Focused Frontally

Focused Frontally
by Job Conger
written 10:58 am, November 19, 2009

The coffee shop is not a playing field;
it is a stadium for ones and twos,
and our table of six,
watching the unfolding of
the explicit rationale
of those who have decided
to be where they are.

Everyone’s focused on books except
the chatty 22-year-old at the next table
on a cell phone,
tempering his voice
like a library supervisor
talking to a clerk at the checkout desk
when patrons are watching.

The polite decorum prevails:
fog over a harbor for
beverage imbibers and conversationalists
tempered, table-tennis lobs of words
to extend the volleys: forward- focused explorations
of truths on pages,  topped with caffeine,
hot chocolate with sweet whipped cream.

==============================
I write this during a 20-minute writing prompt at the November meeting of Poetry Parnassus in Springfield, Illinois. I’ve revised it a little since the first draft which I read to those gathered at the tables. What seems obvious to the six of us present as things happened is not so obvious to those who weren’t present November 19. I considered that when revising for readers who weren’t there. It made a better poem. The dichotomy of individuals playing individual “games” in a collective assembly of individuals and couples and our joined two tables of six hit me at first glance. There’s no common game played; it’s a stadium of many minds in motion . . . . and a wonderful place to be. Harmony of intent could have almost been sung.

Live long . . . . .  and proper.

Early Friday Departure

It's Too Late Baby

There was a time when I wanted to get the hell out of the office at “work” to drive home, plunge into a fresh gallon of Carlo Rossi Burgundy or go almost right to bed to nap and sleep my rancor away. That time was about an hour and 20 minutes ago, and I’m taking no chances: after posting this at H&Q I’m doing BOTH.

There’s nothing to be gained by throwing rude epithets into this rant. I’m saving all that for my pending arrival at the gates of Hades where they will be more in syntax with the environs. It’s clear than what I thought was a workable, though inconsistent harmony with my employer — a deceitful charade from day one — with focus and practice and patience, could be worked into a relatively sane routine. I could not have been more wrong if I had “bet my money on a bob-tail nag” at “De Camptown Races.” And today I almost walked home from work.

I hate it when I have to compromise and short-shrift my career as a JOURNALIST (which readers all over the frikking WORLD, who have read my journalism, would conclude that I AM)  for an employer who owes me more than $3,000 and cannot tell me when he will pay me what he owes me while I wonder how I will find a REAL employer if I walk away from him and the only transportation I have: the truck he loaned me and can take back on a perverse whim.

Today I can no more work on my journalism assignments for the December issue than I can write a poem. Both require too much thinking, and I left my frikking brain on the coat rack when I came into the house with that fresh jug of Burgundy. At the check out lane at Shop ‘n Save today with groceries and a fresh GALLON of Burgundy,  I followed a destitute alcoholic through the checkout lane. I could tell from the condition of his hair, clothes, complexion, the crumbled $2.00 he handed the cashier, and the way he didn’t even sit the quart bottle up on its bottom; it just rolled down the moving rubber conveyor belt, who (in a general sense) he was. It shook me a little.  ME in a few months? No way,  Montague;  I don’t have it in me to last that go that far.

Saturday I’m not going to work. A friend asked me to pose (with clothes on and my guitar and my music and poetry) for a visual arts workshop. So I’m doing that instead of earning $40 at work: a sum I shall likely never see.

Monday I will go for a dental consult re my . . . . . . what? my Facebook profile? No, again, Montague; my emigrating teeth, emigrating out of my head and into my home office desk drawer. It will be a first visit to a gentleman with a Sterling reputation. I look forward to the visit. THEN I will finish one article for the journalism beat and continue working on the other. I will take the rest of the day off from work and all of Tuesday as well to WRITE. I’m due back at “work” Wednesday, and I suppose I will go.

Thank GOD I have an invitation to spend Thanksgiving with some friends.

