Friday, February 27, 2009

A Poet in the Family

DH (my darling husband) participated in a poetry reading in East Nashville last Friday. He read five of his poems, which were called “slice of life” poems by the head poetry guru. This means that the topic of life in the Parker household makes an occasional appearance, overtly or thinly-veiled. Some of this is flattering and some just plain truth, but since everyone gets a turn to make an appearance on occasion, it’s all good.

I had never attended a poetry reading before, so my first thought was I hope they like DH’s poetry and secondly, I wonder if poets are different from romance writers and children’s book writers. I consider most romance writers to be hard-core networkers, so when we gather at an RWA function, we usually start to work the room to greet our friends and meet new writers. At a gathering of children’s book writers, we talk about what we’re writing and the latest children’s books we have read. The poets were much more laid back, but maybe that’s because they were getting ready to perform.

The poetry reading was accompanied by instrumental guitarist, Charlie Rauh. Check out Charlie’s music here. I’m not sure if musical accompaniment is common at poetry readings, but we are in Music City, where great musicians are everywhere and it was a very nice addition to the evening.

2 comments:

Shauna Roberts said...

Was it weird to hear your husband describing your life to a bunch of strangers?

Rae Ann Parker said...

SHAUNA, I would say it's no weirder than blogging about myself for anyone to read.

And the poem about me was about a Scrabble game. So now I guess anyone who was there knows I am quick to challenge anyone in Scrabble when I don't know the word. And now readers of the comments on this blog know it, too. :)