Loose Leaf Notes

Mara shares a birthday with Pete Seeger, which made celebrating her birthday with poets and folk singers at Lucie Monroe’s Open Mic a good alignment.

My birthday is in May too and coming up soon. I share mine with the Ayatollah Khomeini and Enya.

I don’t know what’s going on here but I like to imagine that Mara has a big candle for the birthday cupcake Chelsea presented her with.

Chelsea and Bill did a jazzy java set that ended with Bill playing a Beatles song. Check out Chelsea’s poetry chapbook HERE. 

I started my set with a quote by Paul  Gauguin – I close my eyes in order to see – because the performer before me sang a song about Gauguin, his father’s favorite artist.

I was feeling introverted and rusty at the poetry reading thing, but once I got started I was fine and it was a good chance to try out my material from  Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife, which is being published now by Finishing Line Press.

There were some blasts from the past there, old friends and familiar faces I remembered from my days working at my friend’s Blacksburg bead shop, Seeds of Light, thorough the ‘90s.  We were happy to see our Floyd friend Bernie, who performed THIS original song, among others.

I can’t remember if we officially sang Happy Birthday to Mara (reading in the clip above), but I did read THIS poem, which I wrote for her.