I have some pictures to post at Facebook now, so I’ll sign off. Who knows? After unloading here and there, I may feel like foregoing the nap to just stay “un-prone” until after dinner and Charlie Rose. There’s plenty to do here, including posting that poem I promised. Who knows? It could happen. . . . .

Live long . . . . . and proper.

So I Attended Poetry Parnassus

It was all thanks to happy coincidence. I had scheduled a 9:30 interview on Greenbriar for an article slated for the December business monthly. For the first time, Poetry Parnassus moved their monthly meeting from the fourth Thursday of the month to the third. Thursday four this month is Thanksgiving. When I exited a fine interview at 10:15, it was a short three blocks to Barnes & Noble, and I arrived as Anita and Mark had just arrived and were in motion to the coffeeshop.

There were just a few of us at first — Anita, Mark, and Kat, joined later by Jean and later still by Nancy. Anita lauched the daytime event which has gathered at three or four area venues over the last three years, and this was the second at Barnes etc. The coffeeshop was quiet in contrast to their October meet which, I’m told, was a challenge with very noisy background chatter by other coffee shop patrons. This day it was near-perfect quietude.

Since the early days, moderator Anita has passed out writing prompts at the start and those attending are encouraged to write a poem or initial thoughts as instructed in the prompts. We were given 20 minutes to see what we could do, and the time went fast with very little conversation among us, allowing us to concentrate on the task at hand. I was amazed. If attempted at another writers’ meeting, the idea would fly like a humpback whale, not that there’s anything wrong with humpback whales. And unlike “10 word challenges” which many local poets have enjoyed engaging, the writing prompts describe a circumstance and set a targeted direction for creatively engaging the mind; unlike the random 10 words from which participants create poems that use every one and as many other words as desired.

At the end of the 20 minutes, we were asked to read what we had written, fully understanding NO ONE would have “final product” after only 20 minutes of (in essence) extemporaneous writing. We understood that just writing thoughts that came to us as we responded would be fun in its own way, and might serve as the foundation or inspiration for a poem which could be created afterwards. Each read what we had created, and the variety of approaches was interesting and entertaining. I PRINTED (so I could read it, say, later in the day) a draft of a poem. How it came to the eyes and ears in the sharing at the table was educational and will help with a later draft I will write later today and post here at H&Q Friday.

After each “prompted” poem and assemblage of thoughts (tossed into a basket to be taken out later and evaluated for poem potential) had been shared, we went around the table reading poems we had written earlier in the month for this meeting: new poems; not repeats of what we had written and shared 18 times earlier at past poetry readings/recitals. I had made 10 copies of my recent poem “I Am No Friend of the Night,” and shared them. Most of the group had made copies to pass around, and we discussed every one leisurely, making suggestions and affirming things we liked. No poem received extreme lambasting, but constructive suggestions were shared without inhibition.

At the end we discussed the success of the recent major reading at Ginger Bistro and where to go from there. Then we all said our happy goodbyes.

It was a fine gathering, and when I can find another reason to take a Thursday off from Rock City, I shall surely attend again. In the meantime, I shall also create at least one new poem in the interim to share. The next Poetry Parnassus will  convene December 31. You don’t have to be a member of Springfield Poets and Writers to attend and participate.

Write well . . . . and properly.

Poetry Discussion Group Meets Tomorrow Morning

Anita Stienstra, President of Springfield Poets and Writers writes . . . .

We moved PP up a week to this Thursday (tomorrow) because next week is Thanksgiving.

Poetry Parnassus
Thursday, November 19
10:30am
Barnes and Noble

Remember to bring copies of your poems. Attached is last month’s exercise for those interested.

Hope you can make it.

Anita
=============

Write well . . . . and properly.

I Am No Friend of the Night

I Am No Friend of the Night
by Job Conger

Past the windows, a wall of dark
impenetrable to my imagination;
uninviting: I am not required there.

