Thursday, March 7, 2013

Day Second of AWP--Odes & Laughs

It was a sloppy kiss of a snowfall today, wet and easy. I was in Cambridge, a veritable hamlet to my New York eye, to enjoy at least a little. Mostly, however, I was at Hynes Convention Center, Boston, for day two of AWP.

Started off with an exultation. "Odes, Psalms and Praise Songs: A Living Tradition" was about poetry "claiming a space for the human voice" (not sure who I'm quoting). I got to hear David Ferry, Kristen Bulger, Jennifer Barber, and George Kalogregris.

Next I went to Epistolophilia--use of letters (not poetry, but who knows)--and as with odes & co. was presented with a ton of ways to use and imagine, transgressively or retrospectively.

And then the bookfair, a mighty surfeit of journals and schools, beyond my comprehension, so I joked and had fun. Got swag--enough magnets to hide my refrigrator, even from drones.

Met some people I'd planned to meet, ran into some friends, met folk I knew through Facebook, went to an offsite reading where I heard Bill Hicok, C. Dean Young and others and more.

And then I went online and saw I had a short story accepted. Which is kind of ironic. I spent a day at a conference meeting editors yet my fate is over-the-transom.

illustration from:  Shi Jing Introduction Table of contentThe Book of Odes

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