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Musician
Lou Reed, actor Claire Danes, poet Sharon Olds, novelist
Rick Moody, Oscar Hijuelos and Richard Price, and 60
other readers joined NYC Firefighters, Police Officers,
and grade-school children for two major community poetry
readings in New York and San Francisco to benefit the
New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund.
The readings, entitled Words to Comfort, took
place at the New School Tischman Auditorium in New York
City and at San Francisco's Main Library on October
17, 2001. Many of the poems read were selected from
the enormous public outpouring of poetry posted at New
York City fire stations, Union Square, and numerous
other memorial sites around the city. The Word That
Comfort benefit at San Francisco's Main Library
featured San Francisco Poet Laureate Janice Mirikitani
and award-winning poets Kim Addonizio, Chana Bloch,
and Ruth Daigon. The reading Boston featured X.J. Kennedy,
Frank Bidart, Boston Fire Commissoner Paul A. Christian,
and others.
The
New School reading was sponsored by the New School Writing
Program and Rattapallax Press. The San Francisco Main
Library was sponsored by Poets-for-Peace and the San
Francisco Public Library. The Boston co-sponsors are
William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social
Consequences, Tapestry of Voices and Rattapallax Press.
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NYC
School Children reading at the New School.
The purpose of the World Trade Center Relief Fund
is to assist the families and dependents of the victims
of the September 11th terrorist attacks. This fund is
for the benefit of all victims both injured and deceased,
including innocent civilians, the dedicated firefighters,
policemen, Port Authority officers, Emergency Medical
Personnel and relief workers. After the monetary needs
of these affected people have been addressed, consideration
may be given to other related relief and recovery expenses.
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