Visual artist and bilingual poet Yuko Otomo will participate in both New Year’s Day marathons (photo by Marilyn Kaggen)
Every January 1, a pair of poetry marathons do battle on the Lower East Side in celebration of the new year. The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church (131 East 10th St. at Second Ave., $20, 3:00 – 12 midnight) will be hosting its thirty-eighth annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit Reading, featuring 140 artists, 52 of whom contributed a line to the broadside “Exquisite Corpse,” which begins, “Language is what the rocks thought of when they wanted to walk.” The always spectacular lineup includes Anne Waldman with Ambrose Bye & Daniel Carter, Bob Hershon, Church of Betty, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, Elliott Sharp, John Giorno, John S. Hall, Jonas Mekas, Judith Malina, Lee Ranaldo, Lenny Kaye, Mónica de la Torre, Nick Hallett, Patti Smith, Penny Arcade, Steve Earle, Susie Timmons, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Mead, Thurston Moore, Wayne Koestenbaum, Yoshiko Chuma, and Yvonne Meier with Aki Sasamoto. The exact schedule is available only onsite. Meanwhile, over at the Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery between Houston & Bleecker Sts., free with suggested donation of paperback books for Books Through Bars, 2:00 – 12 midnight), the eighteenth annual Alternative New Year’s Day Spoken Word and Performance Extravaganza features more than 150 performers as well an open mic, with such guests as Corrina Bain, Richard Kostelanetz, Ocean Vuong, EJ Antonio, Adam Falkner, Marcy Alexis, Steve Cannon, Emanuel Xavier, Kathi Georges, Jackie Sheeler, Eve Packer, Nancy Mercado, Ngoma, Sparrow, Laura Dinnebeil, Angelo Vergas, and such double-duty poets as Steve Dalachinsky, Anselm Berrigan, and Yuko Otomo, who will read at both marathons. This year’s Bowery theme is “Kaleidoscope”: “Come observe what happens when words shift and flicker! We are a circle of mirrors. Together we reflect the rest of the world.”
