Billy Collins

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins last Friday/Saturday. On Friday I volunteered at MoonLIT Bridge, a gala for The Loft. Collins was the featured speaker. On Saturday, this year's mentees (along with last year's mentees) had a private audience with Collins. He gave some great advice regarding writing and poetry.

And he liked my outfit on Friday night!

The Loft Mentor Series

I had a great weekend at The Loft! Elmaz Abinader, a writer and professor at Mills College, was the visiting writer for the Mentor Series. I came away with so many new ideas. Biggest of all, I came away with a possible structure (?) for my book. I feel I've really been floundering in the wind up until this point. Elmaz smartly pointed out that I need a consistent perspective. Lately I've been thinking of structuring the memoir as a series of short scenes, letting them build upon themselves to tell the story without me as narrator having to say, "Hey you! Here's the story!" This afternoon I made a list of all the scenes I could think of, all the stories that could be told in a scene, and I came up with around 30. I'm finally excited to get a start on that. I have a big fear that I'll finish with this revision only to be told, or to have a gut feeling, that I need to go back to the way it was. Oh well, I guess I can't let fear stop me.

I read on Friday night -- Chrissy Kolaya and I were the first to take the plunge. All the mentees have a reading throughout the year, and we signed up for the first go-round. I was honored to share the stage with Elmaz and Chrissy. Elmaz has a serious gift for nonfiction narrative, and Chrissy writes the type of poems I enjoy (and I can't say I enjoy a whole lot!): descriptive, observational, real-world work.

Here are a couple of pictures from the event. The first one is my mom, myself and Elmaz, and the second one is Chrissy, myself and Elmaz.

Oh, the irony

Saturday, Sept. 29, I attended "Cityceased" at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis (see next post). I hauled along my camera and snapped some shots.

The next morning, around 8 a.m., the phone rings. It's my brother. He's a gravedigger.

"Whatcha doin'? Are you in bed?" he asks, clearly already having had a cup or two of coffee.

"No, but I just got up."

"I just went past your house. I'm digging at Calvary. I got my new backhoe. I'm wondering if you'd come over and take some pictures."

I perk up. "Sure. I'd be happy to. I'll be there in a few minutes."

So I walked the half-mile to Calvary with my camera and shot some photos of his John Deere tractor and backhoe attachment.

So less than 12 hours after "Cityceased," I found myself at another cemetery photo shoot. A near perfect weekend.

"Cityceased"

I attended a performance of Kris Lencowski's "Cityceased" Sept. 29 at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. When I first heard about it, I thought, "A play? In a cemetery? I must go!" It was everything I had hoped for. The premise: Characters, who've recently died, find themselves at Lakewood in the world of the dead. It's a funny world, a tender world, a sad world.

The sights, the sounds (live music), the wind blowing through the trees and the headstones as backdrop combined to create a perfect atmosphere. It was an ideal fall evening -- warm and overcast. As I traipsed on the blacktop roads, dutifully following guides clad in black carrying lanterns, I thought I might not ever go to a play indoors again.

Big thanks to Ron at Lakewood to allow a play to be staged there. Let's hope the door is now open to other performances that respectfully honor the environment.

With people laughing and musicians playing, I couldn't help but to think Lakewood's dead appreciated the company and the energy of the living.

Kris was nice enough to let me take pictures, so here are a couple.

piece in 400 Words

I have a story on 400 Words.

http://www.400words.com/2007/09/27/mercy/#more-209

It was posted Sept. 27, so if you're reading this at a much later date, you should be able to find it by date posted.