BIG GODDESS POW WOW IV
Trykv dubbed the evening “Big Goddess Kowtow.” Trykv is a sort of bad girl, with a face of benign innocence and a delivery that would do Noel Coward proud, a remarkable combination of irresistible charm and frightening potential. She’s like the kid you weren’t supposed to play with in school because she always got you in trouble. It’s easy to see why she’s gained such a following over the years: no other performance artist has a persona so deliciously bitchy and sarcastic. Instead of being a champion and cheerleader of the cause of performance, she’s an elegant antihost, the queen of the caustic put-down. She doesn’t hesitate to express real awe and admiration, as she did when she introduced and thanked Gwendolyn Brooks. She wasn’t so kind to the other goddesses, making scathing if subtle remarks after each performer finished with a shrug, a posture change, or a slight fracturing of the language.
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Gwendolyn Brooks read from her book of poetry Children Coming Home. Especially wonderful were two poems, “I Am a Black” and “White Girls Are Peculiar,” which Brooks delivered with her characteristic distinction–each line punctuated, each word painstakingly articulated–in a rich, clear, honeyed voice. The audience was completely in her thrall as she read and as she made small talk between poems. What a brilliant move on the part of the curators, Killen and Lisa Buscani, to invite Brooks. Looking tall and regal, she represented everything to which others merely aspire: wonderful writing, great dignity, and the ineffable quality of a great heart.
