Tuesdays at Curley's

Welcome to PoemAlley, Stamford, Connecticut's eclectic venue for poets, poetry reading and discussion! Open to anyone living in Fairfield County and the surrounding area, we meet Tuesday nights at 7:30 pm at Curley's Diner on 62 Park Place (behind Target) . Come contribute, get something to eat, or simply listen!



Mar 26, 2013

When Reality Gets Tossed, Like A Salad


Tonight’s featured poet at Curley’s Diner was initially drawn to the form by no less than Frank McCourt (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angela’s Ashes), his English teacher while attending New York City’s Stuyvesant High School. Neil Silberblatt began penning his own work while at Cornell University.

In addition to his writing, Neil is very active in organizing Voices of Poetry, a traveling venue for prominent poets and musicians, held at The Sherman Museum, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield), the New Britain Museum of American Art and other locations around Connecticut.

Most recently, Neil has placed two pieces in last October’s “It’s Political” issue of the literary publication Verse Wisconsin. So Far, So Good (Lulu), his 2012 collection, is prized by fellow poet and Voices participant, Joan Kantor, for its blend of “… honesty and accessibility” with humor and elegant word-choice.   

Madison Avenue (part of his New York Suite), Grand Prize Winner in the Open Community Poetry Contest sponsored by Hennen's Observer (which also nominated the poet for a Pushcart Prize), conveys with sparse power how standard mandates of self-worth, opportunity and integrity get twisted out of all meaning on the altar of globalized consumerism:


MADISON AVENUE


At the Viand Coffee Shop...

on Madison Avenue
          which must not be confused
          with the Viand on East 86th
          or the Viand on Broadway
come the young ladies fresh from
their visit to the Met
or, if they dare, the Whitney
         because one can only
          take so many Rothkos
          or Van Goghs
          in a morning
wearing their
dazzling tennis whites
which have never seen,
and will never see,
a ground stroke,
as they pick apart their
salads
and each other.

Now enter
the ladies
bearing handbags
with names
like children,
     the real thing
     of course,
     no knock offs here
as they survey the
dieter’s special
and eye the desserts
cordoned off
behind the counter.

Their conversations hushed
as they spread
butter
and gossip.

Two blocks away
from the Viand Coffee Shop
on Madison Avenue
     which must not be confused
     with the Viand on East 86th
     or the Viand on Broadway
stands a refugee
from Senegal
as black as the plum
into which she bites,
its juices dripping
down the side of her hand,
as she quickly sets up
her display of
counterfeit handbags
on the street-corner.
 
She is
real;
the plum is
real;
the bags –
     as she will quietly tell you
     in her rich Senegalese accent,
     with her breath scented by plum -
are beautiful,
but fake.
  
Neil has a second collection of poems, tentatively titled Present Tense, due for release later this year. 

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