Post by moira on Oct 18, 2008 17:29:58 GMT 2
Dear Wom-po Friends,
Around noon today I returned home from a fabulous twenty-four hours in Lexington, VA for the reading at Washington & Lee University organized by the incomparable Lesley Wheeler.
The group of us, Jean Anaport-Easton, Sally Rosen Kindred, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Cheryl Pallant, Susan Settlemyre Williams, Susan Williamson, joined Lesley in Lexington yesterday afternoon from our various locations near and far.
The event happened at 4 p.m. EST on the lovely campus of W&L (which incidently is adjacent to the Viriginia Military Institute - a source of fascination for me.) There was a great crowd. Each of us read for about 5 minutes, which was just a wonderful experience for me to have my poems heard along with all of these great and soulful poets. Then we had a conversation about poetry and community in the south lead by Lesley. It was thoughtful and spirited and wonderful.
Wendy Taylor Carlisle came up from Texarcana and Margo Solod, a "local" joined in at the event as well.
Books were sold, people laughed and hugged and had a great time.
Afterward, we had dinner on the campus with a variety of other folks from Washington & Lee and more spirited conversation and then we adjourned to a local watering hole and ate more and drank more and enjoyed being together.
For me, this was an incredibly special and meaningful 24 hours. I salute Lesley for her work in putting it together. She organized a variety of programs on campus to support the event and took care of our every need for the time we were in town. In addition to being an extraordinary editor and hardworker, she rivals Martha Stewart in the hostessing world!
It was great to spend time with these wonderful women and learn more about each. I had planned to take a few digital pictures, but as an indication of how much fun I was having, the camera never came out of my backpack! So you'll all just have to hear the words and capture the good feelings that we all have from our time together.
Thank you to all who were involved in the anthology for creating the vehicle for this experience. Thank you to Lesley for organizing this event, to all of the readers for their poems, and to this list for making so much possible.
With much gratitude.
Julie Enszer
Around noon today I returned home from a fabulous twenty-four hours in Lexington, VA for the reading at Washington & Lee University organized by the incomparable Lesley Wheeler.
The group of us, Jean Anaport-Easton, Sally Rosen Kindred, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Cheryl Pallant, Susan Settlemyre Williams, Susan Williamson, joined Lesley in Lexington yesterday afternoon from our various locations near and far.
The event happened at 4 p.m. EST on the lovely campus of W&L (which incidently is adjacent to the Viriginia Military Institute - a source of fascination for me.) There was a great crowd. Each of us read for about 5 minutes, which was just a wonderful experience for me to have my poems heard along with all of these great and soulful poets. Then we had a conversation about poetry and community in the south lead by Lesley. It was thoughtful and spirited and wonderful.
Wendy Taylor Carlisle came up from Texarcana and Margo Solod, a "local" joined in at the event as well.
Books were sold, people laughed and hugged and had a great time.
Afterward, we had dinner on the campus with a variety of other folks from Washington & Lee and more spirited conversation and then we adjourned to a local watering hole and ate more and drank more and enjoyed being together.
For me, this was an incredibly special and meaningful 24 hours. I salute Lesley for her work in putting it together. She organized a variety of programs on campus to support the event and took care of our every need for the time we were in town. In addition to being an extraordinary editor and hardworker, she rivals Martha Stewart in the hostessing world!
It was great to spend time with these wonderful women and learn more about each. I had planned to take a few digital pictures, but as an indication of how much fun I was having, the camera never came out of my backpack! So you'll all just have to hear the words and capture the good feelings that we all have from our time together.
Thank you to all who were involved in the anthology for creating the vehicle for this experience. Thank you to Lesley for organizing this event, to all of the readers for their poems, and to this list for making so much possible.
With much gratitude.
Julie Enszer