Heads Up

I just left an absolutely amazing
workshop.
This super rad dude, 
David Baker
(he's written nine poetry books!)
gave a lecture-thing.

All about poetry.
It was glorious to have 
a room full of people
completely engaged and
engrossed in the art form.
I was astonished.

This actually exists?
People who like poetry 
exist?

I had forgotten 
for a while.

Today was really nice.
The days here seem so long though,
it feels like this morning
was yesterday morning.
I am stuck in Monday,
the whole week will feel  
like a very long day.

Which is a strange phenomenon.

But today,
it was nice. Things went
well. I had a conference
with Allie, our
poetry teacher.
She is such a sweet person
and I like her so much.
She is giving a reading tonight.
I am thrilled.

But David Baker, 
goodness, he was fabulous!
I bought his new book
"Never-ending Birds"
 How great is that?


We deconstructed poetry to
make sense. We did not analyze it.
We made sense of it.
It's so totally different than the 
school approach.


I am enthralled! Sort of an a high.
It'll subside but right
now I am so in love
with the trees and the sky and the words
I can make here.


Quotes I wrote from his lecture,
because he was great:


"Writers are lonely, we need each other."


"Walking is to dancing,
as discourse is to poetry."


"Reading poems is an art."


"Being alive is difficult."


"There's nothing deader than dead feet."


And th ideas of image and story, 
of a poem making a clear story.


"A poem should not mean,
it should be."
A beautiful line from a poem we read.


Also, I have begun to write a prose piece
about a pregnant woman who
raises chickens i n 1940s rural Utah.
She is sad, and the chickens are wonderful.