I go through periods when it seems like not much is happening in my poetry life, and then I go through periods like the current one, when it seems a lot is happening. The trick is to remember these times in the drier spells.
On Sunday, I had a fantastic reading at the Y Steak house in Park Rapids with the lovely and talented Kathryn Kysar. I think we both were surprised by the turnout (not huge, but adequate) and the appreciation of the audience. A very nice event indeed. Here I am with Jen Geraedts, manager of Beagle Books, a sponsor of the event (and a poet in her own right) and Kate Kysar (l to r).
Yesterday, I began teaching a class on Ekphrasis (poetry inspired by art) at the Nemeth Art Center with a fantastic group of students, and in just a few weeks I begin teaching Writing the Short Poem online for the Loft. And the regular school year is starting, too. Teaching, teaching, teaching! Good thing I love it.
In other news, my good friend and collaborator Tiffany Besonen and I will be attending an event at Concordia College in a couple of weeks entitled : 2011 Faith, Reason and World Affairs Symposium , “The Role of the Artist in Society: Inspiration, Issues, Impact.” We will be meeting with Jennifer Heath, who curates The Veil: Visible and Invisible Spaces, a traveling art exhibition on tour since 2008 which includes our collaboration, “i am water,” a mixed-media collage block-printed with a fragment of one of my poems. We will attend the gallery talk, and also many of the sessions the next day exploring the role of the artist in society. Should be very interesting.
Tiffany is also in the process of submitting a grant proposal to The Minnesota Center for Book Arts for a collaboration in which I will write in response to some of her new work, and the poems and images then will be translated into larger broadsides (art/poetry posters, kind of). Cross your fingers for us!
Finally, a project that has been on the back burner, but still simmering, for a couple of years is a photo/poetry collaboration with my (new) husband and photographer extraordinaire, Steve Peterson. I won’t say too much about it except to say that it would focus on a much-traveled and much-loved route between our two homes, and would aspire to capture the route’s beauty before the road is modernized too much. We’ve recently gotten some encouraging interest and feedback, and hope to move this closer to the front of the stove.
Busy times!
Quote for the week: Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
— Rumi
LouAnn Shepard Muhm 