The poetry community reaches wide. During the pandemic, when our worlds seemed to get smaller, artists found each other anyway. We took to the internet and connected with poets from around the world through on-line readings. In fact, we sometimes found the artists living nearby too.
So when Adrian and I and our dear friend Kerry Trautman signed up to travel to Kansas City, Missouri for AWP in February this year, we knew we were going to see a lot of familiar faces. The magic to this annual writing convention seems to lie in the off-site readings (the bookfair can be like a family reunion too!) One of the most incredible readings was at Prospero's Books where Justin Hamm hosted a reading of poets from his innovative line of Poet Baseball Cards.
(Justin Hamm and Mary Biddinger)
(At bat, wearing my team jersey. My number? 419! Photo courtesy of Sarah Pazur)
Not only that, but Kerry, Adrian and I brought the incredible Sarah Freligh with us to represent Uncloistered Poetry in a reading with Pink Trees Press of New York and SpoFest of Missouri. These are connections we made online, incredible poets we've been reading with for years but only met in person once or twice.
(Pink Trees Press, SpoFest, Uncloistered Poetry and the Milwaukee Deli's extremely talented playwright Prisca, who put up with us all night and shared her talent.)
And of course, we also got to see our neighbors to the north... the vastly talented and always lovely Cal Freeman and Sarah Pazur. I'll leave you tonight with this joy-filled moment...
 thanks for all your support for our county