Getting Out of the Way: The Quiet Poem
“By simplifying language, diction, detail, a poem can transcend the ‘lean moment’ and brush up against an intimate and unshakable truth.”—an essay by D.S. Waldman
“By simplifying language, diction, detail, a poem can transcend the ‘lean moment’ and brush up against an intimate and unshakable truth.”—an essay by D.S. Waldman
by Jack Chelgren Poetry Northwest Staff  The Unauthorized Readings: Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself August 13, 2013 at Fremont Abbey Arts Center  On Thursday night, poets Adam Boehmer, Christine Deavel, James Hoch, and Janie Miller kicked off a new poetry series, the Unauthorized Readings, with a hearty and variegated performance of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”  A crowd of about fifty gathered in the basement of the Fremont Abbey Arts Center, where the four readers took turns delivering selections from the poem, each with no small measure of zeal.  Theirs was a skillful and imaginative rendering of Whitman, with each poet’s distinct reading style highlighting the competing tones that cycle throughout the work: playfulness and hysteria, didacticism and uncertainty, mysticism and sexuality.