Last night I took the train into the city to attend the Poets Forum reading put on by the Academy of American Poets.  It was the kickoff event for their big poetry weekend in NYC (most of which I’ll be attending and will report on here.)  They had all the current Chancellors reading, except Rita Dove who couldn’t be there.  Disappointing not to have seen her, but WOW, the poets who were there were outstanding.  The exciting part for me was seeing a few legends (Gary Snyder, C.K. Williams), as well as a couple of personal poetry idols (Sharon Olds and Robert Pinsky.)

A few observations:

• C.K. Williams wore a bright orange shirt with a red tie.  Very attention-getting!  He pulled it off, I must say.
• C.K. Williams also blew me away with the exquisitely executed musicality of his reading.  As my former mentor David Wagoner would say, “The ear was at work.”  Heh.
• Gary Snyder looked exactly like his photographs.  And was wearing brightly-colored stripey socks.  And an orange shirt.  Orange shirts must be all the rage among older gentlemen poets these days.
• Robert Pinsky gets an absolutely delighted look on his face when he likes what he’s hearing.
• Sharon Olds is the kindest, sweetest, and funniest woman ever.  I adore her.  Also, she read a poem called “Douchebag Ode” and brought the house down.

After the reading, I was able to speak with Sharon Olds for a moment and have her sign my book.  Despite my determination to be cool, I was a stammering dork.  Oh well.  She was very nice about me stumbling over my words as if I just learned to speak yesterday.  I also had a moment with Robert Pinsky (and was slightly less of an idiot), with whom I spoke to about Slate.  I love that he records each poet reading to post on the website with the poems.  He said he was happy to hear that because the poetry in Slate doesn’t get many hits and they keep threatening to cut it.  What a tragedy!  If you love poetry and want to see it out in the world where regular people can read it, I urge you to bookmark the Slate poetry page and click often.  At least once a week, will you?  Not only is the poetry there very often amazing, but it’s worth doing for the cause.

Pinsky also signed his book for me.  He used my favorite pen, which I received as a gift from my family when I graduated with my MFA.  I will never wash it again!  (Ha.)