Book Release for Wake Me When It’s Over: Selected Poems of Bill Kushner

Event Details: Tickets Wednesday, October 10, 2018, 8:00 pm

Wake Me When It’s Over: Bill Kushner at the Poetry Project from Don Yorty on Vimeo.

Bill Kushner is the ultimate flaneur of Manhattan night-life, as both participant and observer. His fierce, ebullient, eye-opening work is always on target, whether clearheaded or confused, and all the scary ambivalence of self-acceptance rings true on every page. Please join us for the release of Wake Me When It’s Over: Selected Poems by this beloved poet and friend of many, edited by Peter Bushyeager. Organized by Lewis Warsh, the reading will feature Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Peter Bushyeager, Charlotte Carter, Lydia Cortes, Kenny “Angel” Davis, Maggie Dubris, Edward Foster, Guy Gauthier, Barbara Henning, Patricia Spears Jones, Betty LaRoe, Robin Messing, Dennis Moritz, Elinor Nauen, KB Nemcosky, Tom Savage, Noam Scheindlin, Stephen Spicehandler, Lewis Warsh, Phyllis Wat, and Don Yorty.

Sky

Oh it’s just a blue sky with a few white clouds in it
& then I looked at my hands & one was pointing up
& so the rest of me just naturally began to fly up
& there I was up high in the sky besides that white
Thing cloud beside me so I says hi! meaning no pun
Sorry, no autographs, the thing says, floating away
& I after it shouting But I came all this way the
Better to describe you, please! but it was gone & there
I was falling aimlessly like a thing kind of leaf &
Slap me silly if there I wasn’t right exactly back right
Back on the flats of my feet & the people of the city
Among them you whom I have always wanted to meet
You are wearing something blue & a little off white &
A little kind of smile, shy, hello there, hi

10/8/86

Online tickets are available at the link above until an hour before this event. Unless otherwise noted, tickets will continue to be available at the door.

Bill Kushner

Bill Kushner (1931-2015) authored eight collections of poetry and co-authored a volume of collaborative poems with Tom Savage. His work has been anthologized in Up Late (4 Walls & Windows, 1987), In Our Time: The Gay and Lesbian Anthology (St. Martin’s, 1989), Out of This World (Crown, 1991), Best American Poetry 2002 (Scribners, 2002), and Poetry After 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets (Melville House Publishing, 2003). He was a 1999 and 2005 Fellow of the New York Foundation of the Arts.