Happy Poetry Month! And AWP Report, Part I: Welcome to Portland! Disability Readings, Disability Issues, and Seeing Writers in Real Life

Cherry Blossoms in Portland

Happy Poetry Month!

It’s also my birthday month, and my favorite time of the year. When we got in groggy at 3 AM on Sunday from Portland, I noticed the weeping cherry in the yard was in full bloom and all of my daffodils had bloomed while we were gone. I’m so glad I went to AWP, but I was happy to be home! And that spring is really here, if a little late.

I wanted to write a blog post yesterday, but I was so danged groggy from being tired – no one sleeps much at AWP. I’m going to post about AWP Portland in parts. This was my busiest, most packed AWP in terms of events – three offsite readings, a panel, and a book signing – EVER! And my first since my MS diagnosis. So that was exciting! Also left not enough time for the bookfair and friend-visiting, so maybe next time, I’ll take it down a notch.

Me posing with sparkly poet Beth Ann Fennelly

AWP Portland 2019 Part I:

Day 1: On day 1, we drove in from Seattle, got our hotel room (there was a snafu with the accessible room I’d booked months in advance not being ready, so we had to switch to a “regular” room, which cost us time), literally sprinting to try to get to registration on time, and try sprinting with MS and a cane. It’s hard! There was no space to drop off a handicapped person at the Conference Center because of construction, and no handicapped parking spaces available around or in the garage, and once you got to the entrance, it felt like a half-mile of dim, dusty, not well-signed corridor to get to the registration, bookfair, or panel rooms. Note: I would love it if AWP could book a place that’s not under construction. I stayed in a hotel across the street from the conference, but had to use my wheelchair over construction-non-sidewalk for five blocks to get to it, because, you know, construction. During my panel “Poetry and the Body,” on the last day of the conference, the moderator Peter Gloviczki, said, “I never feel more disabled than in the airport.” Which felt very true. What struck me as true as well – I never feel as disabled as at AWP. They really need to hire someone in a wheelchair or other difficulties walking to test out venues ahead of booking them, and make sure to have adequate handicapped parking, accessible drop-offs, registration right at the entrance, etc. At home, I feel great about walking around with a cane, even going to parks, gardens, museums, but there was no way I could have done this convention without a LOT of help from my husband Glenn – driving, parking, carrying things, getting doors, pushing the wheelchair when I needed it – and I needed it a lot. (I don’t use it much at home.) It was so far from the entrance to registration that even “normal” people were complaining about the walk, so it was extra hard for anyone with a disability.

Me and Tamara Sellman at the Disability Literature reading.

So I got there just as registration was closing, got my badge and bag, and ran back to the hotel room (finally available) to get ready – in a hurry – for my first offsite reading, at the Disability Literature Consortium reading, organized by Wordgathering. I had two unexpected friends in the audience (thanks Tamara and Lesley Wheeler!), which was great, and the readings were wonderful and the people warm and welcoming. I particularly was moved by Susanne Antonetta’s non-fiction account of the long-term damage that resulted from electric shock treatments she had been forced to endure as a child. The effects sounded so similar to my own symptoms from brain damage from my MS flare/lesions, it was uncanny.

I also ran into a friend in the hotel lobby, in fact, I kept seeing poets in my hotel – Ellen Bass, Kim Addonizio – it was like being in Hollywood, instead of seeing movie stars, you’re seeing famous poets everywhere. I didn’t take enough pictures the first day, but I made up for it the next two!

Book signing at Two Sylvias’ booth – a beacon of light in the bookfair!

Day 2: The next morning I woke up brighter and more alert and ready to take on my Friday, which included the first event: a book signing for PR for Poets at the Two Sylvias Booth, where I got to visit with my beautiful editors, Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy – really well attended, thanks to everyone who came by and bought books! It was a wonderful opportunity to chat – albeit briefly – with some people I have been friends with online for literally over a decade! I could hardly breathe because I was hugging so many people. Really, I love doing readings and panels, but hugging your friends is the best part of AWP, or telling someone how much their book meant, or thanking editors/publishers. It’s the people that make the event what it is. Swag is terrific, but human interaction between writers is even better.

Posing with my editors, Kelli and Annette, at the Two Sylvias booth pre-signing

Tomorrow I’ll post more in AWP Part II: wherein I haunt the bookfair, the Spoon River Poetry Review/Obsidian Press/Noemi Press reading, then later I’ll post the panel (and video from it!) and the Moon City reading.