Loose Leaf Notes

Day 1 Friday evening at Floyd’s Little River Poetry Festival: After dinner in the field Brian hit the gong to call the poets to the big tent stage. I told him I hoped this wasn’t going to be a Gong Show. Later when I was doing my workshop I asked for a show of hands of who knew what the Gong Show. Most of the young people didn’t get the reference.

I gave a workshop on writing our own eulogies. Above is my “Self-portrait in Eulogy poem” that we used as a loose template for the poets to work off on in writing their own.

I imagined cloud bubbles with captions over the poet’s heads as I watched them think and write.

Some wrote poems on their phones with their opposable thumbs, but pens were most popular.

Don, who drives his Harley from CA to VA for poetry, shared a short and quirky one: “He was a motorcycle enthusiast, like his father before him, and despite that, he ain’t quite dead yet, so he’ll fill in the rest later.” Judith’s began with “She loved growing up with a big porch.”

Erika also presented a workshop, which brought a lot of fun and laughter. She had us zero in on three random words and then put them together in a poem.  Elliot’s haiku: Coffee coffee cough. Bluebird bluebird blue. Surprise surprise sir. Mine ended something like: If coffee was blue and sang like a bird, I wouldn’t add milk. I’d be surprised.

We got two rounds of open mic before darkness fell and featured reader Krista read her poems by a hanging hand lamp.  Open Mic poems were varied and good. I loved Dave’s poem about name changes, but all I can remember is “Why be Gerry when you can be Geronimo.” Next time I’ll take notes or more videos.

Brian read a poem Neanderthal Poetry style using all one syllable words. It was untitled and Jack guessed it was about Trump. Izzy (pictured) read about a goddess in Ekphrastic style, using her own art as inspiration.

There was a mic drop (but it was by accident).

See you all today and Sunday at On the Water. Drop ins are welcome and Sunday is free Floyd Day.  Read about last year’s Little River Poetry Festival HERE.