Reading Report – with guest appearances!

Well, thanks to K. Lorraine Graham, one of the AgitProp reading series curators, I got to see LA poet Allison Carter read (a great poem called “The Doctor’s Office” I think, was my favorite,) as well as Steve Willard – although he also sang, with electric guitar accompaniment. I ended up sitting across from Rae Armantrout and her very nice husband Chuck at dinner beforehand (and got to ask her and Lorraine about “the New Narrative” – by the way, if you know any good resources on that, let me know!) which was unexpected, along with other local poets who were all really friendly. Then, the first person I saw at the Agitprop gallery was none other than Rigoberto González, who was in town for a conference! At first I thought, did Rigoberto move to San Diego? Are we going to see him read too? And the charming and talented Jericho Brown was there, who is just one of those people who projects good energy. It was so much fun to talk poetry, and hang out with so many wonderful poetry people. I almost felt like I was back in Seattle again. Yay, poetry community!
Mysteries of the San Diego poetry scene: Many UCSD students at this reading; the last reading I went to was crowded with SDSU students. Do these students ever go to the same readings? Questions to be answered…)
I asked Jericho if it was unusual to see so many local poetry luminaries together in the same time, and he joked and said something like, well, there are only ten poets in San Diego.
So anyway, good times. I’m hoping to make it to some more poetry readings in the near future. Hey, I’m even giving one next month!
(PS – I wore my super-long jeans to cover my cast, for those who were curious about fashion choices for big-velcro-walking cast people. I think people might not have noticed the cast, but then they were probably just annoyed by the slow-walking girl in the long jeans.)