AWP D.C. was a bit of a whirlwind experience this year due to its unfortunate timing. I didn’t think I would be able to go due to commitments in NYC, but managed to get roughly two days of the scene covered. AWP organizers, I know you probably lock down dates based on cheapest rates, and that the next four or five years are planned out already, but please, keep AWP in late March/early April when the weather’s better. Also, D.C., I don’t understand your damn streets.
In no particular order, here are some highlights from my two days:
- – Meeting Suzanne Gardinier. She has a new book out from The Sheep Meadow Press, Iridium & Selected Poems. Gardinier’s epic The New World and her essays in A World That Will Hold All the People were influential to me early on as I traced part of the literary conversation I felt engaged with back through her to Adrienne Rich and Muriel Rukeyser.
- – Hanging with the gays. I love the GAYWP subculture at the conference. A great reading at the HRC Center Thursday night in a space that should totally be used for a Gay Lit reading series (hear that HRC?). Fun Bloom-sponsored after-party at the Beacon Hotel and Grill across the street.
- – Dishing with my roomie RJ Gibson.
- – Having dinner with the fabulous Emily Rosko at this awesome tapas and wine bar, Cork. I met Emily at the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets back in 2000 and we’ve kept in touch over the years, exchanging work, visiting each other when we’re in each other’s part of the country, trading leads for journals and contests and whatnot. It was good to catch up on our lives and pobiz.
- – Seeing the amazing Hide/Seek exhibit at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery with Saeed Jones. The exhibit was a bit overwhelming. So many of the queer artists I’ve researched and discovered and written about and found resonance with over the years were all there. Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, Minor White, David Hockney, Marsden Hartley, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg. They even had James Bidgood’s Pink Narcissus playing. What struck me the most about the exhibit was how entangled these artists were with writers, specifically poets. That this sense of collaboration permeated all the work, whether it was Eakins’ portrait of Whitman, or Hockney’s use of Whitman’s lines in We Two Boys Clinging Together, to Jasper Johns’ use of Frank O’Hara’s poem In Memory of My Feelings to document his break-up with Rauschenberg. Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and many more. The 50s in particular seemed a vibrant time as these poets and painters, probably by sheer proximity living in NYC, entered each others’ lives as friends, lovers, confidantes, collaborative partners.
- – Having dinner with my ex, Brian and his new man Stefan, and our friends Emily and Paul. So good to catch-up with friends from a different time of your life many years later.
- – The bookfair of course! That’s where you run into everyone anyway. I always make a point to stop by the journals who have published me to say hello to the editors, or introduce myself if it’s a new relationship (like with Reb Livingston at No Tell, so great to meet you!). Some of my haul this year: Eileen Pollack’s In the Mouth, Stacey Waite’s The Lake Has No Saint, Emma Trelles’s Tropicalia, Cynthia Hogue’s Or Consequence, C. Dale Young’s Torn, Christina Olson’s Before I Came Home Naked. There are more, but they aren’t near the bed and I don’t feel like getting up at the moment.
I’m sure I’m missing items for my list. Of course there are the things I can’t write here that I am self-censoring. Scandals witnessed and overheard. Promising conversations and solicitations for future projects and collaborations. Nice moments when strangers come up to you and tell you how much they like your work. Weird moments when you get a frosty reception (or completely ignored!) from someone you know.
I do love the randomness of the conference: who you run into that you totally didn’t expect to see, and then the people you wanted to see and miss. I also love the shifting social aspect: there are always a handful of people you know you’ll hang out with at some point, but then there are those unexpected encounters with new people, people you never even imagined you’d click with and hang with and want to keep in touch with. I’d list all the people I saw and spoke to, but we’d be here a while, and then I’d forget someone and feel bad and there would be drama.
So that’s my wrap-up for now. I had my camera with me but didn’t take many photos (Eduardo you better post some of those hundreds of pics you took!) I’ll amend with updates if other things cross my mind. Old friends, new friends, hope to see you in Chicago next year!