Wayne Reads

Wayne Koestenbaum reads with the sensitivity and understanding of a poet and the comfort and articulation of a studied actor. He is a precise writer and a more precise reader. He beams with kindness and generosity. I get lost in his readings, but I don’t lose the words or the narratives. The other night, he read at Renwick Gallery in the middle of a show named for a Gertrude Stein line from the 1914 poem Tender Buttons, the same sight slighter,. It was a great setting, with the quiet (slight) artwork surrounding him. Between poems, films screened, but I really just wanted to listen – poems from Best Selling Jewish Porn Films (Turtle Point Press, 2006) and new ones, not published yet, and Stein.