There is an invisible abundance of writing assignments that come with leading a nonprofit literary arts organization, including crafting introductions to readings and conversations, and the authors featured in them. During the ten plus years I helmed a national poetry institution, I likely wrote close to 100 of them—some short on word count and light in tone that I could draft on the subway during my commute, others substantial and serious that took research and the better part of a weekend. As with all writing, even these intentionally ephemeral, seemingly proforma texts take time to craft and can clarify thinking.
Preparing to write one introduction in particular did more than that; it led me back to two heroic people from the midwestern past I’d long left 885 miles behind. To showcase poetry’s relevance and influence across the arts, I curated a series in partnership with the New York Public Library that featured an award-winning poet and an artist from another discipline on stage together for an unmoderated, free-flowing conversation. For the first year, I paired Claudia Rankine with photographer Carrie Mae Weems, Sharon Olds with actor Cynthia Nixon, Kevin Young with chef Gabrielle Hamilton, and Mark Doty with dancer/choreographer Bill T.
Jones. While they had never met, each duo shared things in common, Mark and Bill especially. Both have southern roots and eventually moved as young men to New York City where they made their homes for many decades.
They’re both .