tuesday night, i met the poet laureate of berks county, heather thomas. she teaches in the english department of kutztown university of pennsylvania and has been with the institution since the late 1980s.
our conversation inspired me to look up some works by my poetry professor who is the fellow of all things bardic at clarion university of pennsylvania, philip terman. thomas thought she might have met him before, despite the five hours and change time difference between the two colleges.
( the proverbial bard himself ! )
i then found an uncanny instance of the two of them being written about back to back on the website for the stillwater poetry festival, along with several comparable poets, but i only recognized two others out of the batch.
in searching for poems by terman, i found a swaying example titled "one continuing blossom," published by the cortland review, and its smoothly cut lines of course pulled me in for reasons you can understand immediately once you eye-peruse it for yourself.
garden-speak, anyone ?
coincidentally enough, i met another writer last night, named heather goodman. these experiences, i'm realizing, of meeting impassioned writers (perhaps impassioned is implied with the term ?), are what i needed under my ribs, and thankfully, beyond.
some people have mad addictions to cigarettes, or maybe cake. i have either cake or poetry. and sometimes, i have both--and i go ahead, eating the cake too. it's usually chocolate, i'll admit. how typical, i know ! but sometimes you just need words along with fluffy food at the end of your fork.
clashing energies, for the better, with the people whose minds your own can knit up with so well is just another reminder of the need for time spent invested, with love, in language.
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