Miller Cabin's Moveable Feast

While Joaquin Miller had to deal with the “perils of civilization,” the volunteers and audience of the June 9, 2009, opening night program had to deal with the perils of Mother Nature. Thunder, lightning, and rain sent participants directly to the Sixth Presbyterian Church where we typically have our receptions and our programs when inclement weather occurs. However, the church was dark and locked despite assurances from our contact Mr. White that he was primed to be there for us.

Karren Alenier suggested that we drive to Connecticut Avenue and try the new café attached to the Avalon Theatre. One of the assembled audience members called ahead and asked for permission and voila—a moveable feast (Marcela Sulak, one of the readers, had brought her birthday cake)!

The gracious manager and staff of the Avalon Café welcomed the dozen people with carrot cake and were happy to serve us coffee, tea, and spirits. Marcela had poems fitting the occasion—sonnets about food and coffee that got the staff chuckling and nodding their heads.

Deborah Bernhardt who had driven all the way from Massachusetts with a friend presented a lush landscape of language in the tradition of Gertrude Stein.

It was definitely a family affair. Lead co-host Kathi Morrison-Taylor invoked the spirits of Jacklyn Potter (the former director of the Cabin Series) and the late Word Works Board Members Robert Sargent and Hilary Tham. Mel Belin gave an inspired reading of Joaquin Miller’s poem “Columbus.” Paul Hopper in the open reading hosted by co-host Deborah Ager read a trio of poems honoring Jacklyn, his mother, and a late NIH doctor who had visited the Cabin. Marcela’s daughter wander on and off “stage” as her mom read.


We apologize to anyone who came either to picnic grove 6 where the Cabin sits or to the church and couldn’t find us. Nonetheless, we had an inspired reading in an unexpected and wonderful venue. Thank you to Henry Passman and his staff at the Avalon. Join us next week on Tuesday June 16 to hear Tyler Caroline Mills with the Jacklyn Potter Young Poets Katherine Casey and Baobao Zhang.

State of the Art

One of the few “jobs” left in this large country of ours that is recession proof remains in the hands and minds of us poets. Because we rarely get paid for anything we do and only the rare individual listens to us, we are like monks—free to create our art.

In 2009, The Word Works will celebrate its 35th anniversary of helping poets realize their potential. Take, for example, our Café Muse Literary Salon, which began its 10th year of monthly programs in January when Brian Brodeur and Kathi Wolfe were our featured readers. And typically we have begun our programs with the live music, most often featuring the classical guitar concerts of poet Michael Davis.





Today, February 1, 2009, The Word Works holds its annual meeting. While our nonprofit charter requires this meeting, it is a meeting that typically goes to dreams of our future. Why not make this year your year to join with The Word Works to promote American poetry? Consider becoming a volunteer. We have a lot of jobs and projects and while volunteering does little for one’s pocketbook, it does a lot for your mortal soul.

Contact Karren at editor@wordworksdc.com if you would like to be a co-director with Adele Stein at Café Muse helping to run this program, or a co-director with Kathi Morrison-Taylor at the Joaquin Miller Cabin summer poetry series, an archivist working with our archive at George Washington University, our quarterly newsletter editor, our chief publicist, our web master. We have room for your energy and we would like you to become a part of our family.

Don't forget to join us in Friendship Heights February 2nd for Cafe Muse when we present Brandel France de Bravo and Wendell Hawken.

Word Works Authors and Moving Words

Last night, wearing my hat as Moving Words Program Co-ordinator, I attended a reading by the winners of the Arlington, Virginia Cultural Affairs Moving Words contest for adults. The winners were selected by Kim Roberts, who founded the contest in 1999, and Jeneva Stone. The program was held at the Shirlington Busboys and Poets restaurant. There were six winners and two are Word Works authors: Mel Belin (Flesh That Was Chrysalis) and Kathi Morrison-Taylor, a new author in The Word Works Hilary Tham Capital Collection imprint. Other readers were Philip Clark, Katie Kemple, and Madelyn Rosenberg. Absent was Natalie Le Beau. Visit http://www.arlingtonarts.org/cultural_affairs/movingwords.htm to read the winning poems which will be posted as attractive broadsides on Northern Virginia Metrobuses operating in Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax County and Fairfax City.

Other interesting highlights of the evening were that Edith Stone, daughter of Jeneva Stone, made her debut reading (Edith is eight years old) and Philip Clark read poems from an unpublished  anthology that he is developing on poets who perished from A.I.D.S., including poems by Chasen Gaver and Essex Hemphill, poets who read in the early days of the Joaquin Miller Cabin Poetry Series.

If you haven't been to an event at the Shirlington Busboys, check out Fred Joiner's weblog. What I loved about last evening is that people of all ages and varying interests in poetry came together to hear the featured Moving Words winners and the open mic readers. Hats off to Norman Thornton for moderating the evening.