Cicadas, Memories Spark Bloomington Writers Guild First Sunday Prose

It was an historical event, really, the first live post-pandemic Bloomington Writers Guild Event, though while great crowds were hoped for the actual turnpout (perhaps due to recent COVID delta varient misgivings — or maybe just a hardish to find local library room) was sparse. Not a record low, though.

The event was August’s “First Sunday Prose Reading and Open Mic” (see March 1 2020, et al.) with announced featured readers Kalynn (“K.H.”) Brower and . . . me, but due to a mixup Kalynn had to cancel at the last moment, causing coordinator Joan Hawkins to take her place. And despite a year and a half face-to-face hiatus the audience proved to be only two, poet and member Antonia Matthews (who we’ve met before) and one of her daughters, visiting from out of town. So, local plus visitor, not a bad mix, yes?

My reading was a story of insects, its choice inspired somewhat by last month’s cicadas, and returning memories and UFOs, “Waxworms,” originally published in Canada’s CHIZINE for July-September 2003, and reprinted in my 2013 collection THE TEARS OF ISIS as well as, most recently, BLACK INFINITY’s “Insidious Insects” Summer 2020 issue (c.f. August 20, et al.). This was followed by Joan with “French Lessons,” a creative memoir of how learning a language — with an excellent and dramatic teacher and using texts by absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco — ended up proving to be life-defining.

Then a break, with cider and snacks, followed by “open-mic” poetry reading and chat made for a pleasant, if not large event, with the next to be scheduled not for September — when Bloomington’s annual Fourth Street Arts Festival will intervene — but for Sunday October 3. I plan to be there.