I want to thank the good people of the Loveland Public Library, Columbine Poets, and the Loveland Museum/Gallery for producing a rather large crowd for this past Friday’s reading and the workshop next morning. Since Gov. Hickenlooper whacked me with his gubernatorial wand and transmogrified me from an ink-stained wretch into a laureate, I’ve done more such events than I did in the ten years previous, and I have to say that this audience was one of the most engaged I’ve ever come across. Something, maybe, in the water, or the supportive local media, or the general artistic ferment going on in and around this erstwhile farming community, is powering many lights that might, in the past, have burned under bushels.
As you know from my earlier post announcing this event, I was expecting to read with some of the extraordinary poets who live in Loveland, but instead a trio of them—Veronica Patterson, Bob King, and Faith McDonald—put together a short reading of an excerpt from my long poem “A Marked Man.” What a surprise, and what a tribute! Veronica skillfully edited the piece for time, Bob shadowed forth the spirit of my fictional faux-journalist Jack Dunn, and Faith gave voice to Hersa Soule, wife of the poem’s hero Silas Soule. I think Faith’s version of Hersa will be the one I hear in my head from now on.
A special shout-out to Ravitte Kentwortz and her family for their kind hospitality in putting me up for the night.
Incredibly, I managed to take only one photo—one from before the event, with no people in it, only the library itself. I hope it succeeds in suggesting the welcoming warmth of the audience….
The workshop was enjoyable and enlightening. I always tell my students that poems are made of sentences. We can now have some fun playing with the four flavors 🙂
Thanks for the good work you are doing on behalf of poetry in Colorado.