The First Time: Cecily Parks hears Gwendolyn Brooks

Today’s guest for The First Time column, in which poets talk about the first poetry reading they attended, is Cecily Parks, the author of Field Folly Snow (University of Georgia Press, 2008) and the chapbook Cold Work (Poetry Society of America, 2005). Her poem “Silviculture” appears in issue 16 of Memorious.  One Sunday Evening I…

The First Time: Orgera on Kunitz

Today’s guest, Alexis Orgera, is the author of How Like Foreign Objects (H_ngm_n BKS, 2010).  She has poems forthcoming in the Spring/Summer issue of Memorious. My first poetry reading: Stanley Kunitz, 1996 It always boils down to memory. I heard a scientist on TV explain that our brains can’t actually distinguish between what they’ve imagined…

The First Time: Derek Mong on Merwin

Today’s guest for The First Time column, in which poets talk about the first poetry reading they attended, is Derek Mong, author of Other Romes (Saturnalia 2011). FIRSTS: W.S. Merwin Jane Scott, the longtime rock critic for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, used to say her career began with the greatest interview of her life.  The…

The First Time: Anna Ross on Galway Kinnell & Her First Time at the Podium

Today’s guest for our new The First Time column is contributor Anna Ross,  who talks about her first poetry reading, which, like in the case of our last guest, was her own. Anna Ross is the author of the chapbook Hawk Weather, winner of the 2008 New Women’s Voices contest by Finishing Line Press. First…

The First Time: Ishion Hutchinson

Welcome to our new column, The First Time, in which we ask poets to talk about the first poetry reading they attended.  Ishion Hutchinson, the author of Far District, which won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, starts off our series with his first reading, which took place in his hometown of Port Antonio, Jamaica. First Reading…