Slice of Life Post, April 18, 2023, by Barb Edler

Recently I attended a poetry event that had several workshops directed by poet laureates. (You could choose two to attend). The poet laureates also shared their poetry on Friday night. During this time, I was impressed by all the poets’ work. Of course, everyone in attendance was a writer/poet/fan of poetry. One comment that really resonated for me was when a poet said that we as poets and readers of poetry should do more to promote the work of poets by writing reviews, etc. I think this is a marvelous and easy thing to do. So, today, I want to mention two poets I thought were powerful and interesting.

The first workshop I attended was with Matt Mason, a Nebraska State Poet who has run workshops in Nepal, Botswana, Belarus, and Romania. I loved his poetry. For his poetry collection At the Corner of Fantasy and Main, he spent numerous hours at Disneyland, trying to capture why he was so fascinated by the place. My favorite poem so far of his is “A Thing that Happened” in his book I Have a Poem the Size of the Moon. Rather than spoil what this poem is about, you can hear him read it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKNumSUFiGk.

The second workshop I attended was with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. She is a two-time cancer survivor who uses poetry to find healing paths. Several attended her workshop, and everyone who shared, read poetry that was tender, haunting, and moving. She calls herself a “Poet, Writer, Facilitator & Transformative Language Artist.” She had several wonderful prompts for us that morning including the following: “Starting with ‘I did not expect to survive, write about what you survived, and how.” Caryn has also created the Transformative Language Arts Network which you might like to explore.

During the next month, I’m going to push myself to write a more polished poetry review of their work. In the meantime, I have to read some persuasive papers. I wished I would have known our school was going to close down, I would have changed my last unit to reading poetry and persuasively writing a poetry review. Hey, no one would have been able to fire me, right?