April 15 at the Folk Art Center

Tonight, April 15th 2004, I gave a half-hour "reading" at the Kentucky Folk Art Center in Morehead. I've never felt comfortable speaking in front of crowds, but a year earlier I'd volunteered to participate in the "reading series" put on by the MSU English Department, and tonight it was my turn. I'm not affiliated with the university in any way. These readings are free and open to the public. This page is from the notes I made myself of what to read when, and what to say about some of the pieces. The titles themselves are clickable links to each poem or prose piece I read.

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I'm going to start with a disclaimer: I'm here tonight because my husband thinks I'm a writer, or thinks I oughta be, I'm still not sure which. That said, I hope you'll like some of what I'm going to read to you. I like some of it.

I prefer reading prose to poetry, so prose is also what I'd rather write, but sometimes it develops rhyme and meter without help from me.

I often write when I'm depressed
To work a burden from my chest
Or just to sort out what I'm thinking
I need to write or wind up drinking

That's a lie, I usually do both!

For a while I attended a writers' workshop. This poem came out of one of my first workshop days. (click the links as you come to them, to read along with me)

ASSIGNMENT

We write because we have Something to Say, or Something we want to Remember. But sometimes we write to forget - in order to exorcize some sort of internal demon - and until we succeed in that - perhaps simply by defining it - our writing can be confined to that ...one ...theme. Although my demon has been out of my life for nearly two decades, I just got around to writing him down last year.

HELL

If you find a piece of prose and for some reason wonder if it's mine, look to see if it has a title or a plot. If it's got either, it's probably not not mine. So, plotless, this is not a short story but maybe a vignette, is that how that's pronounced? Vignette? I was an only child, so I was reading a long time before I actually carried on conversations. I still get caught pronouncing words wrong. Like re-SPITE for RES-pit, and en-TREP-en-er instead of ahn-trop-a-NOOHR. So this is an untitled vignette.

WATER

This next poem is about depression, a place I once lived but now only visit. If you can't relate, I'm very happy for you.

DEPRESSION

This one actually has a title.
CONTRAST

This is some stream of consciousness stuff, it also has a title:

SPRING CLEANING ON APRIL 5TH

This is a story beginning, untitled:

WHEN I LEFT, I HITCHED TO FLORIDA

(If there's time, read Chapter 2, Center Line, the other vignette, Georgia, & the villanelle. End with Hecticity.)

Thank you!