Had a great time reading in Shoreline last night. There was a pretty good turnout considering the weather forecast for snow and ice. The student competition poems were terrific: one about a fishbowl in a doctors office that was very Elizabeth Bishop-esque; another that riffed off of Seuss' Hop on Pop in a very hip-hop kind of way. The adult competition poems were very nice as well: I loved the one about Miss America, and the one about the Optometrist, how he keeps asking you to read him the same story (the eye chart). Very clever.

Anne Marie Hong read some kick-ass sonnets in the voice of Medea. I read some from Saying the World (opened with "The Birth of Flowers") and from What's Written on the Body. Sam Green (the new state poet laureate) ended the night with a reading from his new book The Grace of Necessity, which is really a wonderful and moving book. He also read a poem by Ed Harkness, about a guy in a truck who gets stuck in the mountains in a snowstorm and dies, and the writing he does in a notebook the weeks he is alone, slowly freezing to death and going mad, that was pretty incredible. From his book Saying the Necessary. Hmmmm: Necessary/Necessity: I guess it was a theme?