This is gonna be short

I am still swamped with festival work in addition to my regular, which is why it has taken me so long to get to this blob. If any of you local artists are bringing work for the art show, get it here now as we are hanging on Thursday. We have a wealth of crafters signed up to vend their wares at the festival on September 12, and all-day music, including a classical string quartet and Joyce's husband's traditional Irish music. If any of this interests you, stop by. I will be here most of the day.

Last Thursday began with Joyce's art reception at 4:30 which I was not here for but several of you were. We probably agree that her intaglios are brilliant. And, she left us some brownies and yogurt-covered pretzels to eat at the meeting.

On to poetry - small group of eight (well, seven and a hit and run) allowed us some freedom for conversation. We relaxed the rules - sorry, Thom - and were able to explore some topics at greater length than usual.

It was object night. Rachael's velveteen pouch poem was full of lovely images disguising a lover's quarrel. All good. The poems from Rachael and Art started the talk about rhyming, off-rhyme, internal slant, dissonant rhyme and on through aboriginal music. Art took off running with the fabric sunflower Medallion that was his object, indeed, indeed.

Alan Siegel's The Starman's Message provoked a lot of talk, hopefully helpful to Alan, about vague generalities and the difficulty of translating the abstract into language.

Tim listened to some bad advice and almost wrecked a great poem about death and cemeteries. I know this because he sent me the original later and it was one of, if not the, best he had written. New version had too much telling, not showing, which was more subtly and effectively done in the original.

The Assignment - Tim called Larry's prose poem "totally courageous", Art thought it "concise and bold". I just plain old loved it, especially Nayleesa DeBerry's big black bubble butt. He was inspired by my clay sculpture of a naked purple woman. I also loved Mark's There is a Sight I Must Have Looked. Eight short lines of heart-piercing sadness.

I wrote The Prowler in response Tim's tiger towel and because I had a real prowler at my house one night this summer. Tigers, prowlers, shining eyes in the darkness, fine-honed blades, etc.

Some of the topics we touched on, aside from our own work, were Hafiz, Rumi, prose poems, Ginsberg on rhyming, Auden, aboriginal music, Emily Dickenson on rhyming, William the Conqueror, use of the word bastard, Coleman Barks (?) and William Robert Foltin. Rachael contributed an intriguing remark about poets "falling into a pit of navel lint", but I did not get the context.

Summer is over. Take cover.