While the Smudge Lingers

Seeing a flowering quince in Jackson Ward today can only mean one thing: spring must be coming.

Said the eternal optimist.

Mac was the one who noticed it as we were walking down Marshall Street on our way to the river, but I was the one to point out clumps of daffodils nearby, their buds so yellow they'll be blooming by Valentine's Day, I'll bet.

Tonight, it was a long-simmering desire to hear poetry read to me by strangers, not to mention wanting to "spend" my Christmas present gift certificates, that put me at Chop Suey for a reading and some book shopping.

First up was the soft-voiced Semein Washington who was admonished to speak up after he introduced himself. "I will, I will! I'll use my diaphragm," he promised and upped the volume, which didn't affect his tendency to speak in a monotone.

It's always fascinating to hear people read their own work because despite a presumption that no one can read their own words better, that's not always the case.

A poem about John Coltrane spoke to a 21st century jazz lover with "As your sax hums and haunts from my computer..." while one about Dr. Manhattan included the line, "He locks lips and holds hands with two women while promising both he'll love them forever."

Good luck with that, doc.

His ode to his favorite band in the world, Hella, insisted that "You get me twisted with joy, joy turns my muscles to heat." The uber-fan went on to say, "Your double time beat chops through my bandwidth."

In a poem he dedicated to the friend who was outside parking his car, Washington read, "LSD made it easier to love ourselves" while also noting that, "I feel a togetherness of my brain and thoughts." What thoughts, you wonder? "If love brought us here now or made us stay."

Never having taken LSD, that's not a question I can answer.

Another poem about taking mushrooms recalled that they "healed me of my fears and made me laugh so hard I couldn't open my eyes." I happen to know that you can laugh that hard without taking mushrooms because I do it a lot these days.

After a poem about his grandmother clad in a chrysanthemum-print dress, he closed with the somber "This May Have Nothing to Do With You," a poem about innocent people being killed in Yemen.

Next up was Beasa Dukes, wearing a top hat and displaying far more vocal inflection. Beasa read two parts of one long poem with references to an electrical storm letting "the atmospheric energy kiss my toes," seeing god as a rat or a woman and a cop shooting a child.

This was not poetry for the faint-of-heart.

Beasa closed with, "This is how all things begin, with the blood and the nothing and the end."

As far as I was concerned, at that point there was nothing to do but buy a best-selling biography of Stevie Nicks with my gift certificate and head down Cary Street to Plan 9.

I walked in to find three guys, one an employee, deep in a spirited conversation about musical equipment in the back. I was alone in looking through the bins of records and CDs for something I wanted to spend my gift certificate on, eventually deciding on Australian band Middle Kids' "Lost Friends" album and the new CD from Pedro the Lion, "Phoenix."

Before I left, I got caught up in a conversation with one of the employees I know. His first question was about my thoughts on Northam and the blackface debacle that is dominating the news cycle. That, of course, led to him asking for my thoughts on the Fairfax #MeToo accusations and, before I knew it, we were knee-deep in a discourse on the state of the state.

That's when he reminded me that the last time we'd talked had been at the Village Cafe back in 2014 after a screening of "Dr. Strangelove" at the Grace Street Theater. Chatting after the film ended, we'd both had lots to say about the racist (him) and feminist (me) issues raised by Kubrick's film, so we'd adjourned to the Village.

You know, the good, old Village, where you can count on some rummy at the bar reaching for his backpack, only to have a half-full 40-oz roll out of it, spilling, then clanking to the floor. As befits the Village, nobody batted an eye that night.

What I also recalled about our tete-a-tete, besides the 40-oz incident, was the hella good chocolate milkshake I'd had, while his memory involved asking me my opinion of Hillary and lowering the drinking age.

None of that stuck with me. Interesting, isn't it, how different people store shared memories?

Chocolate and drunks, apparently that's what chops through my bandwidth.

Ode to a Bonnet

Apparently, it's easier than I realized to be a poet's muse.

After sleeping in my own bed for the first time in a week last night, I got up raring to go for my daily walk for the first time in as long.

