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August 2, 1998
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9:00 AM is much too early to read poetry. Aren't poetry readings supposed to be in dark, smoky joints at 10:00 PM? Not church basements first thing in the morning. Nossirree. Are poets allowed to be up this early? When Ned asked me to read at this thing, I thought it would be a small gathering sitting in a circle in the small parlor off the main church basement like the one he and Tom led last year. But no. Nope. Not this time. We were in the main basement room with rows of chairs facing the stage and we read from a podium in front of the stage. Ned had recruited quite a group of poets too. Well beyond the usual suspects of himself, Tom, Patrick, and me. There was Mark Schorr, Helena Minton, Herb Pinto, and a band called Wasabi. Wasabi would have been the hit of the day but they were totally upstaged by Herb Pinto. Herb lives in a local retirement community (assisted living or something like that it's called) and was by far the eldest there. His poems were funny and snide and knowing. The woman who books the local church basement coffeehouse immediately wanted to book Herb. Wasabi on the other hand is a little green (that was a joke - wasabi is that green spicy horseradish stuff you get with sushi ). The singer/songwriter and drummer duo is two local kids. The singer/songwriter performed by himself last year. The drums were improvised from plastic buckets. Apparently the young drummer had waited until the last minute to ask his dad if he could borrow the drum kit from his dad's band. The dad said no (the drums belong to the band's drummer, not to the dad.) Oops! Nevertheless, the kids were darn good. Tom read a variety of poems from Robert Herrick, John Milton, and Ann Bradstreet. I never liked Milton, but Tom could make the phone book exciting. Ned once told me he thought Tom could start a riot reading the menu from the Italian restaurant upstairs from Starbucks. Now I like Milton. At least as read by Tom. Mark Schorr also read Ann Bradstreet in addition to his own stuff. This is not as odd as it seems. Ann Bradstreet lived and wrote right up the street from the North Parish church where we were reading. I read four of my poems. Ned dedicated one of his poems to me. Neither of us read any poems by Puritans. Patrick read several of his poems and sang one of his songs. Afterwards, Nancy and I took Tom & Julie out to breakfast. Then Nancy and I browsed at the Andover Bookstore and went halves on a tape of Donald Hall reading selections from a bunch of his books, both poetry and prose. I decided to drive Nancy home to Providence instead of trying to do some other activity up here, so we listened to one of the two Donald Hall tapes in the car. It's wonderful! He makes great cow noises. We went to Watchemocket Cove twice, before and after dinner at the Golden Bowl in Barrington. The cove was teaming with life, mostly the usual sorts: swans, Canada geese, mallards, ring billed gulls. But on the second trip, it was closer to sunset and we watched a flock of snowy egrets, some great egrets, two great blue herons, and two black crowned night herons come home to their night roost. We'd never seen that before. There's a small cove off the cove (sort of a mini cove) that Nancy calls "egrets in the trees" because we have seen both snowies and greats perched there during the day from time to time, but we never saw the nighttime fly-in before. The great blues just flew in, perched on the high branches and that was it. The snowies flew around, landed in the water and fished, flew around, fished, flew around and finally roosted. The black crowned night herons waded carefully along the very edge of the water, periodically stopping to stab at something with their beaks. The great egrets and the snowy egrets looked brilliant white in the setting sun - whiter than snow, whiter than a bleach commercial, and the water looked black. It was quite a site. Almost mystical. It deserves a poem. So do the killdeers. Just as we were leaving, I spotted movement on the mud flat uncovered by the outgoing tide. I could barely make out a killdeer with my scope. I walked over closer to the spot with my binoculars and scope and was rewarded with a whole flock of killdeers. I never saw more than two killdeers at one time in my whole life! I didn't know they flocked! I would have watched them longer, but it was getting really dark by this time and I had the long drive back home still ahead of me after I dropped Nancy off at her place. I didn't listen to the second Donald Hall tape on the way home. I listened to the ballgame instead. |
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