I will not immerse myself
into the sparkling void
which teases hopes with hints of distant
unknowable life and conviviality.

In lingering memory
I hear the laughter of lovers
toasts to friends, from friends
dining ravenously on feasts
of fellowship and affirmation.
So long ago, there was a party . . . .
there was the sweet sanction
of gluttony, of ardent devotion,
anticipating no tomorrows
and unthreatened by them.

But now, the rude awakening
in solitude:
echoes untouchable,
in the quiet, undemanding
and senseless suffocation
by random consequence.

The filaments of artificial suns
permit illumination within my
introspection’s dark cocoon
from which I seek to rise
long hours hence.
Yet, even through my eyes, closed,
glare the truths in blazing harsh rebuke
for dreams of my own, abandoned,
dreams entrusted faithfully
to me by friends and lovers past denied,
the vengance from intentions
spurned and abaondoned, returned to
haunt my living soul.

I yearn for sleep
until the new dawn comes.
With its radiant gift
I will embrace the obligations of the day:
and I will breathe the fresh infusion
of duty, to life beyond myself
and I will wash away the dust
of darkness, the pointless uselessness
of dim retreat
of consuming my own incapacity
within my electric fortress
of stoic persistence
leading acquiescent me, numb, to bathe
and to emerge the man I want to be
when finally comes, restoring morning light
because, it seems, I am no friend of the night.

– written 10:35, November 15, 2009
===================================
Here is a first draft as I wrote it starting about 9:50 Sunday morning, November 15. Although I know I’ll revise it after I leave it along for a day after publishing it here, the poem is a victory for me, The phrase “I am no friend of the night” was a truth that came to me Saturday night. I was feeling pretty much as described in the poem after enjoying my time at the Illinois State Museum’s Collectors Day when I displayed many old airplane kits from my collection and talked with many good people about aviation history. I even sold a book after the event concluded. I was tired from being on my feet most of the day, so after unloading things and bringing it all into the house and down to the basement, I took a nap. I felt numb the rest of the evening, not wanting to read, build a model airplane, work on a poem, file aviation articles or put the kits I had displayed back where they belonged. There was nothing for me on TV after the 9:00 news on Fox. I piddled in the office, had a snack about midnight, read some of the newest The New Yorker which has a fab article about Pakistan by Seymour Hersch, and couldn’t even finish it. I KNEW I wanted to write a poem about me being “no friend of the night” as I took a final hit of Burgundy and went to bed, but I didn’t even feel I could produce a poem. I changed my mind after awakening at 6 am and with light beginning to come in through the windows I arose and had three hours of productive work int he basement. Then I came upstairs to work in the office. I decided to let the words “come to me” in a poem. I KNEW I had to write a POEM. Otherwise sharing the experience would be as jibber-jabbery as this post poem ramble. I knew a poem would concentrate what I wanted to say, if I just relaxed and wrote the poem.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

Someone Tried to Talk to Me Tonight

The phone rang about 6:30, 8:05, 8:40 and 9:30. It was the last thing I wanted to hear after a nutty day, and the only reason I know the phone rang at all is because I heard my taped voice respond on my answering machine over by the nearby bed a short trek from my living room. No messages were left, so I think I can rule out my brother passing away, but still, it was mud-smear on clean white slacks, capping a challenging day that began at 7 am.

