Thursday, February 6th, 2014.
11:09pm The alarm on my phone went off at 11pm and I didn't know what for and then I remembered, "I HAVE TO WRITE MY
750 WORDS!" I was distracted by the photos I had taken this evening at the Art Centre Poetry Night event. Yes, I actually went! My husband went with me so hooray, we went somewhere and did something! And it was poetry related! And in St. Thomas, no less!
I was very anxious, agitated and nervous prior to going there. I'm almost at my highest weight ever (certainly my highest in the past decade or so) and I never go anywhere and this was going to be a poetry reading and I haven't been to any of those since
I lived in Toronto and oh yeah, I have this thing called agoraphobia, so yes, I was definitely freaking out. But this was so very important to me, as I mentioned in
a previous entry, because I know how rare a thing this is - what a special event it is to have prize winning poets come to my hometown and share their works. I kicked into annoying excited and overly excited to be there but that was because of the poetry (POETRY!) and part of this anxiety thing.
The outgoing agoraphobic, that's me. Anyway! I went! That's one box I can check off on
my February goals list!
365 Days (2014): Day 37I bought these tonight at the Poetry Night event here in St. Thomas. Poetry books by Jacob Scheier, Julie Berry, Karen Solie and Ken Babstock!
And I have books! Lots of poetry books! Well, I already had
lots of poetry books, but now I have more! I bought at least one book by each poet, if not two. And all of these poets were gracious enough to write in one of their books - yay for autographs! And I just took a peek at each of the notes they left for me with their name and they were all so kind and poetic and and and and and! Can I just type 750 excited ands? It was such a pleasure to meet each and every one of them and to hear their poems, read by them, each in their own way. The walls were covered in a delightfully colourful and intriguing exhibition by
Paul Cvetich called 'Good Love' - gorgeous pieces of such imagination and playfulness all around us, the white walls the perfect backdrop. It's a lovely space, the
St. Thomas-Elgin Public Art Centre. Oh, I do hope they do this again!
In the meantime, my hope is that perhaps
St. Thomas may start up a poetry reading group of it's own. I talked excitedly about this with a lovely stranger shortly after arriving and maybe something will come of it? My number and email is out there with a couple of people and perhaps they'll be in contact. It would be fantastic to do so, even if but once a month or so. A couple of suggestions were made, such as inquiring at Midtown Tavern or Coffee Culture - two viable options, you'd think. Poets get thirsty, too. Oh, how awesome that would be. Yes, I know there is a thriving poetry community (both
poetry readings and
poetry slam) in nearby London, Ontario but there are those of us who can't get out of St. Thomas or maybe we just would really like to see there be poetry in this town, too. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I'd love to see people come out who appreciate poetry but don't write it, to those who write it but feel like they're all alone in this town, to just anyone who has a passion for poetry or would love to be around those who do.
Attending tonight's event made me see that I'm not the only one. There are more of us. And surely many more than the modest number who were at this event. So many people wouldn't have heard of it or aren't familiar with the experience of a poetry reading. It'd be great to open up the world of poetry to people in this sad city. I believe that was probably what the organizers of this event were trying to do but it'd be wonderful to see that extended beyond this one night. Although this one night will carry me quite aways personally so far as poetry goes, what with the interactions and books I was able to take home with me.
One of the poets will be getting out of this town in April, leaving it and on to somewhere else, but he shared a few poems about St. Thomas and although he hasn't been here that long, he managed to capture exactly what I was feeling precisely and you can tell he's had his eyes open to his surroundings during his time here. He gave me his email address to contact him about a free writing class or workshop that he teaches. I definitely should follow up on that, eh?
This is the quickest I've typed in awhile and I did it in a shorter amount of time than I usually do!
POETRY IS EXCITING, WOOO!
On to sorting
the photos I took this evening and I'm done for the night. I'm not used to patting myself on the back but I did a good job tonight. Even if I was an over-enthusiastic rambling fool,
I showed up!related: Poetry Night at the Art Centre Presents Rare Opportunity