I did none of the things I thought I would do yesterday. Some days are like that.
I did, however, read Kimbrell’s wonderful poem to a crowd of between 75 and 100 people. You can tell when they’re with you, and they were with me. It’s a good poem, and I read it really well, I think. You never know until you start how it’ll come off, though…funny that we don’t have much control over when we’ll be “on” or when we’ll find ourselves sort of fumbling around our own words and bodies. Sometimes it just feels as if things have lined up right.
Maybe it’s because I’m 50-years old, but I feel more and more comfortable and I find myself able to be more and more personable when speaking before an audience.
Our visiting poet, whom I know from a five-week stay she had here a number of years ago, and I talked together a little—she seemed genuinely glad to see me—but there was more distance between us than I’d hoped, and that was sad. Maybe our conversation was surfacy because there were so many other people around who wanted to speak with her, or maybe you just can’t pick back up where you left off when there’s no real reason to do it.
At one point and out of the blue during her reading, as she was turning the page of her new book to another poem, she looked straight at me, brushed back her wild wild hair and said, “My hair has gone completely white since I last saw you. Shit happens.” Then she just stood there for a second. I don’t know what she meant.
I want to write more about why I love that group of people at the party and at dinner last night, but I think you may get bored with it, Reader. No? Well, then, I’ll try my best to tease it out…maybe tomorrow. Not now. Enough for now.
Not Alice 