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i went to the radcliffe poetry event today in the pouring rain. i went to two incorrect churches before i found the right one, cursing every puddle, feeling very stupid and lost and silly for being out at ten in the morning on a saturday. i dressed up and everything.

i wanted that to be meaningful--out of the rain into the cathedral, poetry in the air etc etc. but i spent a great deal of it annoyed & homicidal, even though it was an enjoyable day. but it was seven straight hours sitting in a pew with a thousand other rainwet women (and a very few men) listening to poetry and forums about poetry. a woman almost sat on me, and then tried to look at what i was writing, so i shot her dirty looks & contemplated shoving my pen through her neck.

jorie graham & maxine kumin were pretty amazing. jorie graham laid the smack down on the annoying q&a people, the ones who stand up and are completely flaky or don't ask a question and stand there pontificating for ten minutes about nothing. she would just kind of grab the table mike and not really look at the person, and deliver something very cogent and sharp and dead-on. none of that floaty crap some of the other panelists were doling out.

it was a little intimidating to be around such a huge crowd of women poets, all of whom are from one generation older than mine, and to see the distacco between how i view poetry & how they do. i love their poetry, and on my better days i like to think that theirs is the style i'm inspired by, but i cannot manage to weave it together with what i love about performance poetry, with the sweat and grit of the rest of it.

hmm. more later.
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