Thursday night, surrounded by an exhibition of paintings by abstract expressionist Sam Francis, we listened to Vox Musica perform two pieces inspired by and complementing the exhibit. Nine female singers, a cellist, the conductor, and a young man playing a Hapi drum brought Francis’s patterns to life.
Later in the evening, dancers from the Sacramento Ballet posed in front of the canvases.
But the reason we found ourselves there was for our friends Frank Taber and Danyen Powell to celebrate April and National Poetry Month.
Danyen read Frank’s post-stroke poetry to an audience that, for the most part, could not imagine how the stroke came like a tsunami into Frank’s life, sweeping away verbs and narrative, voice and detail, while depositing words in much the same way as Francis smudged the bright arrangements surrounding us.