Feeling the need to properly baptize my legs in the James River, I then headed back up the hill hoping to catch the end of Tea for Two, an outdoor poetry reading in the park behind the main library.

Impressed to see how many people were already there, I found a seat in the back on a bench between two men to hear Henry Hart read poems about his daughter before she could speak, his son's difficult birth and his father's Christmas tree farm.

"You're going to be sick of my family by the time I finish reading," he joked.

Closing with a poem about retracing his grandfather's expedition across the Gobi desert, he spoke of being lost, threatened and moved by the trip.

Applause followed and then the man to my right looked at me and unexpectedly said, "I'm going to write a poem about you and your bonnet."

The "bonnet" to which he referred is my sun hat, a necessity lately with these long river walks I've been doing.

Not sure why I was so inspiring, so I asked.

Come to find out he's a sports writer in town for today's NASCAR race who'd left his hotel room to go for a walk and been drawn in by the shady park, nice looking crowd and free coffee.

But as he listened to poetry, he was unsettled by the beeping of a truck backing up, the roar of a Harley blasting down Main Street and other jarring sounds.

He said just as he was thinking that a grace note was needed, "A pretty woman in a bonnet and Nikes showed up and sat down next to me. You will be the subject of my next poem."

We introduced ourselves and I learned he was from northern Virginia, a former USA Today baseball writer who now freelances.

He said that the good thing about NASCAR drivers is that they're far more willing to talk to the press than pro team athletes.

I wished him good luck with the race. He thanked me for showing up and providing the muse for a poem.

On the way home, I stopped to pick up my Fall Line Fest wristband on Broad Street and ran into my friend Andrew.

Telling him my poetry story, he shook his head, laughing. "Only you, Karen, these things only happen to you."

I know, but aren't I lucky for it?

To Love Life Terribly as I am Able

Sometime between Robert Frost and foie gras, a fierceness overtook the skies.

All was calm, all was warm when I walked into Chop Suey Books and found a crowd of poetry lovers waiting downstairs for the reading room upstairs to empty.

Right in front of me was the lovely poet who had earlier today posted to no one in particular, "Let's go to this. Tonight!" As she explained, it was not a message aimed at me since she never doubted for a second that I'd be in attendance.

The only thing better than a poet I don't know reading poetry to me is a man I do know reading poetry to me. For tonight, the strangers Emilia Philips and Nick McRae were my only offer.

Once upstairs, the room filled up so quickly that extra chairs had to be brought in, a sight that warmed my poetic heart.

Coming all the way from Texas, Nick McRae began with humor, saying, "Before Emilia comes up to read and blows you away, I thought I'd read a few poems."

After a poem about a dead deer, he commented how during the copy editing process of his book, Mountain Redemption, he'd noticed that there were lots of eviscerated deer in his poetry.

Probably not a realization most poets make.

He went on to recite, not read, a poem that he explained was not his own, but Elizabeth Bishop's 1953 "The Shampoo."

The shooting stars in your black hair
in bright formation
are flocking where, 
so straight, so soon?
Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin
battered and shiny like the moon.

That was followed by another of his own, this one a touching eulogy to his grandfather, Joseph, a man who once put out a cigarette on his wife's tongue and later lost an eye to a knife slip while working in a carpet factory (which he considered his "just desserts") before dying while on his International harvester tractor.

A recitation of Robert Frost's 1926 "Desert Places" followed, once again proving what a fine interpreter of others' works he was.

There was a poem he wrote interpreting the legend of St. Nicholas, the Turkish bishop, with the line, "Streets purpled by dusk."

Isn't it magical when colors become verbs?

"Metaphor" was inspired by Virginia poet Claudia Emerson and repeated a line from her poem of the same name, "But mine is in no way equal to hers," McRae warned us.

He labeled "The Cause" a little less grim and said it had been written only a couple of months ago, but what struck me was the line, "To love you terribly as I am able."

Okay, so I didn't know Nick, but what woman doesn't want to hear a man read a line like that?

