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Sunday, June 28, 2009The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center provided the perfect backdrop for our Main Event. Prominent poets Ernie Blue, Bessy Reyna, Kate Rushin, Sue Ellen Thompson and Ameen Storm kept the audience at times mesmerized, and other times laughing or audibly agreeing with a poetic statement.I’m pleased to report that the room was filled and extra chairs had to be set up in the outer room to accommodate the overflow.Book and T-shirt sales were brisk.The Last Hurrah, the end-of-festival party was held at City Steam Brewery in Hartford. They provided the Richardson Room free of cost and we ate, drank, listened to music and spouted poetry well into the evening.But all good things must come to an end. The festival is over for this year and we are already planning for 2010. Each year it gets better and bigger. Next year should be spectacular.I have to share this with you. My mother often asks me where do I get these ideas for poems. I never really had a good answer…that is until yesterday. While reading The Hartford Courant Sunday morning, I came upon this gem: “The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!”I encourage the reader to visit www.riverwoodpoetry.org to view the list of prominent poets who have made this festival the great success it is. Also, if you are a poet and want to be involved in next year’s festival, go to our website and contact us from there. That goes for volunteers, too.
What happened Friday night at Faxon? The Faxon did lose power, and the readings continued out in a hallway in the soft glow of the emergency lights. Didn’t miss a beat! The party then adjourned to the Fernwood Restaurant as planned and lasted well into the wee hours of the morning. At least one of those participants arrived at Broad Street Books looking like the walking dead. Oh! Wait a minute. He was walking dead(tired)! This is the price you pay for a successful event!
Saturday began at Broad Street Books in Middletown. Brian did a great job for us setting up chairs, podium, coffee and snacks. Our books were nicely displayed and, hopefully, we all sold some. The agreement is that we can leave our books there until Monday. I hope we go back there next year.
The featured poets, Artemis Rising, gave a great performance, as usual. The group of eight Connecticut-based women writers is as entertaining as they are thought provoking in their poetry.
After a supper break the evening continued at The Buttonwood Tree, also in Middletown. Dinner for me was a fun-filled time with Stephanie, Ursula, LisaAnn and Dolores. We ate at the First and Last Tavern on Middletown’s Main Street, that I highly recommend. You can eat very well for as cheap or expensive as you want.
The Buttonwood Tree is a well-attended venue and a poet favorite. The readings went very well with the last poem of the open mic eliciting a resounding Yeeeee Haw!
From there the party went over to Gatekeepers Tavern in Middletown for Outlaw Poetry night. That was a little too late for me, folks, and I headed home instead.
In the meantime, there was a poetry camp-out going on in Willington at MooseMeadow Camping Resort. Sorry, but I missed that too.
And so we go into our final day of poetry and camaraderie. Connecticut has a vibrant poetry community, and these past five days, our community has been enhanced by our out-of-state poet entertainers. Poets have visited us from California, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Oregon.
The main venue for today, our final day of the festival, is the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford. The feature poets should draw a good crowd, PLUS we will have Minta White on flute accompanying Colin Haskins reading of Myth of Syrinx.
City Steam Brewery will cap off the festival as the Last Hurrah! More featured poets and open mic will top off the five-day event.
I encourage the reader to visit www.riverwoodpoetry.org to view the list of prominent poets who have made this festival the great success it is.
Colin Haskins deserves many pats on the back for being the driving force behind the Festival. This is his idea, his baby, and it is being well nurtured by Colin. Surrounding Colin is a Board of Directors who made the dream reality. In addition to Colin, the Board consisted of Kathryn Kelly, Julia Paul, Christine Beck, Yvon Cormier, Dolores Lawler, Victoria Rivas, Minta White, and me.
Friday’s events were scheduled for the Faxon Library and the Fernwood Restaurant in West Hartford. What was not scheduled was the severe weather that came through Connecticut last night. All across the state there was flash flooding, dangerous lightening, trees and power lines down. This lasted until past 8 o’clock. I tried calling Faxon but the best I could do was a looping electronic menu that gave me no information. I made the decision to stay home rather than get caught up in the traffic congestion being shown on the interstates and the uncertainty of passable roads if I chose the back roads. Today, at 1 p.m., the Festival continues at Broad Street Books in Middletown. I’ll find out then if the Faxon/Fernwood event went on as planned.
Photos: I don’t have photos yet, but will post them as soon as I can.
The festival really started on Wednesday night (June 24th) at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford with Generational Slam Speak Easy. I was unable to attend the opening salvo, but, from what I have heard, it was a roaring success.
Thursday night (June 25th) at Wood Memorial Library in South Windsor went from the PIPs to a rip roarin’ hoot-en-nanny Yee Haw finish to the evening.
It started with the PIPs (Partners in Poetry), which is an eight-member poetry workshop group. Their poetry had a wide range of subjects garnering enthusiastic audience approval.
Then the party moved downstairs to the “Underwood Café”. This is where the tempo changed thanks to opening remarks by Julia Paul. She noted that most poetry readings are rather staid and sedate, and she thought we should all become more relaxed and respond to what touched us poetically with more than a “hmmm” or “uh huh.” She suggested “Yeeeeee Haw” and it didn’t take long for the Yeeeeee Haw evening to begin. ☺☺☺
George Wallace (New York City) started things off with his rapid fire “Beat” poetry. George was the first Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York and has 18 books of poetry to his credit.
LisaAnn LoBasso followed, and I would characterize her poetry as sweet and sometimes harsh observations of life. She herself refuses to characterize her style as either academic or performance. LisaAnn has a dynamic personality and an infectious laugh/giggle to go along with her dynamic and boundary-breaking poetry. She has been twice nominated for California Poet Laureate and has two poetry books in print, In the Swollen and Oleander Milkshake.
