The reading of French Poetry in Translation at the Maison Francaise, organized by Belladonnna* Press, was ten translators working mostly on contemporary writing, mostly by women. Alas! I most enjoyed Paul Eluard, the ringer in the queue, translated with a direct serenity by Lisa Lubasch. Apparently, a book will come out from Green Integer this year or next. The evening was well-attended (they often are, with ten readers; if everyone has four friends, that’s a minyan de la poesie, ami) and good-spirited.
Afterward, the local posse by which I had been adopted and supplied a cranberry shade of lipstick adjourned to an Upper West party, rumored to involve elite journalists, none of whom I encountered unless one numbers main celebrant/birthday girl Alissa Quart. Mostly I met Finns. The one who resembled an unattractive Jurgen Prochnow immediately pointed at a colleague and said “We are...too drunk...to fuck.” This was bad news for somebody, I am sure. The red-dredded Finn (who looked like he was on vacation from Bomfunk MCs, claimed he was from “Mack-a-donia,” and did not quantify his innebriation) and I stood there taking pictures of each other until Kenny Goldsmith arrived. From this point, things get hazy. The action and setting combine gentrification and streetfighting: This makes a fine opportunity to reinvent the term ferngully, as in, “that party at the Time Magazine foreign correspondent’s crib was all ferngully.” Goldsmith is equipped with a furry man-purse and some Lubriderm, and at some juncture, after a fractious debate about exchanging iPods, certain objects are defenestrated to the gravitational tune of twelve stories and they pursue their destiny. Brian Kim Stefans presides; Ange Mlinko is bored, but recovers from her ennui well enough to give a thoroughly pleasing reading the next night at the Anthroposophical Society (pleasing for the audience; her style is premised on seeming to regret that poetry ever crossed her path, while making it delight in same).
Posted by jane at March 30, 2004 07:17 AM | TrackBack