Thursday, October 13, 2005

 

Shanna and Jen cruised into town on Tuesday for the last stop of the first leg of their book tour, and they proceeded to blow our buttoned-down capital wide open. I've heard both Shanna and Jen read a few times before, but I keep getting new insights . . . this time I thought about how often in Shanna's poems, speech gets choked off by the weight of what's already said. And I realized just how much Jen's poems are persona poems . . . I guess that seems kind of obvious, but Jen's readings tend to be very performance oriented, and her book obviously represents a wider range of work than I've heard at prior readings.

Anyway, after the reading, a group of us, including Reb Livingston, Kaplan Harris, Moira Egan, and series host Sandra Beasley, trooped off to Zaytinya for mezzes which ultimately made Jen ill, but which seemed quite yummy at the time, especially the "squash blossoms with pipe dream filling." (That was really on the menu).

Afterwards, I took the sleepy poets to my house, where we talked about turtles, and they met my new pet fish, Nino and Clarence, although Nino was totally dead by the next morning. Fat little Nino, we hardly knew ye.

But Clarence is a survivor, baby. I'm thinking of getting him new digs now that he's a swinging bachelor fish. Shanna and Jen are survivors, too, and don't even live in a tank. They're continuing their Safety Orange Tour . . . check out the dates and see if they're coming to a place near you!

posted by Reen |link| 0 comments

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -