Nonnie's Poetry Trip: Part 2

Who would think, if they met me today, in bed with dog, cat and computer, that I am a woman of such passions? There has never been a time in my life when I haven't been deeply in love with something or someone. As a child my fervors were directed toward ballet and Catholic saints. I would read biographies of famous ballerinas, when I could find them, and the lives of cannonized women  with equal intensity. Could I somehow become the first ballerina-saint, I wondered?

With "boys" went my plans for sainthood, but my love of dance surged. And, indeed, I became a dancer of the daily class or classes; sweaty hours in studios; bloody ugly feet; living to perform and choreograph; GROW; variety. But I turned thirty and became a mess. Serious physical injury, a year or so of full-time drinking, and then, thanks to family love bucking me up and the help of a 12 step program (you know which one) sober living.
I believed, briefly, I could now become a less driven woman. I even pretended to be a secretary but was caught out.

After floundering about I became a teacher of children who were challenged by differences in mental, emotional, or physical states of being. The first priority for these lost souls was to help them "experience their environment with pleasure." Ah, yes.  Passion, for these kids, was back in my life. Then my heart got sick and I had to stop.

This blog was to be about my poetry trip, and indeed it will be. Poetry was and is a passion right there beside me, behind me and in front of me, leading me. From the first memories of my Nonnie teaching me nursery rhymes, I've been a fan. "My poets" have known, challenged, comforted, mirrored, and lord knows, amused me. One of the firsts dances I choreographed was inspired by a line from T.S.Eliot. My last group of special education students were able to recite, with sensitivity, and in front of the class (!) Robert Frost's, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Atlantic Ave, early morning

Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach, Florida

Poet David Kirby

Me, blurred by passion

A few weeks ago I went to my second Palm Beach Poetry Festival, which is not the least concerned, by the way, with taking place in Delray Beach, Florida. (I don't know. Is that whole beachy yet utterly urban sprawl Palm Beach?) I had a full schedule of workshops (with scholar, poet, rock and roll historian, prince of a man, David Kirby), craft talks and readings by top-shelf writers who gave and gave and gave, an invaluable manuscript conference with Ginger Murchison (oh, yeah, I want to publish a book) and many, many walks between my hotel, The Colony Hotel and Cabana Club (I love that name) and Old School Square, the festival venue. Walks along Atlantic Avenue were exciting imput-events for me. Cafés, fancy restaurants, boutiques, antiques, great dogs, and old, young, rich, homeless, Jewish, Cuban, European, black, bohemian, Americans. I had an excellent time in Delray. Weather was great and all and…poetry astounds me. During the readings I discovered new voices speaking to me and of course, those who have always been around will not go away. This passion will carry on,  I think, forever.

There have been men along the way. Sex and great love and all that. I'll write about them in another blog or two, I think. No, scratch that idea. Poems, definitely poems, for all that.

Chalet Suzzanne, Lake Wales, Florida

Nonnie's Poetry Trip: Part 1

Last night was my first with a home oxygen delivery system. I have an apparatus, that looks like a gas mask, which straps around my head and covers my face, a CPAP machine that takes up most of my night table, and a big blue square thing that supplies additional oxygen and makes soft factory noises. Blue does not go with the color scheme of my bedroom. Neither dog nor cat stayed in the room, let alone got on the bed, once I started my machines, and my brother wouldn't even look at me while I was wearing it. Maybe he has to get his courage up a little more. Maybe it's hard seeing someone you love needing help to breathe through the night?

Before starting this life-prolonging indignity, though, I went on a road trip. Two days driving and staying at historic hotels, six days and nights at a poetry festival, then a night with Yvette Managan,  a kindred spirit and fellow editor (The Linnet's Wings), and a morning with Cormac Tully, who I first met when I was three and he was four (and a half!) Ten days away from Drago, my brother and housemate, Blossom, our dog  and Sam, our cat. I missed them and they missed me, but jeez louise, what a time I had!

On the way to the Palm Beach Poetry Festival in Delray Beach, I drove along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from Panama City to Panacea (I know, right?) with sparkling blue water (well, it was sparkling and it was blue) on my right, tooling gently through small towns or no towns with minimal traffic and Paul Simon, The Band, and Amadeus Mozart to keep me company. I lost the shore for awhile after the Big Bend, but recovered it, on three sides (!), when I arrived in Cedar Key. I spent the night in the Richard Boone room at The Isand Hotel. The building dates from 1859, has survived 150 hurricanes and is said to be haunted by several of the dead, including a prostitute from the days when the place was a Speakeasy.  I took a long walk around the docks then had fresh clams and pasta for dinner. Outside my room was a second-story veranda with a view of the tiny town and the Gulf. There was no TV or phone in my room and I had an Alan Furst novel to start.  Just right.

Cedar Key, Florida

The only time I got lost on this trip was exactly where I thought I might lose my way. Now that I don't have a husband I can stay off Interstates and my route from Cedar Key to Lake Wales looked a little complicated when I studied my many maps. I love maps. Things went fine, however, until a road lost it's mind and instead of going south and east switched to south and west. I ended up in Tampa sprawl land. Not for so very long in real time it turned out, but, you know, when you're in the middle of being lost your perspective gets muddled.

Chalet Suzanne

Then, suddenly, farms, cows, orchards and, tired but once again peaceful, I found Chalet Suzanne in Lake Wales. Before booking the room I'd argued with myself, briefly, about staying there. Expensive. But, I discovered, why not? Unlike much of what we get for our money, this was worth every penny. To me, mind you. Who is, after all, the one who counts. (Was that a pun? I can never do those and rarely even get them without some puzzling.) I had a huge, elegant, yet cosy and old-fashioned room! Maple-glazed duck (sorry Doctor Stokes) for dinner at a table with a lake view in a restaurant that was a magic palace of 1930's Mexican-influenced Turner Classic Movies Hollywood decor. The tables were laid with antique glass and china that didn't match in the classiest way possible. I had the best bath I've ever had! Whirlpool, of course! I could have, but didn't, go sky-diving from the little airplane parked on the tiny airstrip behind the hotel which was built for movie stars, astronauts and such! Susan Hayward stayed there!

I lingered at Chalet Suzanne in the morning. Oh, yes. But it wasn't all that hard to get back in my excellent 2005 Buick, because I only had a few hours to drive before I could check into The Colony Hotel and Cabana Club for a week of top-shelf poetry. That will be Part Two, though. At least.

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.