I went to the poetry reading by Kimiko Hahn at the Kupferberg Center on October 22 at 7pm. Hahn was recently titled the Poet Laureate of New York (2025–2027). She is an English professor at Queens College and the author of eleven books.The event was free and open to students at Queens as well as the general public, which made her art accessible to everyone.
The audience was mostly older, most seeming to be her previous and current students, or readers, which made me feel out of place. But that started to go away when I saw other people taking notes too. It gave the space a more welcoming feeling.
Hahn read a variety of poems that caused different emotions in her audience. She changed tone and mood between poems, which kept the reading interesting. Between pieces, she would stop and share anecdotes, or what it was like to write that one, so it was a mix between a lecture and a reading. One poem that stood out to me was “Speaking to the Mud in Corona Park,” where she talked about “listening with her feet” and how the ground holds so much history. It reminded me of our class discussions about paying attention to the world around us and how art can help us notice things that we would otherwise ignore.
She also mentioned that it once took her twenty years to write one type of poem, which showed how patient you have to be in the writing process. At one point, she said that “hippies don’t write sonnets,” but said she’s come to love them. This reminded me of how art changes throughout history, and with time, people’s opinions change on different styles.
The event ended with a question and answer between Kimiko Hahn and Sonya, where they discussed how art often comes from asking, “What is most important to us, and how can we bring our art there?” This idea connected to what we’ve talked about in class, how artists create work based on what they believe others need to pay attention to.
This event, even though I don’t love poetry, made me think about poetry not just as a form of writing, but as a way of listening to history or even ourselves.
– Grace Curcio
