Expanded Last Sunday Poets Includes Art Show, Dinner

So this time things were a little bit different, with credit given to writers Guild member Westley Penland for planning and seeing to the details. Yes, we did meet at the scheduled time and place, Morgenstern Books at 7:00 Sunday night, yet even that brought a brief overtime session outside in the parking lot following readings by COCK OF THE WALK and LONG NIGHTS IN STOPLIGHT CITY author Jonathan S. Baker (who also included a few pieces by Writers Guild notable Tony Brewer, with whom he’s appeared in at least one book) and former Belle, Missouri Poet Laureate and founder/co-editor of GASCONADE REVIEW John Dorsey.

But the day began earlier, at 2 p.m., at the IU Art Museum in which we, separately and in small groups, took in a special exhibition of works by Claude Monet stepdaughter and daughter-in-law Blanche Hoschedé-Monet along with a potpourri of other offerings, ancient to modern, in the museum’s permanent collections. A fascinating place to just browse through if you haven’t been there! This then was followed by a group dinner at Lennie’s Brewpub downtown, and afterward, as noted above, reconvening at Morgenstern Books for the day’s regularly scheduled “Last Sunday Poets” session.

Then even that ran a bit overtime, with a full dozen “Open Mic” readers signed up, of which I was scheduled tenth — except after nine readers, even with Morgenstern’s open late for us, our time was up! The store had to close. But fortunately, a gloomy sky never actually quite bringing rain, what did we do?

We re-reconvened on the sidewalk outside, even adding a thirteenth reader, with me leading off with “What Do You Think This Summer Will Bring You” (see below, May 19). And so, even if technically still pre-summer, perhaps the above still can be seen as a sort of preview.