Last night Mary and I attended
the first in a series of poetry readings in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, sponsored by the Foot of the Lake Poetry Collective, a newly-formed "group of local poets who have banded together as equal partners to support one another as poets and to create frequent opportunities for the community to discover what poetry offers."
"Poetry splits at its root," the group's mission statement goes on to say. "You must be a loner to write./You must have a circle to speak."
Mary Wehner, Sandra Ahrens, Paula Sergi, and Judy Barisonzi are the poets who have formed the collective. Mary Wehner is the public contact and can be reached for more information at 920-921-2932.
Readings are scheduled the first Tuesday of each month this spring through June 7th, and for September, October, and November. The readings are held at The Awarehouse Gallery, 218 Lewis Street in downtown Fond du Lac. Don't be put off that the building looks like a big old factory; it already houses The Awarehouse Gallery, and the rest of the building is already being used as or will at some time in the future be converted to work space for artists. The gallery is a wonderfully warm place for these readings.
The reading series goes on hiatus during the summer, but the collective hopes to replace it with workshops and other events for the community.
Featured readers last night were David Graham and Kate Sontag, both poets who teach in the English Department at Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. They done good. While their poetry was generally a little wordier than I prefer, it was good poetry; perhaps our difference is the difference between narrative thrust and lyric bent. Certainly Graham and Sontag launched this ship in splendid fashion. And there was a surprisingly good crowd on hand - for a school night in farm country, you might say. Afterwards four or five people read a poem each at the "open mic" portion of the evening.
Mary and I sat next to Karla Houston, a poet from Appleton who is scheduled to read in the series on November 1st, along with Cathryn Cofell whom you may remember as the chair of Wisconsin's Poet Laureate Commission. I have published some of Karla's poems in my "Saturday's Poem" feature here at The Middlewesterner; indeed, her poem "Coming Home" is scheduled to appear here this coming Saturday, February 5th. Mary and I saw Karla at the Robert Creeley reading last Thursday, saw her again in Milwaukee at the Poetry Marathon on Saturday, and then last night. Three times in less than a week. "And then maybe not for months," Karla said, underlining the all-or-nothing nature of the poet's gamble.
When I am at home and not off Vagabonding, Mary and I intend to be at future readings in the series. Alas, I won't be able to attend the March 1st reading which features Judy Barisonzi and Sandra Ahrens as I'll be in Fowler, Indiana, making a presentation to the Benton County Historical Society. But you can be sure I'll be at the other readings when I'm in town. It is local efforts just such as this that need our attention and support.
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