there is so much to write about now, with the poetry festival happening and all. i met the mother of one of my old teachers last night in a book signing line. it's funny in a way. at this point i think of him as a contemporary (he's only about 10 years older than i am), but i met him when i was 14 and he was teaching my class. i've known him over a decade now, which is longer than i've known pretty much everyone else in my life. though of course i only see him maybe once a year, so all together it might make up a month or so of actually seeing him.
there was a poem last night by marie howe called "marriage." about a man her husband saw on television who came into the emergency room with a bayonet stuck entirely through his head. and survived, because it went between the lobes. it was his wife that pushed the bayonet through his skull. i should try to find that poem and put it up here; it was fabulously sarcastic.
i have only one problem with this festival. it's being sponsored by borders bookstores. which means that they have every poetry book i can think of, and some i never knew existed. and people are signing them in a special tent. but it all feels so...corporate, and commercial, and faceless. the way some girl with a notebook comes down the line and asks if you want your book personalized. gives you a slip of paper with your name written on it, so that the poets never even have to ask you anything at all. of course they do; they are the one human aspect left in the process. and of course, i can't really afford all the books i want. in a perfect world, i would be given lots of books free of charge. but then, in a perfect world, one of those books would be mine.
time to get ready for another day at the festival. next update look for a discourse on Truth and Beauty as it relates to poetry, and possibly my new poem, which is still in the works.
more as it happens. -beatpoetgrrl
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