It's August in New Jersey. Local's thoughts are turning to tomatoes (even TWA is feeling the sway with a produce poem from Barbara Crooker, a writer with links to The Garden State), and poetry series are starting to resprout around the landscape. Here are links to just a few:
The Spoken Word Series (Hoboken)
The Carriage House Poetry Series (Fanwood)
The Distinguished Poets Series (Paterson)
Delaware Valley Poets (Princeton)
Second Wednesdays poetry readings (Rutherford)
PoetsWednesday (Woodbridge)
And that ain't all. Anthony Buccino keeps a much more complete list of events than I (click NJ Poets and Poetry at your right). If live near the intersection of two numbered highways and can't find a way to participate in poetry this fall, it's all on you.
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Did you hear that the Dodge has been resuscitated? Somehow I missed that in the busyness of the past few weeks. I vote Montclair, if that matters to anyone. I don't think any of them will be as easy to get to as Waterloo, though; and no urban center will have the same magic. Dovie Thomason's stories and Coleman Barks reading Rumi were almost spiritual experiences when encountered from within a dewy sunrise.
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Got a bit of minor grief over the euphemisms for salty language in my last post. Listen, I'm not really that prissy when it comes to language (Die Hard is one of my favorite movies, after all), but I am a firm believer in applying language appropriately to the situation, and that as students and lovers of language, we should be able to describe something that is exceptionally good without expletives or the word "awesome". And that awareness of the audience requires adaptation of our word selection; my daughters and my mother stop by here occasionally, after all.
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iGoogle's Literary Quote for today: "Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him." - Romain Gary
Amen. And on that note, I'm off to a First Birthday Party.
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