Aldon Nielsen, "Tray"
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Aldon Nielsen, William J. Harris, Tyrone Williams, hosted by Al Filreis, convened in the Arts Café of the Kelly Writers House, before a live audience, to discuss Aldon’s poem “Tray.” There are 29 sections in the poem; the group discussed the first 6. In the book titled Tray, published by Make Now Press in 2017, the title poem takes up the first 37 pages; the sections we discussed run to page 14. Usually, of course, we play an audio recording of the poem from we’re about to discuss as archived in PennSound, but on this day, because we had the honor of Aldon’s presence we asked him to perform those sections.
November 29, 2023
Ni uno más
Siempre hay más
Hay que hablar de cobardía que es la manera en que se entiende aquí el aire.
Hay que hablar de miedo.
Es decir,
hay que hablar de historia.
We must speak of cowardice which is the way to understand the air here.
We must speak of fear.
That is,
we must speak of history.
Juan Carlos Bautista, “Cabezas” (“Heads”)