"Face face face face back back back back"

is a paraphrase from a line from a poem read by Sean Killian
yesterday afternoon at the Bowery Poetry Club.
An average crowd, on an average cold winter
day in downtown New York. But this reading was anything
but average. This was one of those
readings that will be remembered by nearly
everyone who was there, the kind of reading
that gets a tag like "legendary." The poem I
have in mind (Sean read many fine ones) he
claimed to have written yesterday. It talked
about dogs, it talked about the death by poisoning of Robert
Johnson. But out of nowhere, and very suddenly,
the audience found itself in a completely other
dimension. But what the hell, you hadda be there.

Laura Moriarty, who read from her latest book, which
she had on hand, *Self-Destruction*
(fascinating poems indeed, can't wait to
immerse myself in them again), also read from a science-fiction
novel she has written and a complex and absorbing
work that encompassed an inventive approach to
poetry criticism and poetics.

Poetry luminaries in the audience included Ann Waldman, Anne Tardos,
Mitch Highfill, Tom Kelley, Adeena Karasik,
Alex Young, Drew Gardner , Corinne Robins,
and Bruce Andrews. And of course, and especially Bob Holman-
who has indeed created a legend- named very simply
the Bowery Poetry Club.