I came home from Rock CIty in high spirits Friday with a broasted chicken and a fresh gallon of Carlo Rossi Burgundy — the most recent jug had lasted 15 days, a record, thanks to some nignts not having even a sip. I was out of sorts most of the day at work because I read a new book of poetry a distant friend had sent, asking for a review and exposure at my book review web site. I was depressed because after receiving the book and acknowledging receipt, in a letter sent to her earlier this week, I began READING it and was appalled to the point of private anger over the discongruity of the poems. The difference from “incongruity” as I define the terms is that incongruity I attribute to a writer being uninformed or mis-informed about elements including consistent upper case usage, use of periods and semi-colons (comma usage was okay throughout) and what appear excessive typos. Discongruity, to me, is when the abberrent usage of elements just noted appears deliberate AND inconsistent. I slogged through the book taking notes for the promised review. I promised the author I will read it three times before I write a review which I will send to her and probably not post at my review site. If I don’t like a book and can’t recommend it, I won’t review it to public readers. Yes, there are books I like, but can’t recommend and others I recommend but don’t like. After reading all 60 pages of poetry and taking notes, I poured my focus into designing and drafting a new customer information form at work, completed a long project of transcribing contact names, first showroom visit dates and phone numbers, and completed the daily report. I departed the premesis at 5:01.

Stopped by the grocer for the first time in almost two weeks, spent $33 and arrived home about 5:40. Started dinner and wine after things were put away in the kitchen and I changed pants.

Quartered a Golden Delicious apple and ate it as though I had made it myself. Today was the first time in my life (as an adult) I have brought home more than one fruit from a trip to the market. With the bag of apples came a bunch of bananas, a recent staple in the house. There have been decades of no fruit in the house, but ever since my time with “the rare and radiant” poet whom my heart has crowned “Lenore” I’ve been eating a more plant-blessed diet. Maybe that was Eve’s blessing to Adam: the gift of healthier eating. THEN I had half a chicken and more wine and crunchy Cheetos (I didn’t say it was a perfect meal.) and I was sawing logs in the easy chair under the flannel blanket when my answering machine awakened me for the first time.

I have three phones. The one here in my office hasn’t worked since I brought the computer back from the de-virus action at PC Doctor two weeks ago. The one by my bed, a cordless, a gift from a friend, rings at such a high pitch, that if the TV or radio is on, and I’m more than six feet from that phone, I can’t hear it. Phone three is in my big office in back of the house. That’s the one I can hear ringing if the TV isn’t too loud and I’m awake.

The timing of the rings suggested the same caller because no four people I know have ever tried to call me during the same WEEK, let alone evening. It’s not that I was too groggy or incapacitated to answer. During the first three plays, as the machine played my voice but recorded no message from the caller, I simply didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was m in my “old grouch” mode through the end of Bill Moyers Journal — fantastic show tonight as usual. If I had been closer to a phone I could have heard and picked up, I would have done that. In fact, I brought the cordless handset over to my easy chair soon after it rang the last time, so I COULD pick it up IF I HEARD it before the voice mail kicked in.

I prayed during the last few minutes of Moyers Journal that Charlie Rose would have a movie star or tennis player as guests so I could spend time in my office starting at 10 p and not in front of the television. I was in luck. He indroduced Warren Buffet for the hour. I like Warren Buffet because he can talk about anything, and his voice, pacing, attitude are all entertaining and I like the fellow. He reminds me of my father on a good day. I usually watch Rose’s interviews with him, but tonight I was not in a mood to have him glibly jabber about the world economy for an hour. The world economy, compared with my more urgent concerns, including the disintegration of my original teeth. I lurched into my office and posted a bummer of a status report at Facebook before lurching over to Honey and Quinine to post this.

If YOU tried to call me, please e me and explain. I want to talk with you, and I am not angry with anyone whose dust (metaphorically speaking) is not already permanently ensconced inthe “permafrost” of my perpetual disregard. If that’s how I feel about you, you probably already know it, and you’re not reading this jabber anyway.

I’ll return to the book of poetry Sunday, I suppose, to read it a second time, take some more notes and produce a review at work after reading it again early next week.

