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Last night I went to a poetry reading at Housing Works Bookstore on Crosby Street. It wasn’t planned — I’d passed the store three times a week for the past month and a half, yet never ventured in. It just so happened I chose the right night to check it out, as the U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Levine was doing a free reading along with other young, talented poets.

There is something special about the atmosphere at a poetry reading — every word is carefully selected and counted for something, sentences are well-crafted and emotions waft through a crowded room. It was invigorating to hear artists recite each verse from their soul.

Portrait of Philip Levine by Geoffrey Berliner

One of favorite lines of the night from Levine:


“I’m not really known as a love poet because I don’t write love poems; but I’m going to read a poem called ‘Of Love & Other Disasters.'”

 Hopefully I will have more of these unexpectedly wonderful encounters —

j

for my walls

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Today’s prints that I want on my wall are by the Berlin-based artist Meike Nixdorf, who I have a super photo crush on and have admired since I first stumbled upon her work on 20×200. Meike was in the spotlight in 2011 when she was selected as a second edition Hot Shot, and I immediately began drooling over the release of her two latest editions of vivid landscapes. Yum.
All photographs are views from the series In the Orbit of El Teide, and can be found on Meike’s site.
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It could not be a better time in my life to hear these words. Shine on, Steve —
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

room

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I want to share something bittersweet that recently happened in my life. Several days ago I moved, but not far. I loaded my arms with my belongings and settled in a new room across the hall, after a roommate moved out.

I had written about my former room way back in January, two weeks into my stay in New York. The room was very stark, but such a beautiful place to me. It meant so much and I know that no one could ever look at it the same or understand the significance. It contains my feelings and a period of my life that cannot be described.

In my old room, I was a guest and a traveler ready to uproot. My possessions were scarce enough to pack my suitcase and return to where I came from if things didn’t work out. I slept on a cot for those three and a half months, my toes dangling over the edge and four inches of mattress below me. Yet I hardly noticed what I didn’t have; I had a room, and that was what I needed most.

Each morning, and again in the evening I would walk through the door. I was met by a window that faced the street, my outlet to the sidewalks and neighbors of Prospect Place and all the goings-on below. It was my window, in my room, and the light that came from it, too, was my light. I loved the feeling of ownership that came with the 7.5′ x 12.5′ space — they were my 94 square feet in Brooklyn, New York. No one else’s, no where else, but I would share every inch with any visitor, I was so proud.

Looking in to my first room, now empty.
Looking out of my first room.
My first room from the doorway.
• • • • •

My new room is beautiful, but in a different way. It is not my first room in Brooklyn, and it feels heavier— as though I bear an anchor to this room, and will stay in this place for some time. A full size bed is snug in a corner, with a wardrobe opposite that teems with my belongings. I am growing here in every sense. The window no longer overlooks the street, but instead faces the brick wall of an adjacent building. There is still light — my light, that I wake up to every morning, well-rested, my first thought always, “My, this is nice…”

xo
j