Can Spring be Far Away?

So this is March.

Yesterday, arrived gently, bringing  the hope of Spring.  Last night in the folds of sleep more snow arrived.  I hope all the people traveling back from AWP are warm and safe. I wonder if they are coming home brimming with ideas and renewed friendships and all sorts of connections. Most likely a suitcase of books.
If a great wind comes, they will be anchored by the heft of their latest treasure.  All those words weighing them down. 

Unfortunately, I didn't go to AWP this year or any year after the conference held long ago in Albany.  That was my one and only venture. But, just so you know, I loved the panels and readings and book fair, and I'm sure that's what everyone looks forward to, too. I always say maybe next year, and then some prior commitment stops me dead in my tracks.  I

 However, I did participate in a celebration for StanSanvel Rubin and Judith Kitchen, whose untiring work has made the RWW at PLU an exceptional  low residency MFA program. I am so proud to have my MFA from this fine program.  The program had a celebration  on campus,on February 25th.  I'm waiting to hear all about it.  So grateful to all of my classmates, especially Adrian Koesters, for steering us in this long-distance endeavor. I'm looking forward to hearing every detail.

Meanwhile, it snowing double negatives.  It's so cold outside.

Yesterday, I went to the Just Poets monthly meeting and listened to a presentation by John Roche on Irish poetry: the oral tradition, ballads and music.I came away with a couple pages of notes and very thoughtful about the old woman of winter, which I could very well  be.

 Upcoming Events in Rochester:


Genesee Reading Series at Writers & Books
March 11, 2014 
at 7:30 p.m.
 
Poets, Patricia Roth Schwartz and Laura Klinton 
reading from their recent poetry collections.
Admission: $6/General Public and $3, Members of W&B


Writers Forum A SUNY Brockport

 

all Writers Forum readings begin at 8 pm in the
New York Room, Cooper Hall, on the Brockport campus.

Writers Forum events are free and open to the public.

Joanie Mackowski

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Poet Joanie Mackowski's collections of poems are The Zoo (winner of the 2000 AWP Award in Poetry) and View from a Temporary Window. She was a Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University, and is the winner of the 2003 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the 2008 Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. She has worked as a French translator, a journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a juggler, and is currently a professor at Cornell University.