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.
