In Good Company - gala poetry reading

i had my reading, to open the poetry section of this festival, last night and it went amazingly well. the women who read with me were beautiful, talented, bright, and each brought a brave and musical voice - it was totally inspiring. ah, and to those of you who showed up to support me - THANKS. you keep me burning.

it's so powerful to read in a room, surrounded by pictures and poetry by women from the past and present, and also by the voices of women ... to hear the audience sigh, laugh, or grunt - moved to sound a reaction ... to look up into an audience that is closing their eyes to invision the spoken images - letting them work like in dreams ... what an evening.

to the fagans who have played such a major role sponsoring this festival so that women artists may be seen and heard, specifically in london - cheers!

p.s. i thought wonderwoman would fit well with the theme of woman pursuing their artistic aspirations!

a poem by margaret atwood

ASPARAGUS

This afternoon a man leans over
the hard rolls and the curled
butter, and tells me everything: two
women love him, he loves them, what
should he do?

The sun
sifts down through the imperceptibly
brownish urban air. I'm going to
suffer for this: turn red, get
blisters or else cancer. I eat
asparagus with my fingers, he
plunges into description.
He's at his wit's end, sewed
up in his own frenzy. He has
breadcrumbs in his beard.
I wonder
if I should let my hair go grey
so my advice will be better.
I could wrinkle up my eyelids,
look wise. I could get a pet lizard.
You're not crazy, I tell him.
Others have done this. Me, too.
Messy love is better than none,
I guess. I'm no authority
on sane living.

Which is all true
and no hep at all, because
this form of love is like the pain
of childbirth: so intense
it's hard to remember afterwards,
or what kind of screams and grimaces
it pushed you into.

The shrimp arrive on their skewers,
the courtyard trees unroll
their yellow caterpillars,
pollen powders our shoulders.
He wants them both, he relates
tortures, the coffee
arrives and altogether I am amazed
at his stupidities.

I sit looking at him
with a sort of wonder;
or is it envy?
Listen, I say to him,
you're very lucky.

~ i came upon this poem in Molly Peacock's book, How to Read a Poem...and Start a Poetry Circle. the more i read it, the more i get out of it (ahh atwood), but the third stanza is the most vibrant to me, especially the last lines.

frag-ments

one.

apart is a
two part
word.

two.

hip hop
is a quilt, of
sound patches and
poet's thread.

three.

on
the core.
encore.