As someone who's happiness has been enhanced and amplified by poetry, as well as by arts like music and film and painting in which I'm not a practitioner, I know that extra special feeling one gets when you get to see and feel an audience appreciating your work.
When I went to NYU this afternoon for a poetry reading, I was prepared to hear Deborah Landau read from her new and compelling collection, Soft Targets. I didn't realize I was going to a reading with a larger purpose, culminating the Goldwater Writing Project, which brings together mentors from NYU's acclaimed graduate program in creative writing and long-term patients a New York City municipal hospital that serves people with disabilities that make it difficult for them to live independently. As expected, guest poet Landau was excellent, but the lion's share of at the reading belonged to the participants in the writing program, who also published an anthology of their work titled, "The Golden Writers Anthology."
Many were not able to read their poems aloud, so their NYU mentors read for them. But they each wrote work that embraced optimism, hope, humor, and awareness. It was quite an enlivening afternoon. It was great to see the smiles on the authors faces as they read or sat on stage hearing one of the NYU writers read their work. I think we need to provide people in supportive housing or medical facilities more opportunities to express their creativity. It clearly enhances not only their own lives but also those of the people who encounter their work.
The Golden Writers participating in the reading were Linda Cumming, Zahra Dhaka, Barbara Graham, Frank Hegeman, William Holder, Richard Hurley, Eartha Kitt (yes, that was her real name), Joseph Richter, Antonis Tsikitas, and Kenneth York. The Goldwater Teaching fellows from NYU were Gbenga Adesina, John Daniel Debski, Raven Leilani, Alia Perisco-Shammas, Kyle Lopez, Natasha Rao, Wo Chan, and Crystal Valentine. The reading participants were introduced by graduate program manager Zachary Sussman and student coordinator Hannah Hirsh.
