How perfect then, having been featured at one of the first “Friday on Saturday” readings five years ago, to read poems from my new collection Human Shade to the community that has become a poetic family to me. Doris once again baked cookies, which prompted a man from the street to burst in while I was reading a poem. Fortunately Friday, outwardly graceful, but with a core of steel, makes not only a lovely emcee but an efficient bouncer. I re-read the poem.

I will miss this enthusiastic and quirky community of artists and word lovers. While this was my last featured reading before we leave for London, I do have two ensemble readings schedule for April: at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum on Sunday, April 10th at 7:00 PM, and at Frank Picture Gallery in Santa Monica on Thursday, April 14th at 8:00 PM. If you are in Southern California, perhaps I will see you there for a little sweet sorrow before I go.

I leave you with a poem that is fast becoming one of Paul’s most popular–read in Ojai at an event I was sadly unable to attend. I am grateful to whomever filmed it.

And for those of you who can’t make it, for whatever reason–enjoy the poems!

Poetry seems to attract highly sensitive people–sometimes vulnerably so–more than other art forms. Perhaps it allows us to protect the imagined children that are our own barefooted selves by picking up sharp fragments wherever we go, and assembling them into something sparkling and musical, as Tim did tonight. Or perhaps, like John, we are simply clearing a pathway, or a place to sleep. I was moved by Tim, whose love of poetry has led him through extensive study, and to editing a well-known journal. I was moved also by John, no less possessed of a poet’s turn of mind, who reflected to me, once again, the universality of poetic need. I wish them both a peaceful rest, wherever they lay their head tonight.

“The sea is dangerous, they say, but not if you’re the sea.”

Sarah Maclay drew me down to the seaside tonight, to hear her read poems from her first book, Whore, her second book, The White Bride, and selections from a new, unpublished manuscript. It was great to be back at the Artists’ Union Gallery, among friends. Sarah read poems back-to-back, like a line of train cars speeding down the coast through evening fog. And, as is the tradition at this venue, and precisely at the end of one of Sarah’s poems, the 7:50 freight blared through the dark.

Though many of the poems she read were prose poems, her compelling imagery and sonorous delivery made her work sound as though it might have been written with the blade-like precision of couplets. For all of her unexpected imagery and captivating associations, Sarah is not a surrealist–in much the same way that a poet like Sandra Alcosser is not a surrealist. In fact, Maclay brings to the urban landscape much of what Alcosser brings to the wild places–rough, self-startling observations, deep sensuality, and a ravenous fascination with human concerns–all balanced with a keen, keen ear. It was a pleasure to hear Sarah read tonight, and to step out into the salt air, changed.

The place was packed. Roe, our indefatigable host, joked that the event was a sell-out just like Mary Oliver’s reading last week (though Cambell Hall admittedly does hold one or two more people than the Gallery). Still, it was nice to see standing room only. More high praise and fond support: Doris brought her cookies and of course left with an empty bowl. I could not have had a more supportive group in which to read such intimate and personal poems.

Seeing Li-Young Lee read from his own deeply sorrowful, grief-stricken poems last week gave me a model for what it means to honor the experience and honor the art even though it is deeply personal. I felt in some way that seeing him read gave me the strength to do what I had to do tonight.