Neeli Cherkovski and Jim Dunn: September 5, 2019

Jim Dunn reads his poems “Yankee Division Highway,” “6/6/9,” “6/6/10,” “For The Future of Thunder,” “I Shan’t Breath a Word,” “Working Security at the Lettuce Show at The Cabot,” “A Fuse that Refuses” (For Kevin Killian), “Coming to Grips” (For David Berman), “The Flight of Stairs” (for Derek Fenner), “Fresh Out,” “Shelter in Place,” “All Lit Up,” The Museum of Silence,” “Some Semblance,” “From Water to Run,” and “Well Wishes” (for Gerrit Lansing).

Neeli Cherkovski begins his reading with a poem, “Dirge Without Music,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, before reading a series of poems in manuscript from his forthcoming book, Hyper: “One of These Mornings,” “Forever Is My Word,” “Andover Street” “We Leave You,” “Hyper Time,” and “For Lorca” (for Lorca Ballard). After remarks on John Keats, he continues, reading “The Man Who Bought The Moon,” “An Ordinary Savage,” “Poems and More Poems” and “Bukowski and Cherkovski,” from Elegy For My Beat Generation.

Jim Dunn and Neeli Cherkovski sit down with the audience for questions. Dunn is asked how he met John Wieners and he talks about their decade long friendship and Wieners’ sense of humor. A member of the audience asks about Gerrit Lansing, and Dunn reads, on request, “Memories of Gerrit” from John Wieners’ Cultural Affairs in Boston (Black Sparrow Press, 1988), imitating the voice of Wieners. Cherkovski reminisces about Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, each of whom he’d written books on (including biographies of Bukowski and Ferlinghetti), and talks about George Oppen and Philip Whalen. The poets are asked what they have in common and discuss their approach to writing and revision, their comparative senses of humility, and how they each believe poetry is about friendship. They discuss how poets can learn from one another through the ability to sit with friends in comfortable silence, listening, and trust. Neeli talks about David Meltzer, about Ulysses and Moby Dick as epic poems, and Charles Olson’s “The Kingfishers.” As a closing thought, Timotha Doane from the audience describes the event as a “celebration of poets who love other poets.”