it takes a village to raise a poem

quite a substantial crowd gathered at value village on wednesday night to hear lisa even-the-village-voice-thinks-she's-cool robertson read from the office for soft architecture. everyone there was delighted- staff, shoppers, poets... it was hard to tell who came for the shopping and who came for the poetry. everyone i interviewed said they came for both. my favourite part of the event was the fact that robertson read through the PA, er.. what do you call that thing in a store? the store's announcement system. Attention shoppers: here's something profound! a bargain on philosophical reflections on space and the flaneur! my attention drifted in and out of the essay (can't we just call these essays?) much as it does in any reading, but it felt like there was an understood permission to do so here. you could browse the reading as you browsed the shelves- and i mean to use the word "as" here in a double sense: "in the same way", "and at the same time."

an interesting contrast between this reading and the Book Length Dinner reading of/with The Men a few days prior, whose price tag and beautiful people alienated a couple of the people i spoke to, who felt much more comfortable in this setting. still gathering my thoughts about that tension.

you can listen to an audio archive of robertson reading from The Office for Soft Architecture at the recently remodelled coach house web site.