Barbara Edelmen, Mike Schneider, Michael Smith & Ellen Smith @ Hemingway's

Barbara Edelman and friends killed it. I'm (full disclosure) a personal friend and once-classmate of Barbara's, who's name, as she brought up in one of her poems, means "Stranger", this I assume having to do with the Barbara/Barbarian etymology. Barbara's poems, issues of critical distance aside, made me look up from the crook of my arms, where I had collapsed in penitent hunger (I eventually folded and bought a Baja burger). Ms. Edelman's performative voice was excellent; she took on multiple personas, ranging from the more standard literary poet to a crazy-over-talkative drone, and never missed a beat. Her poems were also extremely good in the way that you can expect academic's to be... "The poem shudders through the ice-drawn branches." (this is a complete misquote... I didn't buy the book).

I saw Mike Schneider the night before at East End Book Exchange and didn't really pay attention to him then, but this night he stood out with his long and heartfelt (his voice quavered at appropriate moments) poems about WWII and the Boy Scouts. I admired Michael Smith, the founder of Autumn House Press, by the way, for sort of similar reasons, he had some impassioned political appeals in verse in a style that I've been trying to evince myself lately, sort of just directly talking to the audience in broad values-terms about issues such as war while maintaining a good sound. The way Michael broached these topics made me think that I'd have to look him up to improve my own technique. Ellen Smith read a series of poems in the format of instructions on how to sell various products for advertising agencies... "how to sell catheters" and, more abstractly "how to sell sleep." These were funny and straightforward and well composed in a appealing way, and they took the time to reveal some deeper thoughts about advertising and desire in general.

I came out as "against" PGH poetry in a certain way, threatening to move to New York in a previous post, and even now I'm planning my escape... but it's good to know my dissatisfaction isn't as straightforward as I may have planned... there are good artists here, of course there are -- poetryburgh@gmail.com