Like a good Southern girl I am in major guilt about overdue thank you notes...so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has hosted me for some amazing events to promote the little poetry book. And I also want to let you writers out there know of some vibrant locations for promoting contemporary Alabama writing.
In Tuscaloosa, Hank Lazer and the entire Creative Campus Initiative team of staff and students were amazing hosts. After spending an evening and day with them, renewing old friendships and making new ones, I am so optimistic about the future of arts, culture and leadership in Alabama. I want to be a Creative Campus intern when I grow up (never had that when I was at UA). It was a privilege to be part of the Poetry and Community Panel that afternoon in the synergistic Gorgas Library (site of my undergraduate and graduate days prowling the stacks, pre-internet). And to see so many old friends, students, and others pack the Bama Theater lobby for the poetry reading that night, site of my parents' first date many moons ago (they walked from Campus down to the Bama), and to know that while Poet Laureate Sue Walker and I were reading, my soul mate friend Wayne Sides was debuting his 30 year retrospective upstairs...well, it was moving and so important to me. Thanks to everyone who helped and for all the great coverage, too. This is just the beginning of our association between the Alabama Writers' Forum and the CCI. More to come!
Then on to the South Alabama leg of the September tour, where I have to give a bouquet of thanks to Emily Bell and the rest of the staff at Page and Palette in Fairhope for a fun and encouraging ArtWalk event. The most astounding thing: two people came in and said they were buying the book based on reading John Sledge's review in the Press-Register the previous Sunday. Newspaper publishers take note: the book review page drove traffic to the store and therefore had economic impact. Readers spend money. Let's make sure the editor of the P-R knows this, too...
In the Mobile leg of the trip, I had the privilege of being hosted by Sue and Ron Walker in their home for my first ever "house concert" and let me say there is nothing like reading to a packed living room with a beautiful chocolate lab gazing at me while I read. Bring dogs -- they love poetry. This sort of effort to love and nurture poetry is worth emulating in communities all around our state.
After a day of meeting USA students, talking with them in Sue, Carolyn Haines and Deborah Ferguson's classes, I wasn't sure what to expect at the Santori Sound Coffee House for the USA Poetry Theater, but when we pulled up in the parking lot at 5:45 and had to park at the back, I started to get that prickle of excitement that attends a crowd. NEVER have I had to move the microphone so that the people surrounding me 360 could all see and hear. Someone said the headcount was 85 but don't tell the Fire Marshall. I was completely overwhelmed by that turnout and rode the crest as best I could. Thank you to all who made this possible. Again, it's not about me or any individual poet, but about a community that supports and believes in the written -- and spoken -- word.
And last but not least to Eleanor Inge Baker and Steve Baker, thank you for your lovely home, the coolest breeze I've ever felt in Mobile, and a chance to meet more new friends with you.
ONWARD: To Orlando and Urban Think! Sept 18, and then Selma Sept. 24, SIBA Sept. 25-27 and North Alabama Tour with Kathleen Driskell Sept. 30-Oct.1.
