Good morning! It’s 11:13AM and a sunny six degrees. After I finish these words, J and I will go haul in wood, and get the woodstove going. Since today is Sunday and tomorrow is a holiday, it will be a good stretch for the woodstove, which we normally don’t run during the week. Also in the offing for today and tomorrow: laundry, cooking, cleaning, pile-sorting, and maybe a movie or two. And I’m going to read the latest APR. And finish reading this book about Foxwoods that tells an interesting tale with about twice as many words as necessary. A good couple of days in the offing and I SHALL NOT WASTE THEM.
At the end of _next_ month, I’ll be heading to Chicago for the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, where I’ll be on the panel, “Ear Candy: Teaching the Pleasures of Poetic Meter,” with Jeff Oaks, Annie Finch, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, and Tara Betts. Here’s the description:
“Rooted in a diversity of aesthetic and pedagogical perspectives, this panel focuses on the teaching and learning of meter: how, when, and why might one teach meter to young poets? Is teaching meter like teaching other elements of poetic craft and technique? Is meter akin to music or language when it comes to learning and teaching? How can we help our students sing out rather than slog through? How might activities like scansion, reading aloud, or imitation, help poets develop an ear for meter?”
Unfortunately, our panel is scheduled for Saturday afternoon (tail end of the conference), but I notice (looking at the conference schedule) that we have a pretty unique panel, so I think that helps. I am hoping to catch up with all the usual suspects, and also see some Chicago friends (you know who you are) while I’m in town.
I’ll also be attending a couple of off-site events I wanted to mention — one to celebrate 25 years of publishing by Pecan Grove Press, which published my chapbook Luck, and one for A Face to Meet the Faces, an almost-out anthology of persona poems, including one of my very own. The Pecan Grove Press event will take place on Friday, March 2nd, from 6-8PM, at the Gage Gallery on the campus of Roosevelt University. Here’s a link where you can see the many writers involved. The event to celebrate A Face to Meet the Faces will happen on Thursday, March 1, here. The reading will feature poets Tara Betts, Eduardo C. Corral, Nina Corwin, Matthew Guenette, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Marty McConnell, Tomas Q. Morin, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Patricia Smith, and Brian Turner.
I’ll also, at some point, be at the Slapering Hol Press book fair table signing copies of my first chapbook, A Thirst That’s Partly Mine. Ditto for Pecan Grove Press with Luck. I’ll post days/times when/if I get them. All of this is to say — I look forward to seeing you at one or more of these venues! You can learn more about the conference and bookfair here. The bookfair alone is pretty excellent, and traditionally AWP opens the bookfair to the public on the Saturday of the conference. Totally worth checking out! OK, got to go stoke the fires, all of them.
Liz Ahl 