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On Saturday, The People's Poetry Gathering features The New New York City Epic Poem and Poems of our Fair (and sometimes Unfair) City. This mornig, we put out a call for poems for the epic at 10:00AM and got 70 entries before the show was over. Here are some we picked to have read on the air:

I am loose electricity.
I am the barren, yet over-run land of East New York
I am Belvedere Castle, weather station,
I am the East River.
I am the corner of East 10th Street where the Second Avenue Deli used to be

Here's one the author couldn't read because his cell phone wouldn't work on the air:
I am the turnstile

I am loose electricity. You need my cousins for your very existence. I need you for mine. I like to harm....I like to kill. I hide out in your daily lives... I go after your most vulnerable... your women... your pets... I am

Under you

A r o u n d you

I strive to get in u... come walk on me... come touch me... come burn with me.

Funny... you can stop me... but they say it costs too much money... That is only a CON

ED ucate yourselves... and fluffy may live... ignore... and you... you decide...
-David Ott

I am the barren, yet over-run land of East New York.

Crowded by the high noise of broken English, Patois and Kreyol, temming with plated dinners of stew-peas, fried plaintain, ox-tail, Funyuns, expired dairy, golden arches, dilapidated C-towns, high priced corner stores, 45s, and men assembled at corners in tight vitrolic huddles - marking territory and time

I am overcome by hopes of several fortnight's wages saved for escape to areas of greater expanse and affordability - Florida, Atlanta and other areas south as Mothers' admonishments their little ones that until then they are to return straight home.

I have been forgotten by the taxed dollar as trains struggle through unreliable aging stations as mothers dangerously balance their babies' carriages on unreliable stairs because of a lack of elevators.

I am dismissed by city hall as undeserving of pilot projects, model schools, or intensive redevelopment, the eye sore and embarrasment of any civic endeavor, regarded with glazed eye and unbelieving spirit - I have practically been wished away.

But I'm still here,
-Stacey Antoine

I am Belvedere Castle, weather station,
watchtower, pick-up paradise, rising
out of Vista Rock, a Victorian Folly
(or so said Olmstead); overlooking the

Delacorte Theatre, I cast shadows on
kings and beckon tourists, a home to some,
a place for a quiet lunchtime break
on a warm and busy May afternoon;

high amid the wisteria, close to the bird's nests,
I sit above time, watching the world climb
my rocky staircase to find space, sky and,
(not incidentally) a great City view.

The temperature in Central Park is now
71 degrees, and it's sunny.
I am Belvedere Castle, a small eye,
taking the measure of the timeless City.
-Rita Tobin

I am the East River.
I'm not the beautiful and glamerous and historic Hudson.
I'm not the bustling harbor.
I'm just the odd sister
The skinny, grey, dribble of water that
Snakes along between beautiful Manhattan and
Queens - and the beginning of Long Island.
Bridges span me
Many pretty bridges
The "necklaces of New York city"
But me?
I'm no necklace
No crown
Nothing much.
They didn't even name me
They just call me "The East River."
But you know something?
Without me
Manhattan in all her glory
Would just be stuck to Queens!
The Macy's fireworks would have no where to reflect from.
The United Nations would just be a building on the shore of nothing.
And all of the "necklaces" would have nowhere to go.
I am the East River
An odd sister
A strange old coot
Here I am - keeping Manhattan
Apart from the world!
-Jane E. Meckwood-Yazdpour

I am the corner of East 10th Street where the Second Avenue Deli used to be
I stand among the Yiddish stars bereft of brisket, melancholy over matzoh balls and crying my kishkas out over kasha varnishkes ne'er to be seen again in these parts
Who will remember Molly Picon and Fyvush Finkel and the Barry Sisters when their names etched in stars on the sidewalk stand in the shadow of the next (choose one) Duane Reade, Chase, Starbucks
I stood among the crowds who noshed on chopped liver on rye served while they waited for tables
I stood there waiting, a vegetarian who lived down the block, because my basset hound Dooley knew her devoted friends--Joe behind the counter, Tony the manager, Lisa the greeter at the door--would bring her fresh turkey breast
Where did her friends go?
I stand on the corner remembering the day the deli dedicated a star to Daniel Liebeskind who said in English and Yiddish that Jewish theater and culture--and food--wouldn't die.
He stood on that corner in front of the Second Avenue Deli and said have no fear--the deli would remain a testament to that culture, as venerable and unmoveable as historic and beloved as St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery.
I stand here wishing he was right.
-Adrienne Press

I am the turnstile

dizzy
and spinning
but never quite moving

bending backwards,
clockwise,
and counter to that

I watch you
and tally you
and tell you to go

I send you to work
and welcome you home

I can stop you
and punch you
(where you don't want to be punched)

And when you try
to swipe someone through
you're reminded
that unlimited ride
is only for you
-Shane Matthews