I once wrote advice to myself regarding the necessary propriety of maintaining control of one’s temper and desire for bitter recrimination. I live by it, and I hope you will consider it too . . . . . . You don’t lose it if you don’t let go.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

Fringe Chill

During  the week leading to my “Super Saturday” (performance at Vachel Lindsay’s birthday party, photographing two major metro gallery receptions and photographing a superb concert by the Hanser-McClellan Guitar Duo) I allowed myself the groove of napping after dinner and awakening in time to watch Charlie Rose at 10 p, work in the office until 1:25 a, stopping to watch an hour of my fave “pure enjoyment” TV show “Scrubs” and then sleep from 2:30 to 7. The groove allowed me shower time before driving into “Rock City” and usually time to respond to a few priority e-mails. This week I’ve been in the same time groove without the same results.

True I will be exhibiting at Illinois State Museum’s Collectors’ Day most of Saturday  (Y’all come; it’s free and nobody’s selling anything) but it’s a cake walk. I could do this with one leg tied behind my back, and it will be a rare social engagment when I’m not carrying a camera.

It’s been a “limbo week” as I bend over backwards to get somewhere dancing  in wierd posture mode and fall flat on my big, stoic caboose. The reason is the lower ambient temperature in the hoose. I’m still going without furnace and space heaters, though both are fixed and ready to warm. It’s just that proximity to poverty breeds thrift, the kind you can’t buy with food stamps which I haven’t applied for and will never use. And I’m not approaching being hungry this year for the first time in the last two or three, thanks to more freelance writing (up to last month) and regular irregular employment. It’s hard to pack provisions for a slow boat to recovery (a full-time job with regular recompense) — another aspect of what Vachel Lindsay called “the dream of all the Springfield writers” — when you can’t predict how long the voyage will be until you make landfall. So with the lower Fahrenheat, I’m experiencing what I call “fringe chill.”The house is warm enough so the water pipes don’t freeze. I’ve learned it has to be at least 5 below zero with a space heater warming my basement crawl space with the pipes are most vulnerable, to freeze the most fragile plumbing, which leads to the kitchen sink. It could be worse. If I couldn’t flush the toilet or take a shower . . . . . let’s just heave a collective EEEEUW! and leave it at that.

 

Maybe I’m getting softer as I get ”wiser.” In fringe chill I dinner within an hour of arrival home because I KNOW I want to sleep early, and I know that because I don’t want to fall asleep during Charlie Rose. It works like a charm: I  OVER-eat dinner because food is my “reward.” I have earned it by not walking out the door in “blown pressure cooker” mode because I couldn’t deal with the guff I swallow by the gallon some days on north Dirksen Parkway. I’ve been a “good boy” and in doing so, I’ve kept my “job” and the loaned truck I use for transportation. And I’ve earned the right to be a glutton, and that sends me to “sleep city” as surely as Carlo Rossi Burgundy, my “house wine.”

But this week, the general mailaise of fringe chill has caught up with me. I’m awake in time for Charlie Rose after napping under a flannel blanket in my easy chair, but I usually listen to it, instead of watching it, cocooned from over head to under shoes with a small area close to my face left open so I can exhale into the room instead of re-breathing my warm CO2. This week I’ve been wandering into into the office but browsing the web and misbehaving more than thinking straight — the peril of fringe chill — anything to get a little circulation going. Result: I’ve not kept my Springfield Classical Guitar Society web site current. I should have had the pictures I took Saturday night posted to the site no later than Wednesday morning. Ditto the pictures at my Vachel Pages, and the blog I intend to produce for the gallery receptions. Also, I’ve been hitting the hay at least an hour before “Scrubs” comes on. I don’t require it in fringe chill. Laughter from brilliant acting is not on my radar screen; I can’t see that far.

And in the morning, I am usually bed-bound, hiding under covers to avoid wading into the dreaded fringe chill until I MUST arise (“I rise . . . I RISE!” — thank you Maya Angelou) — “Along the streets, the people come and goo, speaking of Maya Angelou” Then comes a lurch to the bathroom. Then warming, restoring warm, cleansing immersion. And as I dry —I dry! . . . I DRY! — I check e-mail.

FRINGE chill — BAH. . .  good GOD, y’all! . . .  what IS it GOOD FOR? (Absolutely) NOthin’!

