Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Yesterday, as I was chunking through my editing hours, I got a phone call from a friend who runs a large annual poetry festival in the state. Generally the day hours of the festival feature local poets as panelists, workshops leaders, etc. Then a big-name national poet reads at night. But given that 2020 is Maine's bicentennial, she had the idea to keep the focus entirely here: on our history of poetry, our current state of letters, our hopes for the future, that kind of thing. So instead of a big gun at night, Baron Wormser, Betsy Sholl, and I will read and speak about our own histories together as well as the history of poetry more generally.

Both Baron and Betsy are former state poet laureates; I am the baby of the group (a comic note, don't you think?)--a former student of Baron's, a long-admirer of Betsy. It will be, of course, intensely sweet to share a stage with these two friends, and I hope my perspective of them, as an apprentice to their art, will be a way to celebrate everything they've done for Maine poetry. But I also feel tremulous--as if I'm trying to climb stairs while wearing someone else's unbuckled galoshes. It's a manifestation of the "who am I anyway?" question, the one that jabs me in the kidneys every time I start to get above myself. Ye olde Puritan shiv.

Enough of these maunderings: let's talk about weather. It's 14 degrees here this morning. Stoops and roofs and cars and grass are coated with a sugar-crust of snow, but the house is warm and bright. I do like winter, once I get used to the idea.

3 comments:

Ruth said...





How very Splendiferous!! This is a well deserved honor/opportunity. I think the whole concept of keeping the Festival local in great for the Bicentennial. Have a wonderful time planning and participating.

David (n of 49) said...

Absolutely ditto what Ruth said!!!

Joy said...

It surprises me that you think of yourself as an apprentice to "their" art. I don't think of you that way. I guess that feeling of being an outsider never ceases? Or is there something I'm missing?

Have I told you how much I love and am inspired by your blog? It's lovely. You're lovely.