You are currently viewing the stories for “February 2022.”
In the Manhattan telephone directory "white pages," there used to be a page that came just before alphabetical listings of names, addresses, and phone numbers. Along with a list of Post Office addresses and a map of City zip codes, it featured the Manhattan Address Locator. A simple looking table, it performed a kind of magic, allowing you to take [...]
The Literary Life: NYC 1982 I recall distinctly The famous author Standing over me As I scraped the plaster Off her bathroom floor Left behind by Workers renovating The building The first time I talked to her She called me up To express her Indignation About the bathroom I felt I’d done Something wrong Like I was in trouble With [...]
Last January, days before I was due to return to New Orleans from New York, a fire broke out in my parents’ apartment building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I had come to the city in the midst of the pandemic to repopulate my life, albeit temporarily: the first week belonged to my then-girlfriend, the second to my [...]
Before the interwebs, it required more ingenuity to get noticed. That’s why I conjured up my “underground poet” scheme in the early 90s. I was already a published poet by then, and at a huge art show at the Javits Center two of my framed one-liners were purchased by a French art dealer. When he compared me to Marcel Duchamp, [...]