Live long . . . . . and proper.

Lingorant #7 – ??? & poets

“You just don’t understand,” Jack, the public relations guru said to the copywriter. “We must be sure readers know our man wrote poetry!”

“Seems easy enough,” his underling, Shill,  replied. “We’ll call him a poet. What’s wrong with that?”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that,” snapped the boss. “We have to let readers know he also wrote other stuff, including articles about Hollywood and film making.”

“So he’s a poet and a journalist, okay?” Shll replied.

“No, no, no.” Jack wailed, his face transitioning in frustration from standard Caucasian to a pinkish hue, common to most of humanity when playing a high stakes game. “He wrote more than that. He wrote a book about walking through Georgia. He wrote a book about his childhood heros, a vitual litany and, yada yada yada. You can’t pigeonhole this guy.”

“Easy enough,” said Shill. “Since we can’t be too specific, let’s just all him a writer, okay?”

“NOT okay by a long shot,” Jack replied as his face brightened into an almost-luminescent red. Even amateurs earn the right to be described as ‘poets,” even if they’ve only written three or more poems, but our man wrote books of poetry too. He was published,  fagadsache. We don’t want people stumbing onto a book by him in and dropping it onto the floor when they discover poetry. There’s a ‘truth in advertising’ consideration at play here, don’t you see? And your ‘writer’ suggestion may be fine for bloggers, and other girls who keep diaries and do the Twitter thing, but this guy has real gravitas in the literary world. We need a heftier apellation, and we need it now!”

silence for at least two double spaces . . . . . .

“I’ve got something,” Shill shyly shuggested. How about ‘poet and AUTHOR?’”

“That’s IT!” Jack shouted. EPIPHANY  CITY!”

Shill silently ex.  . .haled for the first time in 298 words . . . .

“Man, I tell ya,” Jack said with a voice resembling the cluck of a hen settling onto a newly desposited egg. “Sometimes, I think I’m a frikkin’ genius!

Write well . . .  . and properly.

The Poet “Spoke” at Vachel House November 7

My annual presentation at Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site (Vachel House) every year since the first year the event was hosted has been special to me. Only Christmas (another birthday, wouldn’t you know) is more important to me, and Vachel’s birthday has repaid my focus with far more personal satisfaction. During the early years following the home’s extensive renovation and strengthening to accommodate more visitors, I was a featured reciter during the rest of the year, and though I have not been so blessed in recent years, I have been blessed with invitations to recite at his birthday observances. I was gratified to be invited this year, Vachel’s 130th birthday, and preparation for my 20 minute presentation began November 1.

I timed about ten poems using my office clock with a second hand last Sunday and selected the five I would practice to “perfection” in the days ahead. I have recited — as in from memory; nothing in my hands — 45 Vachel poems. A list is provided at my Vachel Pages web site www.aeroknow.com/arts/lindsaypoet.htm and I’m always ready to be convinced I should memorize and recite more by people who regard them as noteworthy and precious. I have recited the five I selected (and the other 40) at least twice over the years. Once the poem has been memorized and recited once, most of the effort is behind me. Like a tune learned for a piano recital, I like to consider them ready to recite again with as little as about a week’s rehearsal time needed to share given poems at featured presentation events. Of that total, about 25 are “in my pocket,” meaning they are ready to recite if you come up to me in the street and say, “Job; please recite ‘The Proud Farmer’ or “When Gassie Thompson Struck it Rich.” The five I selected for today are:1. The Dream of All the Springfield Writers” 2. Upon Returning to the Open Road” 3.”Nancy Hanks, Mother of Abraham Lincoln” 4. The Santa Fe Trail (A Humoresque) 5. On the Building of Springfield” and my poem/song “Vachel Was a Preacher.”

