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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Nonnie Gets Her Fill, Drago Confesses


Nonnie Gets Her Fill, Drago Confesses

I was going on and on about the Palm Beach Poetry Festival-telling my brother Drago about the poets, the poetry craft talks, the poetry readings, the poetry workshops, the poetry parties, and repeating every single compliment I received on my own poetry-well, one poem.  Then, between bites of whole grain spaghetti or salad, I described the hotel, the five blocks of Delray Beach I walked 36 times, the weather, my drive down there and back from Panama City, which I stretched to two days each way, and my lunch with Yvette, who’s been an online friend from Zoetrope and later The Linnet’s Wings for five years. And of course, I let Drago know all about my workshop leader-funny, charming, erudite, handsome, talented, encouraging, thoughtful, forthright, married, too-young anyway, Vijay Seshadri.  The other two men in our morning group of 12 were great, but 24 (way young, alas) and 82 (and with his wife.) There were other poetic men that I might have fallen in love with for the week, but they were gay, or made a point of mentioning their wives early in conversations.  So, no romance for me, which was, in fact, fine.

When I stopped talking, because my mouth was worn-out, (I have Myasthenia gravis, and I don’t drink anymore, so I’m not the talker I once was) Drago said, “Allen Ginsberg and I screwed.”

I stared…and slumped a bit.


“Just once.  He’d been after me for a while. A little pushy, even. Interesting man, though.  We had some great conversations about poetry.  So, one night we did it in my apartment.  I closed my eyes, I think.”

“Huh,” I said.  Then Drago did the dishes (I’d cooked) and I went to see what was on Turner Classic Movies.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

some how i need to condense this piece into a mantra and use it as a meditation tool.it's a gift."huh".

'

Karen thisoldhouse2.com said...

lol....oooh boy.

And I think it's awesome that you went to that workshop - more of that in the future!

Bev Jackson said...

Hi Nonnie,

I went to PB workshop with Dorianne Laux back in 2007. A great experience. This blog is very funny and well done. I love your wry.

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