Poet Jennifer Michael Hecht @ Big Apple BAP: NYC's Best American Poetry Poets

Poet Jennifer Michael Hecht @ The Inspired Word's Big Apple BAP: NYC's Best American Poetry Poets, Thursday, June 16, 2011, @ One and One Bar/Restaurant, Nexus Lounge, Manhattan, NYC.

Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of award-winning books of philosophy, history, and poetry. She has appeared in two editions of Best American Poetry, 1999 and 2005. Her Doubt: A History (HarperOne, 2003) demonstrates a long, strong history of religious doubt from the origins of written history to the present day, all over the world. Hecht's The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism and Anthropology (Columbia University, 2003), won the Phi Beta Kappa Society's 2004 prestigious Ralph Waldo Emerson Award "for scholarly studies that contribute significantly to interpretations of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity." She earned her Ph.D. in the History of Science and European Cultural History from Columbia University in 1995 and now teaches at The New School University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband John, and their two children.

This inaugural Big Apple BAP: NYC's Best American Poetry Poets was a night celebrating New York City's finest poets, whose poems over the years have been honored with inclusion in the highly respected annual anthology, The Best American Poetry. http://www.bestamericanpoetry.com/

Hosted by The Best American Poetry's founding editor, David Lehman, the debut lineup included a dazzling array of accomplished poets: Mark Bibbins, Jennifer Michael Hecht, David Shapiro, R. Erica Doyle, Jerome Sala, Elaine Equi, Michael Cirelli, Stacey Harwood, George Green, Carly Sachs, Matthew Yeager, Amy Holman, and Vicki Hudspith.

It was a fabulous night of poetry.

Founded by award-winning journalist and former Village Voice columnist Mike Geffner, The Inspired Word is one of the hottest new poetry/spoken word series in the country, happening every Tuesday and Thursday night in Manhattan's East Village.

Venue: One and One Bar/Restaurant (downstairs Nexus Lounge)
76 East 1st Street (corner of 1st Avenue)
Manhattan, New York City

Filmed & Edited by: Laurence Wallace
http://www.laurencewallace.com/

Diana Gonzalez: Poem "Radiant Child"

Radiant Child by Diana Gonzalez

Radiant child, you

are and

in the

grass you

lie

peaceful

and I

watch videos of you

and

gaze at your artwork

radiant child, you

truly

inspire me

your

drawings and writings

I

am

in awe.

And actually,

I don't look up to too many people, so

really

that's saying a lot

and

for once in my life

when I saw your artwork

I felt

like I

could truly

call myself

the artist

that I feel myself to be

inside

i do.





your grave is here, where I roam

and call my home

I wonder what it would have been like

to have met you

to have spoken to you,

rest assured, I

probably would stutter

just a bit

and ramble

just a bit.

but I was just a child, when angels of death claimed you

and now I visit your grave, in some

lame attempt to be close

to who you are, to

know what you were like,

I

must suffice

with grave site visits and

gazing at your artwork

and I'll

never see a post card

the same way



again

Rest

in peace

Radiant Child.

Diana Gonzalez is a poet living in Brooklyn, New York.