Nyack-based poet and psychoanalyst David Klugman will read his new poem "In the American Grain" at The Turning Point Cafe, November 7th at 8pm

NYACK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, October 17, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- There is plenty of disagreement over what is wrong with America these days. However, even the most polarized Americans can agree on one thing - the country is in crisis. The challenge for most of us is knowing how to respond. For David Klugman, a published poet, painter, and psychoanalyst who lives in Nyack, New York, formulating a meaningful response to the crisis of our times has been a seven-year mission embodied in his new long-form poem, "In the American Grain." Klugman will be unveiling the poem, along with many of his paintings that will appear in the published volume, in a live reading at The Turning Point Café in Piermont on November 7th at 8pm.

“Who the hell writes an epic poem these days?” Klugman asks ironically. “Well, me. But the truth is I didn’t start out with that intention. In fact, I resisted it for a long time. It was only after years of working and reworking the poem that I was finally able to accept it on its own terms - as an epic. Once I did, I discovered that there was a method to my madness.”

Madness is central to the narrative and themes found in Klugman’s epic poem (think Homer). The story begins with a disheartened poet who must risk madness in order to take up his quest for a radical redefinition of personal freedom in a country that has lost its way. At the outset, the hero asks a disconcerting question that should probably concern us all: “For who is NOT mad in a country that has gone mad?" From there, the story follows the poet on an urgent, moral investigation of modern-day America as he attempts to reclaim his country's originating spirit while simultaneously holding it accountable for its profound failures and transgressions.

“Epic poems do something most modern poetry avoids” says Klugman. “They chronicle, in story and metaphor, the full span of the moment we are living in historically.” The poem is titled, “In the American Grain” as a kind of homage to William Carlos Williams who wrote a book of historical essays by the same name in 1925. “It was a widely misunderstood book at the time,” says Klugman, “but in the 1950’s people started to understand that it wasn’t intended to be historical fact, but rather as a poetic repossession of history that asks us to reflect on what we are living now. I’m not saying I’m William Carlos Williams, but I did work with that same intention.”

Klugman, who has been writing and publishing poetry for over four decades, draws a clear distinction between poetry and the Poetic. “The Poetic isn’t just about poems," Klugman muses. "The Poetic is an impulse that emerges from our deepest, most aspirational aspect and encourages us to believe in our own perfectibility. It’s no mistake that the whole notion of perfectibility is written into the very first lines of our Constitution. The problem is, we don't see much of the Poetic anymore in America. So, what happens to a country whose banner ad is the Poetic Idea of Freedom once that country has abandoned the Poetic from every department of contemporary human thought and activity? 'In the American Grain' is my response to that question.”

David Klugman will be reading his original poem “In the American Grain” at The Turning Point Café in Piermont, NY on October 7 at 8pm.
Doors open at 7:30

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