Burning Word was great fun! Despite the stormy weather. OMG: it dumped buckets of rain and blew like a hurricane for hours! At least we had poetry to keep us warm. I thought my workshop went very well, and I had a gas attending two of the other workshops. The readings were diverse, as usual: performance poets with guitars and chants, NW classics Tess Gallagher and Carolyn Kizer, a generous sampling of established poets from near and far, rappers and grad students. Thanks to Victory and John and everybody at WPA.
Susan Rich gave a great workshop on Food Poetry. My favorite part: where she had everybody close their eyes and open their mouths, while she put a piece of food into our mouths (a luscious piece of chocolate), and for us to write about the sensations and images it evoked. Sensual, erotic, and spiritual (I got an image of the Eucharist) all at the same time.
I drove back with Susan and Ilya K., and we got to the dock just in time to catch the 8pm ferry back to Mukilteo. Had a late dinner at the Thai place in West Seattle, and a great conversation about poetry, poets, poems; who we like, who we read, poems that mean the most to us, etc. Thank you Ilya for saying it was "OK" for me to not like John Ashbery. (Shhhh . . . don't tell anyone). ~grin~
PS: I should really read the weather report a little closer before going away to events like this. Silly me had only a short sleeved shirt and a vest. Thank God for Gayle Kaune who lent me the fleece lining from her coat to wear for a while, or I would have froze to death in the workshop tent. It was that kind of festival: at least four different people, over the course of the day, offered me the coat off their back to wear.
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