I am so excited to be reading with David Lehman and Denise Duhamel tonight for the KGB series, I can barely breathe. I am thinking of this as my ten minutes in the presence of fame—as well as in the presence of two of my all-time favorite poets. I can’t wait to hear Denise read from her new collection, Second Story, which includes a long poem in the form of Terza rima about her terrifying experience with hurricane Irma, as well as her equally terrifying poems about the last few years, under the influence of Donald Trump. And I am so excited to hear from David Lehman whom I expect to surprise us by reading from his forthcoming collection, The Morning Line, due out in the fall of 2021 from the University of Pittsburgh Press. I owe so much to both of these poets. David was my first real poetry professor. I would never have pursued poetry if it were not for him. And it was Denise who taught me how to read an orgasm poem aloud. -- Nin Andrews >>
I'm grateful to David Lehman for giving me the chance to say a few words about his April 12 KGB Bar reading with Nin Andrews and Denise Duhamel, because it was David who introduced me to their work. Back when the reading series was new, in the late 1990s, with Star Black and David in charge, he gave me a copy of "The Book of Orgasms" by Nin Andrews, and I was blown away by the sheer happy lusty sexiness of the concept and the individual poems illustrating the poet's orgasmic "quest," which is a never-ending one inasmuch as the "last" in any series is the first in a new series. I also recall a night at the bar when, drinking Tanqueray martinis, Lehman insisted that feminism and fun were not incompatible, and won the bet with Duhamel's Barbie poems in her book "Kinky." As for Lehman himself, will he read daily poems, poems "in the manner of" his favorite dead poets, or a Baudelaire translation? What this virtuoso trio has in common is authenticity, humor, wit, daring, and sensibility, which is just about everything. >> -- Fred Chervil
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