Loose Leaf Notes

Lovingly tended and attended for nine years now, the festival is in full bloom and its seeds are spreading far and wide.

What can I say? Every year, we say ‘best yet’ but this year really did top them all. On Saturday morning 20+ poets kayaked down the river writing poems while 20+ and more poets stayed in the tent to participate in an Ekphrastic Workshop with Scott Hough (writing poems about Sean’s works of art). More poets and poetry lovers filtered in throughout the day.

The workshop and kayaking were followed by an Open Mic. We had a strong crowd of young people and the most ever first time readers.

I met Patti Ross whose poem about why she doesn’t like Black History Month blew us all away. She also had something important to stay about the state or our libraries back during de-segregation and today.

Dorian North confused us with his accent. He moved from England to Australia as a boy, and then back to England, so it made for an interesting mix. He read a  humorous poem from a prompt his wife gave him: Don’t Lick Lamp Posts in Winter.

Katherine Chantal read a poem about a swan familiar who graced her recent daily life during her solo pilgrimage to County Mayo, Ireland, where she lived for a month.

When I had the mic, I joked about how Jerry Seinfeld is my latest guru, an irreverent who recently stated his idea of three things for a successful life: Transcendental Meditation, lifting weights and expresso! Poet Linda Doves shares her wisdom of cultivating a good life in the above video clip.

First time attendee, historic fiction writer Nancy spoke about how welcoming the festival was before reading a passage from the book she is working on. She said, “I think of poets as abstract painters.  I’ve heard that novelists are failed poets because it takes a novelists a few 100 pages to express the same thing it takes a poet to say in a few lines.”

Edith Blake read a tribute poem to her late poet husband William Blake, and then she read one of William’s published poems. She said she never even heard the phone ringing during her reading.  Sadly, it was mine but I couldn’t bear to interrupt her flow by putting my camera down to turn it off.  William’s picture, by the way, was on the front page of The Floyd Press via a 2017 story I wrote about the festival. With a name like that, it was inevitable.

So many connections and conversations were had at lunch time. Poets don’t tend to shy away from going deep.

And then there was a collage haiku workshop with Becky Patterson.

We all got busy creating

and sharing our final products.

Coral Kendall’s latest painting gave me visceral reactions. I was absorbed in its world and told her that sitting and taking it in was as therapeutic as I imagined it was for her to paint. When she turned it upside down, I saw how much I resist change, but then I adjusted and saw it as whole new painting.

Friday’s Poetry Festival coverage is HERE. Next up, Scenes from Sunday, including photos and videos of Jack Callan and Friends’ Poetry Ensemble, Hiding the Evidence. Feel free to type “Little River Poetry Festival” in my blog search bar (on the right) to read about past festivals.  I’ve been to all nine and for most of those I covered it for the local Floyd Press newspaper. HERE is the first story I wrote about the coming first Little River Poetry Festival in 2016.