POETRYBURGH IN NEW YORK

Well it's true you may have heard the rumors but your good old pal Poetryburgh spent the last couple of days in the good old city of NYC. What was I doing? The New York City Poetry Festival, dear reader, held on Goverener's Island, in a big sandy field, just a ferry ride away from Manhattan. What happened there? There were 3-5 simultaneous stages of poetry, and it was possible to stand at a point in the field where you could hear all of them at the same time. The event occured 11-5 Saturday and Sunday, with 30 minute blocks of time for each registered group of readers: that's 6 x 2 x (3-5) /.5 = 72-120 differentt poetry groups, all under the same tent, so to speak (there was no tent, only: a beer tent).

How was about the poetry? Well, I wasn't impressed by most of it. That's to be expected I suppose: the majority of any group isn't going to be by nature higher quality than the norm. What's significant here is that my PGH norm for poetry isn't all that different from my newly aquired NY norm, i.e. my opinion of PGH poetry in general isn't worse than what I saw in New York. In fact, the quality of the average PGH poem may be a little higher (a bias on my part, perhaps?) The other thing is that there was enough poetry a the festival to create a competitive market. People were screaming, putting on masks, just trying their damndest to be noticed and have their work get out there. This means that more people were doing schlocky things like masks etc. but it also means there was a sustained desire on everyone's part to do their best; the audience could walk away from any stage at any time and go to a different one so there was a "battle of the bands" effect. The other advantage of a teeming ecosystem of poets was that your critic could pick and choose, take sides, play favorites, essentialy have a greater selection of poetry to work with than what is offered in PGH.

So the big question: am I going to move to New York? Well, I've been less excited about the idea, after visiting, than I usually have been. It's not the city itself: everyone was nice, the subways are great, etc. I think it's that my big idea of New York as a "poetry mecca" has been deflated a bit... Not to say that I necessarily saw everthing the city had to offer on my trip, just that: I wasn't so inspired, you know? It's always good to get context for your dreams not just because you can begin to make them real but also because you are able to release some of the ambition's disorienting pull, idealize a little less. Not to say that I've given up on my dreams... I talked to a lot of the festival people, as I am talking to everyone, about my goals and ideas for poetry... Some of them told me that in lieu of moving I should just start something up in Pittsburgh.  The idea of a Poetryburgh review or /house or /reading series has been kicking around my head for a while... if I was a little more ambitious, maybe I could get something like that started....


POETRYBURGH'S PICKS FROM NYC:
Noelle Benau / Betty Red[?] .. soundcloud.com/derytteb
Tommy Pico .. heyteebs.tumblr.com
Jay Deshpande .. [Book forthcoming From Yes Yes Press]
Danniel Schoonebeek .. dannielschoonebeek.tumblr.com
Apogee Journal
Stonecutter Journal
[not such a long list, huh?? My fault or the city's? I have to admit I find one way more likely] --poetryburgh@gmail.com