Every time I have been invited to recite Vachel poems, I’ve prepared a four-page program to give to those who attend. There’s so much I have to SAY about him, let alone poems by him to share, I need to space to say what I want to say. I had 20 minutes allotted to my time at Vachel House today. All presenters did. I wanted to make the most of every minute. That’s why I wrote in “Vachel’s voice” to explain the poems I recited. The only words I would speak during my 20 would be the words of the poems selected.

Arriving at Vachel House with time to sit in the back yard under the tent with cake, coffee and hot cider, to talk with visitors, to promote my recital coming up at 2:30. I also wanted to be sure and be in the audience for Sandra McKenna’s presentation at 12:30. She’s a talented poet in her own right, a known quality in the upper echelon of Illinois poets. It had been too long since hearing her, and she came through as the pro she is as a crafter of fine poetry and as a reader of fine poetry. She included two of Vachel’s, and it was a solid presentation.

Bill Furry followed at 1:30, and read from a book of memories Vachel’s cousin Eudora had written about him  He ended with a beautiful melody he played on his concertina. Nicely done.

Soon after, I saw Dennis Camp long enough to give him my check for my 2010 membership dues in Vachel Lindsay Association.  I couldn’t attend the dinner because I promised to take pictures at the Springfield Classical Guitar Society Concert. Even so, I am a friend of the VLA, and I hope my dues check proved it.

I learned a lesson regarding the need to be sure your guitar is properly tuned before you begin to perform. I was dismayed to find it badly out of tune, and in the rush to  properly tune it, I was disappointed and semi-crushed. It was NOT as in tune as I wanted by the SECONDS were TICKING by, and I feared someone watching my clock for me. DAMN! And I was perspiring so hard, I could barely see out of my right eye. THAT had never happened before, and all this while I was trying to dune the GUITAR! And the TIME WAS TICKING BY! CHEESes! I would have walked away from someone with a guitar in that condition, and I could not dare show fear to the audience which included Tony Leone who came especially to hear me and some other good friends. So I charged ahead, with fingers shaking so much in frustration that I could finger pic accurately maybe THREE frikking percent of the arrangement and the perspiration in my right eye was a heck of a distraction! NERTS! I’m sure some were wondering if I was the same “Job Conger” they had heard about at Facebook.  When it was time to put down my guitar after singing the first two poems, I could not remember the opening line of the Nancy Hanks poem! I wrestled with it and finally went to The Santa Fe Trail which went nicely but not perfectly. DANG! But it easy after that, a cakewalk. I could recite “On the Building of Springfield” with one hand tied behind my back. Same with my poem song that concluded.

Then a twist. I knew I had some time left on the 20 minutes allotted and I wanted to make up for my forgetting “Nancy Hanks, Mother of Abraham Lincoln” by reciting “What the Sexton Said.” Sandra McKenna heard me recite it at the Thursday open mic at Ginger Bistro and liked it. I was happy to reprise it for her. Then I recited “The Bronco That Would Not Be Broken” for Ken Sibley who was in the audience. It was his favorite Vachel poem, and I was happy to share it; dedicate it to him.  THEN I was done . . . .

.. . .  but not quite. Ted Keylon and I were discussing my failure with “Nancy Hanks” when the first line of the poem came back to me. I asked if I could recite it to Ted, and a few others who had not already headed out of the parlor if they would like to hear the poem. They all said “yes.” and I shared it flawlessly. For one thing, as I looked around the room and didn’t see anyone approaching me to say something like, “Job, you had your time; it’s time for you to go now.” THAT was key to my success reciting the beautiful poem.

The rest of the afternoon was a breeze. I traded two of my books for other respected poets’ books and I sold two of my books: Bear’ sKin and Minstrel’s Ramble: to Live and Die in Springfield, Illinois. The post recital conversation was superb and I hated to head home.

So the first performance of Vachel Lindsay: The Poet Speaks is history. Future performances will be better. I will talk as Vachel instead of simply writing in character. And I will be darn sure my guitar is properly tuned before I pick it up to sing. Thanks to all attended during the day, particularly during my presentation.

