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The Academy of American Poets promised youth. \u201cAll very hip, young, cool poets,\u201d said the invite for a recent Thursday-night reading on the rooftop of the Arsenal Building in Central Park. And it wasn\u2019t just that night\u2019s reading. \u201cThe entire reading series,\u201d the e-mail emphasized, \u201cfeatures hip, cool poets.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the evening of the hip, cool reading on the rooftop, the clouds hung low and threatened precipitation. The workers of Manhattan, newly released from their cubicles, surged up Fifth Avenue to Central Park, breathing in the cultivated scents of high-end retail that punctuated the doorway of each storefront.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sick of hearing about Barack Obama,\u201d said someone walking behind me on Fifth Avenue, as I, newly released from my cubicle, inhaled the spicy, luxurious air that poured out the doorway of Henri Bendel. \u201cYou know?\u201d she said to her companion. \u201cI\u2019m sick of the jokes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The skyscrapers all had trees growing from their atria or complex terraces of ferns sprouting beneath their glass panes. They looked like magazine ads for oil companies. Mr. Softee trucks lined 59th\u00a0Street, which was also seething with joggers. Around the stoplights the young joggers clustered, running in place. They all wore T-shirts that read \u201cThe J. P. Morgan Corporate Challenge.\u201d They jogged to and fro on some sort of athletic scavenger hunt; hip, young, cool corporate types on what appeared to be a fitness mission that promised team building but also possibly resulted in charitable contributions. (I looked it up later: \u201cForty companies celebrated fitness and camaraderie in one of the world\u2019s greatest urban parks, while raising funds for the Central Park Conservancy.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Then there was the green biota of the park, breathing under the low clouds. I entered the Arsenal Building, with its cool interior and WPA murals of prancing horses, carriages, and cannons. In the lobby stood a man in a sea-green shirt, lawn-green tie, shorts, and Birkenstocks. He carried a tote bag from the Strand. Perhaps he was a hip poet. He turned out to be another member of the audience. \u201cThere\u2019s a poetry reading here, isn\u2019t there?\u201d he asked the security guard. The guard waved us into the elevator. We ascended to the fourth floor, then emerged into a park functionary\u2019s office, its filing cabinets decorated with smiling pictures of the Obama family. Past the watercooler and the cubicle, and then out onto the rooftop, where a full house awaited the young, hip poets under a white tent.<\/p>\n
I went to the beverage table, which, by this point, only had a metal washbasin with a block of melting ice in it. Empty bottles of white wine were lined up beneath the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Paris Review<\/em> sent me,\u201d I said, looking longingly at the melting ice block and the empty wine glasses. I asked to speak to Dimitri. The young person behind the table looked baffled.<\/p>\n \u201cDimitri?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d I said, nodding. \u201cI\u2019m to speak to Dimitri. I was forwarded an e-mail from Dimitri.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean Alex Dimitrov?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d I said. I was very tired. He pointed out a young man by the podium holding photocopied notes.<\/p>\n But the reading was about to begin, so I sat in a folding chair instead. The first reader was Jennifer Grotz. \u201cPronounced Grotes<\/em>,\u201d she said, by way of introduction. She read a poem about walking in the city. It had an old man in a brown fedora. \u201cEverything converting back into the city,\u201d she read.<\/p>\n Then there was a poem called \u201cLate Summer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI sometimes think all of my poems could be called \u2018Late Summer,\u2019\u201d she said. She described \u201ca large gray rose of pigeons.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wrote this poem in Krakow,\u201d she said of her next poem, \u201cbut it\u2019s about West Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n Of another poem: \u201cI wish it were called \u2018Steaks\u2019 because I can smell the steaks cooking nearby, but it\u2019s called \u2018Cherries.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the time of year when everybody stops what they\u2019re doing to eat them,\u201d was the only line of \u201cCherries\u201d I managed to write down.<\/p>\n Alex \u201cnot Dimitri\u201d Dimitrov, pale and bearded, becardiganed despite the summer warmth, introduced Lisa Jarnot, the next poet. The city was infringing slightly on the reading. The steaks were cooking, although I couldn\u2019t smell them, and a jazz trumpet was playing somewhere in the zoo below us.<\/p>\n Lisa Jarnot introduced herself and said that she was hoping her daughter could be there. I thought her daughter was maybe an adult, who was coming after work (I was sitting in the back row and therefore mistook Jarnot\u2019s grave demeanor for that of an older, hip poet), but it turned out her daughter was the small toddler who had been carried away in the early stages of the reading.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s never made it through the first one of my poems,\u201d said Jarnot sadly.<\/p>\n Sirens wailed beneath us, mingling with the sounds of the jazz from the zoo and the smell of steaks. The mosquitoes, unfortunately, were among us.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll make use of the sirens to read a New York City poem,\u201d said Jarnot. As she read, a clock somewhere in the park struck seven.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can I hear?\u201d said Jarnot, after she finished her New York City poem, which I had trouble hearing. \u201cI can hear sirens, bells, and an airplane. It\u2019s kind of like reading in a bar.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJennifer mentioned steak,\u201d Jarnot said. Then she read a poem called \u201cMoo is Oom Backwards\u201d that involved an interaction between cows and daisies in a field. \u201cBut the daisies sing but not the cows,\u201d she read. \u201cMooing, singing daisies.\u201d<\/p>\n The invisible clock tower began playing an extended version of \u201cTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.\u201d<\/p>\n Then Jarnot read a poem called \u201cFor the Nation\u201d that had the line \u201ccarcasses of chickens torn to bits by poets \/ carcasses of poets torn to bits by war.\u201d<\/p>\n I thought of the ice melting in the washbasin and the empty white-wine bottles under the folding table, and the J. P. Morgan Corporate Challenge underway in the park.<\/p>\n The final poet, Chris Martin, stepped up to be introduced by Alex Dimitrov.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to start with a rap,\u201d said Chris Martin. \u201cI\u2019ll actually do it twice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cReal as a hamburger body in a blur,\u201d he rapped. \u201cRadiating energy the trees get dressed.\u201d<\/p>\n