Jorie Graham, poet, at Arion Press

I know what Jorie Graham is reading is supposed to be--a poem Jorie Graham's written--and that it really wants to be a poem, but I'm not sure what it really is.

I know I'm supposed to know that it's a poem--it's more than long enough to be a poem, has more than enough words and images--and the poet is reading her poem out loud.

I try to listen to every word but get lost pretty quickly, so that I never really get into the poem she's reading, which seems to go on for quite a while.

She reads another poem after reading her poem, and one more after that. That's three poems altogether.

So this is what the poetry of Jorie Graham is, I think as I listen to the poet Jorie Graham read her own poems. But I'm not sure that what I'm hearing is poetry, and I'm hearing that over and over in the poems she reads.

Earlier, Jorie Graham read a little Walt Whitman downstairs in the press room of the fabulous Arion Press--I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me belongs to you--in a nice clear voice just made for poetry.