[New-Poetry] What I witnessed

[Halvard Johnson]

On Jul 2, 2008, at 8:00 AM, David Graham wrote:

> Back in the late 1970s I witnessed a wonderful moment at a reading  
> given by Robert Francis.  This would have been in Amherst,  
> Massachusetts, at the Jones Library.  After reading a number of his  
> charming, simple-seeming lyrics to the polite murmurs of the  
> audience, Francis then recited a fairly strident anti-war poem--to  
> enthusiastic applause.
>
> The poet stood there, looking quizzical for a long moment (I am  
> aware how studied his performance may have been), waiting for the  
> applause to subside into smug silence.  Then he very delicately  
> inquired, "Now, was that applause for me, for the poem, or for the  
> sentiments in the poem?  You know, applause can be so ambiguous."

Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Hal

"I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap
dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they're
surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must
make them miserable."
              --Robert Rauschenberg

Halvard Johnson
================
halvard at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org
http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20080702/155da479/attachment.html