Last night I was among the appreciative audience for a grand poetry reading by Charles Sweetman and Walter Bargen. Funny and soulful they alternated in 15 minute sets keeping me by turns howling and riveted with the play of their minds. I confess this is not always so. Often, I’m just waiting for the brownies…
I was eager to hear Walter Bargen, Missouri’s First Poet Laureate, read his poetry and give good advice on writing a first line that arrests the attention and makes the reader want to keep going. He did not disappoint. With charming diffidence and low key humor he kept us enthralled and left us wiser for…
Naomi Shihab Nye (Image Credit: Stephen Barclay Agency—Photo by James Evans) As the beauteous Ibtisam Barakat (author of “Taste the Sky”—see post below as well) laid out a table filled with books overflowing with tabbed pages and Naomi Shihab Nye’s wisecracks began to flow alongside her wisdom, we knew we were in for something besides…