Monday, October 04, 2004

Dodge Poetry Festival - Day 2

Two major highlights for this day. In the afternoon, the poetry sampler:
the eighteen signature poets reading 2 or 3 poems apiece. About two
hours of a wonderful smorgasbord of words reflecting a variety of
thoughts, issues, emotions...

In the evening; Marilyn Chin, Donald Hall, Rita Dove and Franz Wright
took about a half hour each with a musical interlude provided by the
Paul Winter Consort to allow the mind to recover/digest/enjoy the spoken
words. As the darkness deepened, the chill began settling, Benjamin
Bagby appeared and, as an old storyteller would, told us the tale of
Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon. He used a small harp to provide some additional
modal qualities. The stage was craftily lighted to evoke the flickering
firelight from a hearth or fireplace. We had stepped back in to another
time.

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