116. From San Francisco to Your Living Rooms: The Nothing Is Hidden Reading Series

BY HARRIET STAFF*)

Genine Lentine runs the Nothing Is Hidden reading series in San Francisco. Of the series, she writes:

Nothing Is Hidden is a monthly series of readings, screenings, and artist talks that celebrates the 40th anniversary of Shunryu Suzuki’s classic book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and features writers and artists whose work embodies the robust compassion and engaged curiosity at its heart. This series has a very minimal budget and thrives on the generosity of the speakers themselves who forego their customary honorarium for the very modest one we are able to offer, based on the proceeds come from the door. What it has in abundance is an amazing roster of speakers and an extremely attuned and appreciative audience. The series has included writers, filmmakers, and artists such as Jennie Livingston, Alix Lambert, Rebecca Solnit, Joe Loya, Harrell Fletcher, Nick Flynn, Frances Richard, Dacher Keltner, Naomi Shihab Nye, Marie Howe, Mark Doty, Walter Murch, and Lydia Davis.

The next reading, which takes place this Friday, August 26th, will feature Matthews Zapruder and Dickman. What’s better? You can watch it in Ashtabula, OH, if that’s where you live, because it is being livestreamed! 10:30 EST!

And this reading has the theme of “Disaster Preparedness.” According to Lentine:

Also, a new development for this reading we will have a theme of disaster preparedness and we will actually be constructing small kits for everyone who comes. And we are making letterpress broadsides that have a poem by each of them (Zapruder and Dickman).

I’ve always liked the idea of having public service announcements at poetry readings, partly playing with the perception of poetry as something frivolous or “extra.” There would be a sense of how poetry concerns itself with uncertainty, but that Unknowing doesn’t have to mean Unprepared! And that many people think that preparing a disaster kit is a good idea, but many people do not actually get around to doing it. So my hope in this reading is to give people a start and they can build theirs from there. We will also have information from organizations such as 72 hours.

The San Francisco Zen Center, which hosts the series, can be found here.

Speaking of those broadsides: here are two videos of Annemarie Munn reading Dickman’s “Grief” and Zapruder’s “Pocket” while printing them!

*) Harriett ist der Blog der Poetry Foundation