Loose Leaf Notes

Because I won last month’s poetry slam, hosted by The Easy Chair Bookstore and held at The London Underground Pub in Blacksburg, I headed up the slam this month as the featured poet. The crowd was less congested, probably because the majority of Virginia Tech students had left town for the summer. They were slightly more reserved than last month’s audience and especially attentive.

All the readers were well received, and out of a pool of 8 who were competing for the $100 gift certificate prize, Mara Robbins, a fellow Floyd Writers’ Circle member and longtime friend, emerged as the evening’s winner. Her rhythmic and well paced delivery, mixed with the power of her words, kept everyone thoroughly entertained.

Mara, pictured here with me at last year’s Floyd Fest, figured in as a character in my book, “The Jim and Dan Stories.” If we weren’t completely bonded by the creative writing classes we both taught at Floyd’s Blue Mountain School, or by the fact that we both made jewelry and worked at a mutual friend’s bead shop (Seeds of Light), our bond was cemented forever when we both suffered a significant loss in 2001. Mara lost her young husband just weeks before my brother Jim died. She watched me endure losing a second brother a month later and really did know how it felt.

The poems Mara presented were chosen with a wedding tradition in mind, “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Here are a few (non sequential) clips from her “something blue” selection, titled “Breaking Up.”

I don’t want to love you
the way that I break
a coffee mug, then try to
glue the handle back in place,
try to refill what is empty…

I don’t want to love you
the way I loved fumbling boys
on couches in parent’s basements,
or mediocre kisses
on soccer field’s
wet sharp grass…

Mara and her 7 year old daughter are working on a book about death, as seen through a child’s perspective. She’s currently a creative writing student at Hollins College, is seriously thinking about launching a blog, and continues to be one of my most formidable scrabble partners.

Posts to Note: Another first time blog meet-up! I met blogger Sean from A Tech Monk Speaks at the poetry reading, adding to the enjoyment of the evening. And...Happy Father's Day to fathers one and all.