Loose Leaf Notes

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on June 10, 2021.

After rain lowered attendance for the Little River Poetry Festival (LRPF) in 2019, and the COVID pandemic inhibited a good turn-out in 2020, the weather was perfect for the 2021 6th Annual three-day festival and attendance and participation were high.

One poet drove to Floyd from Norfolk after seeing a poster for the festival in a café. Another read about the LRPF in the Floyd Virginia Magazine.  Some were invited by a friend or heard about the festival and were curious.

Poet Don MacKeller, who attended the first three festivals before moving from Suffolk to Santa Fe, rode his motorcycle 1,800 miles cross-country to reunite with the LRPF community.

There were many returning poets, a strong contingency of young poets, members of the Poetry Society of Virginia and poetry books and chapbooks for sale.

There was a “cowboy novelist” in attendance, a local reader who shared a “gospel poem,” and a young girl who recited an Edgar Allen Poe poem.

Poet Eva Poggi spoke of volunteering for a prison project and read a poem in Spanish and English that an incarcerated young man had written for her.  Another poet, who works as a speech therapist, signed her poem as she read.

Readings, open mics and workshops were broken up with home-cooked meals on site, guided yoga, door prizes and nature adventures.

About 20 attendees kayaked down the Little River in On the Water kayaks on Saturday.

A special feature on Saturday was an encore performance of “Courage to Speak the Truth,” a dramatic poetry ensemble curated by festival co-founder Jack Callan and first performed in Norfolk.

It featured five poets, founders Jack Callan and Judith Stevens, Katherine Chantal, Gina Woodfin and Coral Kendall, reading in turn with each individual voice adding the whole of the performance. Readings were highlighted with music from Meadows of Dan resident Jim Best on hang drum.

On Saturday afternoon, the crowd was treated to storytelling and poetry from two Floyd County natives, longtime friends and teachers, Beth Huddleston and Sharon Wood.

Huddleston read from her book of poems, Run, Meadow Run. Wood read from her autobiographical fiction collection titled Uncle Web. In the voice of one of her characters, Wood read, “I ain’t nearly as old as the dirt, or even all these mountains around here. I just happen to be older than plastic,” which brought big laughs from the audience.

Floyd Family Day, a free-to-the-public event on Sunday, began at 10 a.m. with a duo of poetry from Floyd poets, Katherine Chantal and Colleen Redman.

In the spirit of the phrase “apprenticing to our own disappearance,” coined by poet David Whyte, Chantal read, “I will be retired one day / my last breath will be the clue.”

Redman read, “If I have to die, I hope it’s by Cupid’s arrow / and that Mark Knopfler’s Golden Heart is on the playlist.”

Applause, tears and laughter were some of the audience responses to poems. Festival co-founder and Sowers family friend, Jack Callan choked up while reading his moving tribute to recently passed Junior Sowers, whose property borders the festival site. “The night sky is empty without you. The farm asks why?” Callan read.

At Sunday’s Open Mic, first time festival attendee Krista Gerber read a poem that she wrote over the weekend about her experience. “This festival, this family is a place to be unforgivingly yourself, whoever that may be. Together we share in the mystery of the transformation from separate strangers to hugging human beings, being together in this tent of truth…”

Hug goodbyes came at the close of the festival on Sunday afternoon. “See you next year!” was a refrain heard more than once.

Read about the 2020 LRPF HERE. 2019 is HERE.

______________Colleen Redman