Sunday, May 21, 2006

Home from the fest. Had a great time, and bought way too many books. More highlights:

Peggy Shumaker and Kesler Woodward presenting from Blaze, their collaboration of paintings and poems. Woodward's paintings of birch trees, their torn, wounded, sensuous, fragile bark, from all seasons, in Alaska, are amazing. And Peggy's poems paired nicely with them.
Linda Hogan reading from The Books of Medicines, a poem about her father being in a hospital ward, and hallucinatig that the doctor is reading from a magical book.
Sharing a panel with Elizabeth Austen on "Word Play and the Workplace:" her poems were stunning, and I had great fun sharing my word play stuff and medical poems, and a few that blended the two.
The "Poetry and Politics" panel with Kelly A and Allen Braden. Great audience participation with that.
Chatting with Carol and Geo about the strange and mysterious Indian cemetery across the Rainbow Bridge.
Sharing a burger and a glass of wine with Dean on the deck overlooking the Swinomish Channel, as the sun came back out, and boats drifted past.
Going to sleep at the guest house, listening to a chorus of frogs in the meadow pond sing us to sleep.
Delightful.

1 comment:

Justin Evans said...

I attended a writer's workshop with Peggy Shumaker. She is a wonderful poet and a very giving teacher.