetry, even fairly traditional, non-Slam poetry, competing for attention in public spaces. Street musicians and buskers and poets, oh my! Actually, it was mostly just people frolicking in the fountain and passersby that sometimes seemed to drown out the voices of the readers. A few people lingered to listen for a moment, curious about what these people were up to. (One guy, during a brief break in the action, stepped in front of the crowd to announce, “I think what you’re doing is great.” But he just seemed to want to spend a minute on center stage.) When the reading resumed amidst the clamor of the park, we moved in a little closer to hear, and the reading continued and the audience grew. My suspicion is that even a few straight people couldn’t help leaning in to catch some queer poetry. More info about Verses for Hope and a list of readers can be found here.

Hillary Clinton in Verse

Yes, it’s official. I’m endorsing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s effort to become the first woman to be elected President of the United States.

This shouldn’t be surprising, for those few of you who are familiar with my politics. I did volunteer campaign work for Hillary when she moved to New York and ran for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I backed her in the 2008 presidential primaries until June of that year, when it became clear that Senator Barack Obama had secured enough delegates to win the nomination (and by the way, I think he’s been a terrific and inspiring President). And, though I flirted with the appeal of Senator Sanders’ idealism, in the end I remained loyal to Hillary throughout the 2016 race. I think her faults have been exaggerated and overblown, and I think Bernie’s hasn’t persuasively demonstrated that he could actually enact the many reforms and programs he’s promised on the campaign trail. And in the area of foreign policy – despite her past mistakes (and she’s admitted the vote to authorize a possible war in Iraq was a mistake) – I trust her instincts better than his. I know, some people may think she’s too hawkish, but I think the depth of her foreign policy experience will temper her supposed hawkish instincts. 

It’s difficult to see any Democratic president being successful if Republicans retain control of Congress. Even if Democrats pick up control of the Senate, it would likely be by a slim margin and subject to Republican filibustering. The House, thanks to gerrymandering, remains a long shot to flip to Democratic control at this time. Which candidate do I think can work most effectively with an opposition legislature? Hillary wins again. 

But the most important factor for me is the ability.

Well then, since this blog is supposed to have literary aspirations, I Googled “Hillary Clinton’s Favorite Poet,” just to see what I might find. Turns out, she’s expressed a fondness for T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” And Maya Angelou wrote a poetic endorsement of her 2008 campaign. But for the most part, Hillary has been more of a prose candidate than a poetry candidate, at least on the surface. Hopefully we’ll see a little more waxing poetic during the general election campaign. Oh, and there’s this article.

The Classic Stage Company Resurrects Peer Gynt

Did you know that Henrik Ibsen is the second most produced playwright across the world (behind William Shakespeare, of course)? I didn’t until I read it in the playbill for the CSC’s arresting new production/adaptation of Peer Gynt, which I had the privilege of seeing on Thursday night.

I can’t say Peer Gynt is my favorite Ibsen work, though I gather some people consider it his masterpiece. My personal Ibsen favorite remains A Doll’s House (I had the privilege of seeing Janet McTeer in the lead for a terrific Broadway production back in the 1990s). Peer Gynt strays far from the traditional narrative chronology, with the lead character essentially dying before our eyes while philosophizing and dreaming all while his ship is slowing sinking. The production is loud, dramatic and angst ridden. It is also ethereal and illuminating. As is usually the case at CSC, the performers were all excellent and well cast. As Peer Gynt, Gabriel Ebert turned in a performance that was so intense and muscular that it felt worthy of an olympic gold medal for boxing. 

A positive review in the New York Times (and the knowledge that the play had been stripped down to a manageable two hour length) inspired me to see this compelling production. I’d be curious to see how faithful John Doyle’s adaptation is to the original. (The only other production of Peer Gynt I’ve seen was decades ago, at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and I really don’t recall much of the narrative at all from that production.) This impressive CSC staging sent chills down my spine at times, and that would probably be what Henrik Ibsen intended.