Loose Leaf Notes

1. Because of my dyscalculia, Joe says, “If you were a band your name would be “Wrong Direction” instead of “One Direction.”

2. The new goal of my poetry readings is: “Reading Poetry that Jack Has Never Heard.”

3. I’ve read with carpenter poet Jack Callan at his Fairmount Five readings in Norfolk, as one in his ensemble readings for the Poetry Society of Virginia, at the Little River Poetry Festival and the Monthly Spoken Word nights at Café Del Sol. Now we have Jack-led open mic readings the third Wednesday of each month at the library.

4. Wiseman or wise guy?

5. “Are languages then just a collection of words, syntax, and semantics? I’d like to sometimes see them as seeds and sometimes as fields – alive as the minds, tongues, throats, bodies and air they pass through; germinating, growing roots, bearing fruit, evolving like beings. But also holding space, expanding out like a unique land of perception. A non-physical geography hosting human and non-human drama. A living medium, a speech-scape.”  -M. Yuvan

6. I’m a movie buff who loves to fashion watch, loves to watch musical performances, to see people succeed and give emotional speeches, so of course I love to watch the Academy Awards like others love the Super Bowl.

7. But we don’t get network channel ABC, so Joe and I rented a room in a local hotel that gets the channel in. It had a hot tub, and we made it a date night sleep over.

8. I met poet Naomi Shihab Nye indirectly through a friend when she was in Roanoke for a keynote talk at a Contemplative Higher Education Alliance Conference. He said she was interested in learning more about my and Katherine’s Soulful Aging Tour poetry readings, so I sent a description and he sent it to her, but then I read the below (with excerpted lines) poem she wrote, and, although I relate to it, I knew it meant that I would never hear from her, a successful busy poet who teaches at Texas State University.

9. The Art of Disappearing –  When they say Don’t I know you? / say no. / When they invite you to the party / remember what parties are like / If they say We should get together / say why? / When someone recognizes you in a grocery store / nod briefly and become a cabbage…

10. Before.

11. After.

12. A Hub for Clubs at the Floyd Country Store.

13. Fight, flight or freeze, daylight saved. It was like a face-off between winter and spring HERE.

__________Thirteen Thursday