National Poetry Month: April 16

(1) Middle Coast Poets – A National Poetry Month Reading And if you are not a Facebook member, then the reading is on Monday, April 29th, from 7-9 p.m. Some poets who’ve confirmed are Paul Scot August, David Tomaloff, Andrea Potos, Ed Makowski, Dawn Tefft, Matt Specht,  Brittany Cavallaro and me. More might be added. The venue is Riverwest Public House, 815 Locust Street, and this event sure looks like it will be a blast! We hope to see you there. Events, planning, spontaneity. Today I read about all these things and more. “Shore Leave” is a poem I first heard Mark Doty read at the Omega Institute, when I took a five day workshop in 2011 with Mark, Marie Howe, Patricia Smith, and Billy Collins (can you say heaven? Yes… and there were over 90 other registered poets who all thought so as well!). Mark drew a hush over the room when we read “Shore Leave,” drawing us in with his quick intro of a personal relationship with this masterful poet, Lynda Hull. Barely in print at the time of her unfortunate early death, Mark helped to champion her Collected Poems as the series editor at Graywolf Press, which I bought from the Ram Dass library on the Omega Institute campus that very day. Today I read “Shore Leave,” by Lynda Hull. Thanks Mark, for this, and for so much more: Robert Vaughan reads “Shore Leave” by Lynda Hull – YouTube Do you recall a time in which you took a trip with one parent or the other, alone, just you and him or her? What are your memories? Did anything unusual happen?]]>