I’ve read in the Washington Post about Sandra Beasley’s discomfiture at not knowing the etiquette of the party at the Finnish Embassy’s sauna (naked? not naked?); I’ve enjoyed sneak-up-on-you, late-night vodka drinks with her after a hard night of teaching at Johns Hopkins; and I’ve read her sharp, smart poems while sitting amidst the swirl of a bookstore, lost to the world (and then continued reading in the quiet of my house). I’ve been at events she’s organized to a T, and I’ve shared potluck dinners with her. I printed off from her blog a recipe for carrots.
But I’ve never seen Sandra read from her own work. My fault, and now I’m about to rectify the situation on Sunday, May 2, when she’s reading from her new book, I WAS THE JUKEBOX, at Politics & Prose at 1 PM.
I WAS THE JUKEBOX won the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize, selected by Joy Harjo, and is just out this month from W. W. Norton. Publisher’s Weekly recently reviewed the book: “More fun than most recent books, Beasley's second collection can also get quite serious: in the best parts, the poet pretends she is any number of nonhuman things—a jukebox, an orchid, the Egyptian god Osiris, an eggplant (in a sestina), grains of sand…. If Beasley's conceits owe something to Kenneth Koch, her tone and her subjects might place her with chick lit, too: this is a book that could go a long way.” I totally agree, and you can see for yourself with two poems from the book here.
Politics & Prose is at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, with a parking lot around the back of the store; it is closest to the Van Ness-UDC stop on the red line metro. Here is the official event listing:http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/sandra-beasley-i-was-jukebox.
You can read more about Sandra at her website: www.sandrabeasley.com
Hope to see you on Sunday!