A few weeks ago I was wondering if there was anything worse than a bad poetry reading–sitting captive in a low-ceilinged room in an uncomfortable chair listening to words that don’t seem to relate any meaning. The person I was complaining to asked why I go. I go for the kind of experience I had on Thursday, listening to Dana Gioia read his work at Falkirk House (the wonderful historic building where I read last summer) in San Rafael, courtesy of the Marin Poetry Center. I’ve written here before of Dana’s excellent critical prose, and of a “Verse,” a critical homage to Donald Justice that Dana told me last night will now be an ebook. Continue reading “Poetry reading”