An Evening Out

Last night I went to the poetry reading at the Arts Council building. (I'm making a resolution to go to every meeting.) The group meets on the last Monday of every-other month. When I attend, I find myself wishing we met every month.

I did get there on time yesterday, but the group had already arrived and arranged chairs in the lobby--which was much more congenial than a table in the meeting room. There were Joan and Frank, Cookie, Sherry, Joe W., and a gentleman named DeWitt who is something at one of the schools, I didn't catch all the details. Cookie read her "Cats" poem, and Joan also had a poem about how she and Frank acquired a cat ironically named Angel. Sherry read a reminiscence, and Joe shared a poem about a very moving personal experience from his childhood, and another one about the phenomenon of aging. Everyone read several pieces; Frank had a group of very brief verses, plus a couple of longer poems. I guess Mr. DeWitt (actually, that's his first name) took the prize for longest poem; his was an analogy about the Gulf of Mexico, very insightful.

I read "Exodus," "Splendor Before a Storm," "The Muse Contemplates Departure," and "Jane Austen Never Married." Everyone had very kind comments. They even understood "Departure," maybe because I took the trouble to utter an explanatory sentence before I read it. It's about the environment, earth, rather than exclusively about poetry. They made me read the last part of "Jane Austen" twice:

But you almost found him, didn't you, once or twice?

You were right in his path once, almost, weren't you?

You caught a glimpse of his white horse through the trees,

A sunbeam flashed on his armor, and you saw

The plume on his helmet disappear into the forest.

I had brought along a copy of Ramey's book, Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, for show-and-tell, in case anyone hadn't seen it. I think everyone except Cookie and DeWitt had read it. We discussed the book and its characters, and I told a little bit of background about life on the mountain. Everyone said to tell Ramey "hi" and congratulations.

A sad note was Gail W.'s absence. Joe said she'd had chemo in the past week, and it takes several days for her to get back to feeling well.
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Happy Birthday to Ramey! She's about 21 today, give or take a few. She and I went to lunch Sunday to celebrate in advance, at Caney's Fork or Creek or Park, or something, I can't keep that name right in my muddled head.