Contemporary authors present texts from Jasper Johns’ literary muses and read from their own work.Hanif Abdurraqib reads from and responds to Frank O’Hara“I chose Frank O'Hara for his immense ability to hold a moment in his poems and freeze it for an eternity. He is a poet of enormous range, but he is at his best when adding a bluntness to memory. The ways he toys with our ideas of nostalgia and place and the specifics of those things draw me in.”Brendan Constantine reads from and responds to Herman Melville"I think digression has become one of the great principals in American art, the means by which we braid concepts and mediums and thus make our way by almost losing it. For me, Melville and Dickinson are the essential provocateurs of this practice. Indeed Melville was my first permission-giver, allowing me to take huge risks in narrative. 'Time does not pass: Words pass.'" –Jasper JohnsAmy Gerstler reads from and responds to Ted Berrigan"Ted Berrigan was an emotional collagist who said, ‘One of my principal desires is to make my poems be like my life.’ Erudite and playful, eclectic and experimental, remarkably unassuming, musical and deeply human, his poems ride tides of grace, humor, wonder and gratitude, and manage to channel many bright, sad, tender sensibilities into one beautiful voice."​Tickets are $15 for the poetry reading only. includes timed entry tickets to Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth, subject to availability.