Another perfect warm sunny spring day in Seattle. Took a walk around a local river and saw a pair of canadian geese with goslings, a kingfisher, some goldfinches, a hummingbird, and had a close encounter with a bald eagle. Definitely a good place for birdwatching. And this is just in the suburbs, not a remote park of any sort.
I have a poetry reading tonight at the Hugo House in downtown Seattle, with another writer and an artist, under the title, “Mad, Bad, Super Women.” With a title like that I feel like I should dress up in a costume. Maybe a tiara and a sword. Too bad I don’t have any of those props lying around. I’m looking forward to doing a reading in conjunction with a visual artist – I like readings that have visual art or music aspects. I’ll update this post after the reading…
…The best parts of the reading…well, the other poet was Belle Randall, a really interesting poet who just won an NEA grant, and I just have to say, I hope I’m that good looking and funny at her age. I have one of her chapbooks now, and I’ll blog about that later. The artist, Molly Norris Curtis, was kind of a walking example of pop-culture obsession morphing into art, which was cool. The other best part was this really smart high school girl who was writing a paper for her English class and had actually looked me up on the internet pre-reading and asked intelligent questions and tape-recorded my answers. It was much more fun than if NPR had been interviewing me. I actually had to articulate something meaningful about my poetry – why am I obsessed with good girls turning evil, comic books, women action figures, etc. Hey, if you read this blog, send me your paper, and I’ll send you a free copy of my chapbook! Another good thing – afterwards, Glenn and I went out to hang at this new restaurant called Frites, where all they serve is belgian fries with a wide variety of sauces. Excellent stuff, though I still prefer thin-cut frites. Chipotle ketchup mixed with roasted red pepper mayo is my recommendation for sauces. It ain’t health food, but lately I’ve been having so much fun checking out new restaurants after readings. I don’t know about you, but I can’t really eat before a reading, so by 9 PM or so I’m just starving, and then you find the new trendy place everyone’s been talking about, order whatever (lately there was a cool barbeque joint in Columbia city, a chic bar in Kirkland, and of course Frites) and enjoy the post-reading glow.