It was Dan Wilcox that brought the house down. Dan hails from Albany, NY and is a member of the poetry performance group “3 Guys from Albany.” His reading was going along so well until he started telling us about this bar in Chicago, “Weeds”. He told us about all the bras they have hanging there. {From Weeds website: Live music / open mike Fri and Sat. Decor features bras from past patrons; outdoor patio open during warmer months. Mondays are open mic night (spoken).} And with that…Dan whips off his tee shirt and he is wearing a bra. This went beyond hysterical. We, the audience of poets, were laughing so hard Dan wasn’t sure he would get a chance to read his poem. There wasn’t a dry pair of pants in the house! ☺☺☺☺
It has to be noted that all three of these exceptional talents were with us for the first Poetry Festival. It’s good to know we put on such a classy event last year that the poets wanted to come back and be a part of the Connecticut Poetry Scene!
Rather anticlimactic, I report that we also had books and Riverwood Festival tee shirts for sale.
Can’t wait for today’s events. We begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Faxon Library in West Hartford, featuring Dana Sonnenschein, Marilyn Johnston and Dennis Barone hosted by Tom Nicotera. From there the party adjourns to Fernwood Restaurant at 9:30 where we will hear Elizabeth Thomas, Melissa Emma, Wendy Battin and Sympetalous hosted by Mike Walker. There will be an open mic at the Fernwood and you’ll find me there with poems in hand (show me a mic and I’ll read you a poem!)
For complete information on the Riverwood Poetry Festival please go out to our website where you will find all the information on readings INCLUDING the Poetry Campout in Willington tonight and Saturday night.
Photos - from hike up West Simsbury MountainLeft is the view across the valley back toward Heublein Tower. Click on photos to enlarge.Right is looking in the direction of Granby. I think someone called this Twin Hills or something like that. I was too tired to care! Since my last post, I have been making forays into trying to get this house ready to sell. The house is way too big for me, so a smaller place (condo?) will be the goal. However, I am trying to decide what stays, what goes, what gets donated, what goes to the tag sale. I’m having to make these decisions for the possessions of my mother and me. My stuff is easy for me to do. My mother’s stuff has to be paraded before her…that means taking them over to the nursing home and back.It also means giving each room a thorough cleaning so everything is pristine by sale time. Then there is the outside……….. My kids are going to help me with the yard and some of the stuff that needs to be done inside. Poison IvyOn Tuesday, May 26th, I installed downspout extenders. Of the three, only one had any vegetation around it. I noticed all the ferns and hacked them out of the way along with some other stuff. Well I should have taken a good look at the “other stuff.” Leaves of three I did not see. Wrote a poem about it (see below). It’s just about all gone now. An spot here or there will itch on occasion, but that’s it. If I remember, next year I should start immunization (homeopathic of course) in late winter.West Simsbury MountainWe did this hike on Sunday the 7th. If you see a hike advertised for this location and it says it’s only 3.5 miles, don’t believe it! It must be almost that far to the top. In truth the hike is 5 miles. On the flat, I start staggering at 3.5 miles. The hike up was up all the way and a good portion of that on rocks that were either loose or had a “spine” upon which you stepped and balanced on the middle of your foot.By the time we got to the top I was so pooped, I handed the camera to Jon and told him he could take pictures. Once I was able to think about anything other than catching my breath the view was remarkable. We were west of the Heublein tower; looking back at it across the valley.On the way down, I was darn glad I was wearing my hikers that have a grip on down-sloping rocks and other surfaces. Although the way down was less strenuous and shorter, it was DOWN. The surface, again, had lots of rocks where we had to fight for footholds. There was some smooth and flat, but not much. We were about ¼ mile from the parking lot when I thought my left knee was going to get blown out. It hurt so bad (“badly” for you grammarians)! With all the downward hiking on rocks, my knee was not up to the excessive jolting. The trail could be described as borderline “ankle-breaker.”On the way home we stopped for ice cream and I hurt in so many places…feet, knees, hips, lower sacral area…I didn’t think I’d be able to get out of bed the next morning.I met a couple on the trail who mentioned Buffalo, NY. I told them about Kathy’s and my ride on the Erie Canal and they were excited about that because they had been talking about doing the same thing in whole or in part. I saved them a year’s worth of planning by emailing them my spreadsheets of places where we stayed and the distances between towns. I hope they do it.The next morning I got up feeling surprisingly good. As the day wore on the aches and pains settled in, and by the time I went to bed the worst pain was in my calves. They were rock hard and painful for 3 days.More food newsOn Monday, Shaw’s Supermarket had asparagus for $1.99 a pound. I could not pass that up. After washing and snapping off the tough end I saved a few spears for my scrambled eggs this coming weekend. The rest was divided up for two meals for yesterday and today. This time I decided to sauté the spears in olive oil. I made a meal of mashed potatoes, chicken cutlet, and sautéed asparagus spears. So tasty!At this rate, I will ruin my reputation as a non-cook.
Scratchin’ the Itch
Leaves of three
I did not see
and now I have
Poison Ivy
This damnable itch
I scratch a ditch
through skin so red
Wish that I was bloomin’ dead
Antihistamines and steroid lotions
poltices and secret potions
have absolutely done no good
Ooo Look Blood
It will vanish in good time
But I run out of itching rhyme
and so I close
Oh, God. It’s in my nose
Beverly R. Titus
05/29/09
Sunday, June 28, 2009
