Poetry Westchester

I love the new initiative between the Westchester library system and Manhattan's Poetry House. This Spring, six libraries will host readings and writing workshops for teens and adults, and the great, great poetess Hettie Jones, "poet in residence" at the Mount Pleasant library, will host Beat Poets: A Talk on April 6, 2pm.

(full schedule at poetshouse.org). 

Let's pay a little homage to Hettie:

Hard Drive

Saturday the stuffed bears were up again

over the Major Deegan

dancing in plastic along the bridge rail

under a sky half misty, half blue

and there were white clouds

blowing in from the west

which would have ben enough

for one used to pleasure

in small doses

But then later, at sunset

driving north along the Saw Mill

in a high wind, with clouds big and drifting

above the road like animals

proud of their pink underbellies,

in a moment of intense light

I saw an Edward Hopper house

at once so exquisitely light and dark

that I cried, all the way up Route 22

those uncontrollable tears

"As though the body were crying"

and so young women

here's the dilemma

itself a solution:

I have always been at the same time

woman enough to be moved to tears

and man enough

to drive my car in any direction

From Hard Drive (Hanging Loose Press, 1998)