My reading at Shaman Drum was a nice homecoming. Unfortunately James Shea had to cancel at the last minute so I adjusted to read for a bit longer than normal. There were many familiar faces including the fabulous poet Lorna Goodison with whom I studied, my friend Ray McDaniel who introduced me (check out Ray’s latest, Saltwater Empire), and friends from my time at Michigan including Rachel Nelson, Jeremy Chamberlin and Natalie Bakokpoulos, Courtney Mandryk, and Jennifer Mcfarlane-Harris.
A pic of me before the reading, and one of me during the reading (sorry it’s blurry!):
A flyer for the reading found in Angell Hall:
I had a full house with standing room only, though to be fair many in the audience were students required to be there for class. They were a really great group, though, receptive to the poems, laughing at my jokes, and many bought copies of Pear Slip and asked for my signature, so that was nice. In addition to some selections from Pear Slip I read my two Pushcart nominated poems for this year, “Mothers Eating Other Mothers’ Young” and “Somersault Precedes Transformation”, along with some short poems from Impossible Gotham and some selections from Specular Reflection, the poems chronicling my trip to Jamaica last year. Everyone really seemed to love the Jamaica poems (which had me nervous given I was writing about Lorna’s home turf)!
When the reading finished, a student reporter named Grace from The Voice, Washtenaw Community College’s bi-weekly online newspaper, stayed to interview me. Click HERE to read her review of the reading.