02 May 2007

Reading in Nelson, Workshop in New Denver


Is this not the best reading poster ever? It was put together by Kootenay poet Linda Crosfield for a reading I'm doing next week with her and three other local writers. I think the photo was taken by Dana on the Metro in Paris, on the very ride where I wrote the poem "I Speak English, Wall Street English," which appears in I Cut My Finger. I have no idea where Linda found this photo!

Tonight I'm giving an abbreviated version of my There's More To Memoir Than Truth workshop in New Denver at Lucerne Elementary and Secondary School, from 6 to 8 pm. Admission by donation. Terry assembled this event pretty quickly, at my request, but I'm hoping for a nice, if modest, turnout.

The first day of working with the elementary school kids went really well. I did two 90-minute sessions with them, focusing on poetry and on principles of writing in general. It's a huge group — 40 kids — so it got a little rowdy at times, but some really good poetry was written during the sessions, and the students obviously enjoyed themselves. In fact, there were some amazing poetry passages that I wish I'd come up with myself.

In the evening, there was a mini-reading by the students. It had some very good moments, but was a little tainted by a few kids going up to the podium just to cut up. A couple of the students who had written strong work during the day were, I guess, too shy to present at the reading. There's another reading tonight, so I'm gonna see what I can do during the day's sessions.

This morning it's raining again and the lake is grey. But I like this. The Kootenays can do no wrong.

Over and out.

1 Comments:

At May 02, 2007 12:23 pm , Blogger speterme said...

I just looked up New Denver on a map. It's not too far from Revelstoke where Ann & I & kids stayed for a night last summer on our way back. I've gotta figure out how to plan another visit to BC. I'll be opening a bottle of Mt. Begbie Cream Ale in your honor tonight. (Still have some in the fridge.)

Oh, and yesterday, George (almost 8) told me that he wrote 14 acrostic poems for his school literary journal. I'm hoping some will get published as he doesn't have any copies and they apparently don't return submissions.

Thanks for the posts. It's almost as good as traveling.

pac, lov and undrstanding (nvr giv up!)

Stv Ptrmir
no man's land
minnapolis, mn
usa

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home