So I need to interrupt these interview posts to tell you about a gorgeous event this Sunday afternoon, when poetess Matthea Harvey, interviewed here, shall be reading mermaid poems in Brooklyn with members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. I mean really.
Look:
Classical Interludes: Music Off the Shelves with Matthea Harvey
Sunday, February 27, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center
The Brooklyn Philharmonic plays a program of music in dialogue with the writing of Matthea Harvey, a Brooklyn poet whose most recent book, Modern Life, won the 2009 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a 2007 New York Times notable book.
Children under the age of six will not be admitted.
Conveniently located at BPL’s Central Library on Grand Army Plaza, the fully accessible, 189-seat Dweck auditorium provides a comfortable space in which to enjoy the library’s rich and wide-ranging schedule of free public programs. The Dweck features literary series, author talks, public affairs and humanities programs, film screenings, chamber music concerts, pop and jazz music, as well as programs for children. Acoustically well balanced and with unobstructed sightlines, this intimate auditorium has been attracting ever-larger audiences since it opened in the fall of 2007.For reservations and policy please contact the Central Administration Office at 718.230.2198.
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Also, if you’re wondering whether or not you’re too lazy to attend and need some extra motivation…. here is a new mermaid poem from Matthea, forthcoming in The Same:
THE HOMEMADE MERMAID
The Homemade Mermaid is top half pimply teenager, bottom half tuna. This does not make for a comely silhouette, and the fact that her bits are stitched together with black fishing wire only makes the combo more gruesome. The Homemade Mermaid floods Mermag’s “Ask Serena” column with postcards that read, “O why not half salmon or half koi?” signed Frankenmaid. Sure, she’s got the syndrome—loves her weird-eyed maker who began his experiments with Barbies and goldfish in a basement years ago—but she does sometimes wish he’d picked her prettier sister and left her tanning on tinfoil in the yard. When he lugs the Homemade Mermaid to the ocean, she always comes swimming back, propelled only by her arms. She really hasn’t reconciled with that tail. The next day he can usually be cajoled into playing a game of All Girl—they tuck her tail in a tank behind her and her human half sits pertly at a desk. Whether she’s playing secretary or schoolgirl, the game always ends when the mixture of glue and glitter that he’s still perfecting for her tail sparkles gets stuck in the tank ventilation system and the engine coughs to a stop. She sighs as he scoops out the glittery sludge. Tonight again he’ll serve her algae with anchovies and she won’t complain. The one time he brought her fries, she took them as if in a trance, and dipped them, two at a time into the ketchup. The shared memory sprang to both their faces—two severed legs, blood everywhere, and his hand gripping the saw.
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ALSO: please note that yours truly shall be reading from my own MERMAID writings next Thursday evening, March 3, at the Tribeca B&N (97 Warren Street).
I shall ALSO be reading as part of the Fantastic Fiction Series at KGB on March 16.
So you have no excuse to complain about the lack of mermaidly prose in New York City.
I am a mermaid 
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