Poetry New York

            Tuesday May 6^th at The Bowery Poetry Club, Julie Patton and Charles Bernstein read their poetry for The Evergreen Reading Series. Julie Patton began and read a poem or as she said, an interview between her and her mother. Very quickly she read, probably as the conversation had actually happened. She emphasized the word ‘blue’ by including it in food (blue cheese, blue corn chips, blue jello), blue tones in skin color, and blues as in the type of music. She pronounced each word articulately and her voice was soothing to listen to. She said she practiced different tones in her voice by talking to her cats and saying things in different repetitive ways.

            Charles Bernstein had a much more humorous approach to his performance especially considering he ordered a drink in the middle of it because he said it would make a great prop. His comical banter between his poems were slightly confusing but hilarious. His poems were sarcastic and clearly made fun of either the readers or the structure of the poem such as in “The Ballad of the Girly Man”. While much of his poetry was comical, his “The Ballad of the Girly Man” was an anti-war poem that had a few very profound lines such as, “the truth is hidden in a veil of tears.”

            Overall, Julie Patton and Charles Bernstein, while they had very different ways of performing, seemed very content at sticking with their own style. Julie Patton writes poems that are extremely long for as she said, “the average poem I write is a book”. Charles Bernstein on the other hand, writes in a sarcastic somewhat condescending way, though both poets were well appreciated by the audience.