Irish writer and theatrical producer Josephine Hart's famous poetry evening came to United States for the first time last night featuring Tony Award-winning actor Brian Dennehy (Death of a Salesman) and Olivier Award-winning actor Mark Strong (Twelfth Night) reading selections from Robert Frost and Robert Lowell at The New York Public Library.

This is the first time Ms. Hart has brought her sold-out poetry evening to the United States and it coincides with the publication of her new book Catching Life by the Throat: How to Read a Poem and Why just published by Norton. The book also comes with a companion CD featuring several talents including Ralph Fiennes reading Auden, and Roger Moore reading Kipling, Rudyard Kipling. Ms Hart was kind enough to donate 200 copies of her book to the NYPL.

The performance was for the Conservators Program, which directly supports the Library's Annual Fund.

In keeping with the theme of the evening, I have written a poem about it that you can read after the jump.

Photo Credit: Ken Levinson

Seven score patrons congregated Below the tomb of tomes To hear Lowell and Frost resurrected By Josephine. Her name alone invokes notions of great romance Though hers is not with Elba's exile, But with poetry.

Frost called it "language caught alive"
I call it "words less spoken"

Her introduction of actors and poetry alike
Braids historic narrative and quotations
Into a hypnotic cadence punctuated
By the staccato of her Irish accent

Brian Dennehy begins and I listen entranced
Watching Josephine transfixed
Sitting poignant, hand raised, index finger pointing
As if ready to stab the beats
But she never does

This night, our night, is as much for her as it is for us
Sitting naked, exposed in the full house lights
Afraid of making eye contact with those raised on the dais
Before us
So our seats creak
Uncomfortably

Poem after poem, my spirit is caught between the experience
And recording that experience
Wishing I could ignore my duty as the observer

And as each poem ends
The mind whirls
And before it can finish smelling the teasingly heady scent of truth
Another poem begins
And yet
I wish
They paused...
Longer...
Between poems...
So that I had time to not only record
But reflect as well

I hope Josephine will bring her series back to the States again. Its an incredible night to be shared with more people. And if she's reading this, my suggestion is to get William Shatner and Christopher Walken to read Kerouac and Ginsberg. If you think about it, it makes sense.