Galway Kinnell is one of the most influential American poets of the latter half of the 20th century. An admitted follower of Walt Whitman, Kinnell rejects the idea of seeking fulfillment by escaping into the imaginary world. His best-loved and most anthologized poems, such as “St. Francis and the Sow” and “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps,” stand as testaments to the significant possibilities for transcendent realization that can be induced by meticulous excavation of the physical universe.
On Tuesday, May 1, we welcome this renowned poet to the Brattle Theatre for a special reading/birthday celebration (Kinnell turned 80 this year). The reading comes in part of our Blacksmith House Poetry Series. Tickets have been selling fast, so register now to ensure a seat. Tickets are $5.
Talking with my beloved in New York
I stood at the outdoor public telephone
in Mexican sunlight, in my purple shirt.
Someone had called it a man/woman
shirt. The phrase irked me. But then
I remembered that Rainer Maria
Rilke, who until he was seven wore
dresses and had long yellow hair,
wrote that the girl he almost was
“made her bed in his ear” and “slept him the world.”
I thought, OK this shirt will clothe the other in me.
As we fell into long-distance love talk
a squeaky chittering started up all around,
and every few seconds came a sudden loud
buzzing. I half expected to find
the insulation on the telephone line
laid open under the pressure of our talk
leaking low-frequency noises.
But a few yards away a dozen hummingbirds,
gorgets going drab or blazing
according as the sun struck them,
stood on their tail rudders in a circle
around my head, transfixed
by the flower-likeness of the shirt.
And perhaps also by a flush rising into my face,
for a word — one with a thick sound,
as if a porous vowel had sat soaking up
saliva while waiting to get spoken,
possibly the name of some flower
that hummingbirds love, perhaps
“honeysuckle” or “hollyhock”
or “phlox” — just then shocked me
with its suddenness, and this time
apparently did burst the insulation,
letting the word sound in the open
where all could hear, for these tiny, irascible,
nectar-addicted puritans jumped back
all at once, as if the air gasped.
–from “Imperfect Thirst” by Galway Kinnell
Categories: Blog · Events
This workshop was first taught in 1999 by educator Jennifer Yanco of Medford, MA. A white woman, Jennifer created the class to talk about racism, white privilege, and the role white people can play in speaking up and taking action agains racism.
Since then, 17 graduates of the class have joined Yanco as facilitators. The Spring course will be co-led by Barbara Beckwith, a writer and former public school teacher in Cambridge and Watertown, and Adam Gibbons, an intercultural affairs consultant and facilitator with City-Wide Dialogues.
The class is pretty inspiring. More than 600 people have taken this course since its creation, and it continues to ripple change through its participants and their communities.
The class begins on Wednesday, April 25, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. The class uses readings, videos, and role playing to help participants better understand the roots of racism and to be better prepared to take action in their own lives. Barbara has told me that participants have gone on to take action include schools and universities, places of worship, businesses, youth programs, local media, a publishing company, engineering firm, law firm, hospital, R&D firm, executive search company, court, co-op housing, and a poetry reading series. It’s quite a list!
Click here to read more and register.
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