Ken Irby Reads Poetry at the Spencer Museum of Art Feb. 15

I have heard Ken Irby read poetry for most of my adult life--since he moved back to Lawrence in the 80s. Each time I cannot find the right words to describe the effect: a 360-degree word map that must be viewed from all angles at once; a fractal skin of words; if math posits 8 or 12 dimensions by now, Irby's poetry oscillates among 5 or 6 of them at least; a looping double helix that recharges with new matter every 3 minutes. I recall lush images from the "Homage to Gerrit Lansing": "citrine crisp" and cedar waxwings and blossoms in an enclosed garden that suffuse into the background. When I have leisure, I want to write about the birds that appear in Irby's work.

A new poem is from Jan. 4, 2007, beginning with a wait in the post office line--which sets the pace for the entire day seeming to be slow; then also sets the pace for the entire piece. I continue to learn from Irby with each such reading and each conversation. Photography by Denise Low.

Billy Harris Reads Poetry at the Spencer Art Museum Feb. 15

Billy Harris, KU English professor, read a chronological selection of poetry, including a poem he presented to his teacher Wendell Berry. He read strong poems about his strong mother (the topic was road rage and I wish I could reproduce the sense of narrative conveyed in compressed word bytes) and a science fiction trilogy, which created an eerily familiar and distorted reality. Among the pieces was "The Famous Colored Writer":

"Are you the famous colored writer?"
"No."
"Funny. You look just like him."

Harris writes with clarity, wit, intelligence.

Joseph Harrington at the Spencer Museum Reading Feb. 15

Joseph Harrington, KU professor, led off a trio of poets at the Spencer Museum of art at KU Feb. 15. He read "Parrots of Kansas"; a poem composed of one-syllable lines; "Flag" (2 prose-poem sections plus a verse section); and an image & text presentation of his ongoing project about his mother's life and how memory re-presents the past. "Parrots" was not completely ironic, but it did focus on the inverse of colorful plumage in birds like starlings, grackles, sparrows, and mourning doves--so it developed a nice tension. The text-image piece "It Goes On" worked with images of letters his mother received from Al Gore, Sr., postcards, photos, text-maps: each image was unexpected and singular, yet all worked toward an accretion of meaning and created an emotional sign-bundle.