The listener completes the circle. This is a phrase from one of my poems. It's how I feel about sharing my work with an audience. Reading from my book in the company of an attentive and enthusiastic audience is a kind of completion that feels like landing. In the receptivity of listeners, my words, thoughts and ideas come home.
Thank you to Shawn Sorensen for inviting me to spend the evening with the warm and welcoming poetry community he has cultivated at his store. Thank you to every single person who took the time to be with us and simmer in the possibilities of the poetic life. The mirror of your passion helps me better comprehend and articulate my own.
And thank you to Lane
Browning, Sara Guest, Christopher Luna, Toni Partington,
Shawn Sorensen and Steve Williams--contributors to Writing the Life Poetic and wise men and women of my writing tribe--for so generously sharing your time, your insights, your kind words about my book and your remarkable poetry.
When I spend an evening with other people who savor and share poems, I feel deeply at peace for the rest of the week. Thank you to all who reminded me last night that the word is the way--my way, your way, our way.
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June 11, 2009
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Hi Sage! I love the phrase you cited - I need to print it out and put it on my bulletin board to remember!
Posted by: Laura Cococcia | June 12, 2009 at 08:38 AM
I'm so sorry I had to miss it! It sounds lovely.
Posted by: dale | June 12, 2009 at 05:55 PM
I am so glad I did not allow the achy neck to guide me home. Great evening. Food for thought. Bringing poems for revision to my writer's group this Wed. Thanks!
Posted by: msmac | June 14, 2009 at 06:43 AM
Is your blog still active? Been missing it
Posted by: John | July 04, 2009 at 07:15 PM