Next came Emilia Philips wearing fabulous shoulder duster earrings and looking absolutely tiny after the bear-sized McRae.

She spoke of having come back to Richmond last fall for surgery and the poems that came out of that experience before reading some of them.

"The Rising Cost of Dying" took its title from a TV segment seen in the subterranean MCV cancer ward waiting room.

Her Dad was the inspiration for "The Episode of 'Cops" in Which My Father Appeared" and referenced, "No suicides on basic cable," "pantless perps" and "a Yogi Bear jelly jar of milk."

How long has it been since I thought of those cartoon-festooned jelly jars that families use for glasses? An eternity.

After seeing a roadside Jesus sign in Denton, Texas, she'd written "Roadside America," observing "apocalypse is a matter of scale" and mentioning "the parable of the paper doll."

After reading nothing but new work, she returned to her book Signaletics for her final poem, saying, "I tried to think of one poem from it that I'd never read in Richmond, but I couldn't find a single one."

As one who had heard her read before, I know I wouldn't have minded hearing something she'd previously read.  It's still a poet reading to me.

She settled for reading the book's final poem about a long ago trip to the VMFA to see "The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy," a gorgeous show I'd also seen, here, two years ago.

When Emilia had arrived, it had been prior to opening but she'd been allowed in and the docent had watched her like a hawk, as if she was going to make off with one of the foot and a half tall statues.

Her poem, "Mourner with Cow, Hands in Sleeve" chronicled  her visit, with evocative images such as "all the color of smudged lipstick" and "ravaged by revolution."

And isn't that part of the pleasure of poetry, to hear how poets combine words and evoke things I can't see or hear?

Soul fed, I went to leave Chop Suey only to see it had begun to rain lightly outside while we'd been upstairs lost in poetry.

No matter, I scurried to my car and headed it east to the Slip for dinner at Bistro Bobette.

A friend had thrown out a challenge and promised the winner he'd buy them a drink and it was time to collect.

I bet I didn't get a mile before the rain picked up considerably and by the time I reached the crest of the hill leading down toward the Bottom, all hell broke loose and horizontal sheets of rain were flying across Cary Street in front of me.

Suddenly my floral skirt and open-toed shoes seemed woefully inadequate.

After parking only semi-illegally (a tad too close to a corner in all likelihood), I waited for a break in the monsoon to high tail it up to Bistro Bobette to meet the friend known as Rainman.

The kind of guy who can tell you the exact date he met you, who won the World Cup in what year and other ephemera most people forget immediately.

I arrived before he did, a rarity, and ordered a glass of Chateau Ferry Lacombe "Haedus" Rose to sip while looking through the program for the upcoming French Film festival.

No doubt he was surprised to arrive early (as is his wont) and find me already in place, and we lost no time in ordering a pate plate and an octopus special.

It's best to get the ordering out of the way when there's much to discuss.

Starting with his earlier e-mail comment ("That thud you heard was me falling out of my chair"), we began a major catch-up session first on my life and then on his.

Changes abounded.

So did fabulous food. Baby octopus and lump crab found happiness together with seaweed salad and tiny radish matchsticks, tasting of cardamom and a hint of other Indian spices.

Doing the heavy lifting was a plate of house made pate and variations. Foie gras mousse with marmalade was obscenely rich with a silky mouth feel, earthy and deeply flavored venison pate stalked our palates, a terrine of sweetbreads and pork loin had a bottom of foie gars for a sensual melange of innards and turkey rilletes benefited from a liberal layer of fleur de sel.

Add in tangy gherkins and pickled grape tomatoes and I'm ashamed to say we couldn't even finish the last few bites. Not that we didn't give it our all.

At one point our always agreeable barkeep came over to check if we needed anything and my only request was music. Silence was suddenly reigning and who wants that when there' so much to talk and laugh about?

He rectified the situation tout de suite and the XX eased over the speakers like fine wine.

A TV director came in to have dinner at the bar and my friend showed me his IMD page, unbeknownst to the man. Tough for me to be impressed when I recognize no TV shows.

