A Poetic Send-Off For Ficre

Two Pulitzer Prize winning poets packed ArtSpace Friday night to lead a stellar cast of African-American writers in praise of the beauty of the paintings of the late Ficre Gebreyesus — and in praise of a well-lived life.

The standing room-only reading was organized by Gebreyesus’ wife, poet Elizabeth Alexander, along with Yale’s African-American Studies Department, where she teaches.

It coincided with the final week of Polychromasia, an exhibition of paintings by Gebreyesus, a fixture of New Haven’s culinary world who with his brother ran Cafe Adulis. The restaurant, which closed in 2008, featured food from the brothers’ native Eritrea.

Kevin Young said he chose to open his reading with his ​“Ode to Pork” and other work, including an ode to greens (both from his collection Dear Darkness), with echoes of Pablo Neruda’s great odes, because Gebreyesus was a chef among many other callings.

“I want to thank Ficre for all this beauty,” said Young, who added that the readers’ and listeners’ evident love for Gebreyesus and his family made him feel heart broken ​“in the best possible way.”

He concluded his reading with new poems from a work in progress called ​“Book of Hours” because he saw so many ​“angels, harbingers, deliverances” in the paintings in the gallery.

Pulitzer Prize winners Tracy K. Smith and Yusef Komunyankaa also read from their work inspired by Gebreyesus’ art.

Komunyankaa recalled the feeling of ​“severe kindness” he remembered when he visited Gebreyesus’ studio.

“Ficre, we are held in your flow,” he said.

Elizabeth Alexander, who emceed the event, said she learned from her husband that ​“living through profound suffering [in the Eritrean civil war] does not lead you away from joy.”

In thanking the readers, Alexander said their words freed her of the burden to write valedictory poems for her husband.

She said the poems offered felt like spiritual and emotional ​“groceries left on the doorstep.”