Highlights from the Dodge Festival:
- panel about gay pride and poetry in the morning, where Greg Bellm talked about reading Kaddish as a youth in the Midwest: ” ‘Matterhorns of cock’…well, that sure lit the fire in me!”
- Dorianne Laux’s excellent talk about rhythm and music as a jumping-off point for finding the right sounds of a poem (during which she read several from memory that I definitely have to check out now…)
- reading a poem at an open mic, with a mix of especially good young poets and especially crazy people
- finally getting my own copy of Aimee Nezhukumathathil’s Lucky Fish, and Jane Hirshfield’s Nine Gates at the tables; didn’t buy more books, though I felt like I should have
- a panel with Patricia Smith and Natasha Trethewey (Poet Laureate! eeee) about their works dealing with Hurricane Katrina, including readings (Patricia Smith reading: unbelievable) and Q+A, though I was too shy to go up and meet them at the end
- spinach knishes for dinner!
And I came home to a fresh issue of Poets & Writers with Natasha Trethewey on the cover, since one of the Fellow’s birthday gifts to me was a subscription. I suppose I should have stuck around for the evening events, but I am pretty exhausted; might go back tomorrow. In the meantime, the Reverie will have to wait, as I am poetically tapped. Days like this, I wish I had Twitter, so I could have made these little updates throughout the day.
See you on the flip!
Sounds like a wonderful time!
Twitter has been very helpful for me–you should give it a try and see how you like it.