Soon after arrived a neighbor I'd met at Bobette years ago, a man responsible for the lighting and/or sound systems in dozens of restaurants around town.

He told a hilarious story about driving a big truck to Champlain and trying to go through a tunnel too small for the truck.

When a cop pulled him over he said he was certain he was about to get a ticket, but fortunately his girlfriend's large breasts distracted the cop and all he got was a "Welcome to New Joisey!" and the command to make a U-turn and go another way.

Never underestimate the power of a large rack.

Once the chef finished service, he came out and joined the lively conversation, telling tales of a former restaurant he worked at and its thrifty blue hair clientele, his favorite northern Virginia sushi restaurant and reminscing about the rillettes and gherkins his father made for him as a boy in Paris.

While my friend and I shared a lavender honey chocolate mousse, we talked about The Shack, which resulted in my getting to hear an Indian and a Frenchman try to pronounce Staunton in their best American accents.

You've never heard such flat vowels as they did their best redneck imitations. The Staunton-off was topped only by a discussion of what part of an Indian you feel for confirmation of his maleness and what part of a Frenchman.

Touching a forehead, "Wow, that's a really big brain you have, mister.

We closed out a perfectly lovely meal with blood orange sorbet so exquisitely textured that my friend deemed it a disservice to call such a creamy concoction sorbet.

With just enough sweetness on the finish and a bright wash of acidity to cleanse the palate, it was as beautifully colored as it tasted.

Tongues oranged by the night, a poet might say. Or this.

All the color of smudged lipstick tonight was on the chef's two cheeks, left there in a European kiss by a happy diner.

Love Begins with a Bench

Should anyone really be surprised when poets are late to their own reading?

Luckily people who come to poetry readings on a Sunday afternoon aren't the types that mind waiting around for poetry, either. And only two of the three were late, so the audience would have gotten poetry one way or another, that was for damn sure.

Daniel Coudriet,a resident of both Richmond and Argentina, led the charge reading from his new chapbook. Many of his poems had Spanish names, like the one with the emotional line, "Please forgive me for ending here."

In "Sleepers" he read, "Will you be there nearly naked and goose-pimpled at dawn?" evoking a strong visual. Another poem was about having been attacked by geese at Byrd Lake as a child, although he admitted that the poem took off in directions unrelated to his incident.

"Some of these images are supposed to be ridiculous," he explained after reading a poem about pollen in his pants.

Admitting that he wasn't really watching the time, he assured the group that, "If you rush the podium, I will stop." Not likely with this group.

Chris Tonelli read next and I loved the slow and measured way he read.  The inspiration for the poetry he had written was Noh theater, so it had a spare quality to it, much the way the Japanese theater form does.

"Underneath the secret I keep about myself," he read from "Bonsai," acknowledging a universal truth. In "Crows" he read, "I've been meaning to rid myself of will; without will, there is no failure."

"Doubt is the air that I breathe through my never-changing mouth," came from, surprise, "Mouth." In what he referred to as sort of the title track of his book, "Theater" he read, "I am losing my emptiness."

Debrah Morkun, the only punctual poet in the bunch, projected her voice in a distinctly theatrical way as she read. Often she did not give poem titles (or else they were untitled), but just launched into her vivid words.

"Love begins with a bench," she read, allowing that it was as good a place as any. "The planets, they seem fidgety," she read from "Mother." I can see fidgety planets in my head now.

I appreciated the evocative imagery of "The tree brings language up through the complacency of soil," imagining words sprouting like plants.

"You can only go as far as walking can take you," she read, barely looking at the page.

Let's just say that poets don't need to be on time. They only need to be willing to read their poetry to a room full of rapt listeners.

Time is a man-made construct, after all, and poets are only marginally acknowledging this world anyway.

Read to Me of Antigone

Trying to park on VCU's campus at night while classes are in session is an exercise in futility.

Knowing this, I decided to walk over for an 8:00 reading; it just seemed easier.

And if I was going to walk, I decided that I might as well go earlier and walk first to 821 Cafe for dinner.

The only interesting thing I overheard on the way was a freshman-looking girl telling her two friends, "Well, I read in Cosmo that guys like it!"