I LIVE by sharing Vachel Lindsay in poetry, song and monologue in a way that I do not live when I am in love or love. It’s the same LIFE that all “performers” crave; nothing different. If you care to help me live, by engaging me for modest financial remuneration, in a presentation, or if you want to invite me over for dinner, visit my Vachel Pages and learn more. Vachel did okay sharing his poetry at dinnertime and after. I will be as happy as he if I can do the same.

Live long.  . . . . and p;roper.

 

Vachel’s Birthday, TWO Gallery Receptions and Classical Music Saturday, November 7

On Saturday, I will see and interact with more good people than most folks engage in a decade of Thanksgivings and Christmases. Here is my clarion call for Honey & Quinine readers 60 miles or closer to Springfield, Illinois to engage some or all of what follows . . .

Starting at 10:30 at Vachel Lindsay State Historic Site, 603 S. Fifth Street on the south side of lyrical downtown Springfield, The Vachel Lindsay Repertory Group will read Vachel poems. Other presenters include Sarah McKenna at 12:30 and Job Conger at 2:30. I will pass out copies of my program printed for this occasion entitled Vachel Lindsay: The Poet Speaks. There will be cake, lemonade, coffee, cider and salted nuts under the tent in the back yard, and lots of interesting people to chat with. I will have copies of my poetry books for sale close to the time of my presentation. This will also be a great time to take a guided tour of the historic home. Before Dr. Vachel Thomas Lincoln purchased and added on to it, the home was designed by the same architect who designed Abraham Lincoln’s home  a few blocks east. Lincoln actually visited the house when the original owner lived there.

Starting at 5:30 at Hoogland Center for the Arts just south of Capital on Sixth Street, Prairie Art Alliance will host a reception for its featured multi-media artist Tiffany Beane, watercolor painter Shirley Caldwell Smith and jewelry artist Pippy Vincent. Three flights up in the third floor board room , the Sangamon Watercolor Society hosts a reception for its artists, among them Gwen Sommer, Janice Hahn and Aneita Gates. The Watercolor Society invites all comers to vote for their favorite painting, and the artist who painted it wins a free Cadillac. Just kidding, but there is a reward in there somewhere for sure.

The two receptions are the best time for visitors who discover paintings worth taking home and for holiday giving to friends, family  and bloggers to meet the artists who created them. Besides the featured artists at Prairie Art Alliance, fully half the wall space shows paintings and art by other member artists. Every artist displaying has been “juried in.” That means a selection board has seen examples of the work submitted for consideration, and have either approved the artist as a contributing member or declined that honor. It’s the best way to ensure competently crafted creations are shared with the public at large. The same applies with Sangamon Wateercolor Society. The receptions conclude at 7:30, just in time for the next major event.

Many good people will depart the receptions to attend the first Springfield Classical Guitar concert of the new season, starting at 8,  featuring the Hanser-McClellan Guitar Duo at First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Captal at 7th, just more than a block’s stroll from the receptions.  The Duo performed during the first SCGS season more than 10 years ago, again in 2005, and if I had a nickel for everytime I’ve urged the Society to bring them back, I’d be driving a Lexus today. Their CDs ” La Vida Breve” and “Jango” are two of the most listened to recordings in my collection. They are as slick and cool as musically inclined cucumbers on stage, but off-stage they are as convivial autographing programs and recordings as anyone who has graced our city with beautiful music. This is the only SCGS concert slated for the “09″ part of the 2009/2010 season, and I can tell you the sound of two sparkling classical gutars played with exceptional precision and vitaility will echo warmly in your ears until the next concert in early 2010.

This may be the most exquisite confluence of artistic elan to grace this city since the sun was in the seventh house and Jupiter alligned with Mars. But don’t take my word f’rit. Come out and savor the sweetness Saturday.

Live long . . . . . and proper.