It wasn't my job to confirm or deny, so I kept moving.

For a change, I didn't know my server, so I had to actually tell her that I wanted the black bean nachos.

I grabbed a magazine from the rack and got comfy on the center stool, anticipating my food.

When she set a bag with two to-go containers down in front of me, my face must have clarified things for her.

"Oh, you didn't want it to go?" she asked. "I thought you said to go."

Nope.

She took the boxes to the kitchen and returned with their contents emptied onto a plate.

And since they'd been put into the container right side up, they were now wrong side up.

All the cheese and beans were somewhere on the bottom of the plate.

They looked like hell.

But, what was I going to do, complain about aesthetics?

Instead, I dove in, attempting to pull the good stuff from the bottom and mix it with what I could see.

It was ugly, but it tasted just fine.

Seriously full, I walked over to the Student Commons for a poetry reading by Richard Jackson, a man who has published ten collections of poetry and teaches at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga.

The Virginia Room was small and the audience smaller and Jackson warned us, "This won't be the most uplifting night you've encountered."

He had a hushed voice, causing the audience to lean in to hear his rhythmic language enhanced by the poet's nuanced delivery.

Explaining the poem "Night Sky," he said he found great metaphors in science.

"Sometimes I think we're all hurtling through love at the speed of light."

Such a sad commentary.

"Residence" was particularly moving, as in the line, "And my love starts to ache like a phantom limb."

It's tough to convey just how evocative his language was, both in terms of its beauty and its sadness.

Between poems, he amused us by sharing bad country music song titles ("The thing is, they get paid better than poets") like "I Flushed You From the Toilet of My Heart" and "You Were Only a Splinter as I Slid Down the Bannister of Life."

Seriously laugh-worthy.

The hour with this charming and erudite man ended all too soon for me; I could have listened to him read for another hour and then some.

He finished with "No Turn on Red," with a line containing the eternal question, "Who says any love makes sense?"

Walking back toward Jackson Ward with his words still floating around in my head (like "So much of what we feel is habit," from "Otherness"), I had only to decide where to stop for some conviviality.

Comfort won out and although most of the tables were empty, the bar was lively.

As I approached it, I heard my name yelled out accusingly.

"So THIS is where you come to cheat on me on a Tuesday night!"

It was Josh from Six Burner, giving me a hard time because I have been known to spend a fair number of Tuesdays at 6B.

But I was as quick as he was, reminding him that there was no reason for me to go there on a night he wasn't there.

"Well done," he acknowledged. "Here, have my stool."

He was there for "one and done," except that he was on his second PBR.

As is our usual habit, we chatted music; he's beyond thrilled about the just-announced Flaming Lips show.

Actually there's been a flurry of show announcements lately.

We've become a regular stop on the circuit and music geeks like us couldn't be happier about it.

On my other side were a couple from the neighborhood.

We run into each other frequently at our local establishments because we share a fondness for neighborhood dining and music shows.

Like me, they're excited about the progress and potential of the Hippodrome, not to mention Ettamae's adding dinner hours (and liquor!).

We discussed further enhancements to the 'hood and that the Broad and Third Street area is the ideal location for a city Target.

It's so satisfying being with other J-Ward lovers.

Bartender Greg checked to see if we wanted more libations by arching an eyebrow and asking, "Shots?"

To me he inquired, "Mas tequila?" but I explained that one was probably enough for Tuesday night.

"Not for some people," he grinned.

"Well, I didn't say every Tuesday night, either. I don't want to be penned in on future Tuesdays," I back-pedaled.

The couple and I walked out together, immediately feeling and smelling the warmer air.

We're all anticipating tomorrow's mid-sixties temperatures, even if they're only supposed to last a day.

As it was, on the first of February I got to walk to all my evening's pleasures.

Most satisfying of all was hearing Richard Jackson read his magnificent poems while I let them wash over me.

A line from "Residence" said it best: "Words avalanching like clouds on top of each other."

Ah yes, words. One of life's greatest pleasures.