Write & Wrong

The Writers Place shared a table at the 2024 AWP Conference Book Fair.

Please join me as I wander through memories of my first AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference in Kansas City (Feb. 8-10).

My friends, mostly writers, artists, musicians, and book lovers, love to compare notes. Yet we must cultivate time alone to create our art. Scattered poetry readings, Zooms, and workshops recharge us.

In 2020, I was overjoyed that Kansas City would finally host the AWP Conference (Association of Writers and Writing Programs). I’d been getting jealous hearing other poets talk about how wonderful it was. I was planning to meet virtual poet friends from opposite coasts, one I knew through a Goodreads community and another I’d met a few times for the briefest of intros. Thank goodness for email! But you remember what happened that year, don’t you? Yep, cancelled.

This year the AWP came back to Kansas City! Sadly, those friends I hoped to meet did not come, but there were still a few small-world surprises. Stay tuned, but first I want to highlight my favorite AWP moments. I’ll save my one rant for the end.

Favorite Moments

 Jericho Brown!  

Before I registered for AWP, I was pretty sure that hearing Jericho Brown as the Keynote Speaker would be my favorite event. Just a few pages into my first reading, he became one of my favorite poets. In case you’ve never heard of him, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2020 for The Tradition. If you ever read poetry reviews on Amazon or Goodreads Reviews, you’ll know that it’s rare to get more than 20 reviews for a poetry book. The current count for Mr. Brown is 961 reviews on Amazon and 8,959 on Goodreads. 

I’d heard Brown speak on a Zoom years before with my friend Jo McDougall, so I already knew he’s funnier than most stand-up comics. I haven’t had that good a laugh in a while. 

Books, Readings, and Discussions

The number of topic choices was downright overwhelming. It was probably a good thing for me that I wasn’t a novice writer, baffled about how to publish my work, or in a minority group that felt it needed specific support.

I mainly wanted to hear other poets read and speak about their process. I even skipped a few sessions (there were about 15-20 options available at the same time, divided into 75-minute sessions). It was wonderful to trade some of the sit-still-and-listen events with the long hikes needed around the convention center.

The massive gallery space was filled with aisle upon aisle of book tables: both journal and book publishers. My organization, The Writers Place, shared a table to promote our activities and offer some of our local journals for sale (I-70 Review and Pleiades). Only my avalanche of books at home kept me from running up my credit card bill. I did buy one book and just missed the last copy of a book about poetry revision that I was able to order from Bloomsbury Press as soon as I got home. The reps staffing the many tables were interesting to talk to. Some looked like they might have been college students helping out their university presses, but anyone under 35 looks like a kid to me.

I’d swear I walked miles and miles each day, likely because I’m terrible at navigating ­– round and round and round I go! I don’t always see signage either.  I was not too sore on Day 2, but by Day 3 I was quite stiff. Especially for my first 20 steps after sitting.

I took few notes, preferring to bask in the moment. Since I’m an ekphrastic poet, I was drawn to a discussion of book collaborations between artists and writers. It was also great to hear poems by poets who have died, whose work would have faded from public notice if a few professors and grad students hadn’t worked together to compile an anthology of unsung heroes.

They were unsung or rarely published because they were women, a minority race, or homosexual back before people not considered mainstream got much notice. (Don’t get me started on what it was like for me to find a good editing position after college.)

I was thrilled to attend two sessions about the revision process. It’s gratifying to hear that despite our differences in race, nationality, religion, sex or sexual orientation, many of us approach our work in similar ways. In session two, I was pleased to hear three poets, including a male African and female member of the Nez Perce tribe, say the same things about craft. I could have answered their questions for them, which made me realize we poets are a tribe all our own.

Those writers do what I do. I write my first draft in longhand, which looks more like drafts 1-6 or more until I can barely read it. Then I type it while I can sort of make out what I said. Next step: I wait, sometimes just minutes, sometimes for another day or two before revising again, and again, and again. I would never take a first draft to my critique group.

The poet from Nigeria, Abayomi Animashaun, now my Facebook friend, especially charmed me with his opinion that one’s angel (or Muse, if you prefer) cannot be hurried. Between 3:00 and 6:00 a.m., angels stand outside the gates of Heaven, proclaiming the secrets of the universe. We must show up then or miss our opportunity and have to come back another day to receive enlightenment. I almost laughed out loud, because my next door neighbor, who happened to come to the same discussion, often comments on seeing me at my computer in the middle of the night.

In a similar vein, I have wild dreams, with a leaning toward clairvoyance that scares me. Beth Piatote, the Native American writer, mentioned dreams as an important piece of her creativity. (She’s also a new Facebook friend.) My vivid dreams were passed down from mother to daughter from my Cherokee ancestor (mid-18th century). So I guess it’s good to tap into the creativity that comes to us no matter how we are inspired.

The Joy of Sharing Our Craft

Before my final rant I want to emphasize again how warm, welcoming, and encouraging most writers are toward each other. I even heard one poet say that when a fellow passenger on a plane asks what he does, he tells them he’s a poet. End of conversation; he can read his book in silence. Poets are the opposite. We love to talk to each other, share tips, and compare books we love.

Our conference topic sessions didn’t afford much time to chat, yet we still often asked a stranger, “Where are you from? What do you write?” Most remarkable of all, a woman sitting behind me asked if I would turn around and show her the front of my necklace. She said that she loved all my bold colors, snatched a handmade bracelet off her wrist (with multicolor beads, the colors in my necklace) and insisted I wear it.  

The Party Continued

My AWP experience continued after hours on Saturday night at the Milwaukee Deli, where a group of us met to share our poetry. My Kansas City friend, Rick Christiansen, invited me to the reading, and I was again impressed how poets join together despite geography, through the journals that regularly publish us, through Facebook and Goodreads, and through Zooms. I was familiar with a few of the people from other states, mostly through SpoFest. But I was even more surprised to find Alana Dagenhart there. In 2016, she and I both read at a poetry reading in Hickory, NC, which you probably know is a long way from KC.

Here Comes the Rant!

JUST PLAIN WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, AND RUDE!

Some of you know I’ve been called Miss Manners, more power to her! I’ve written a booklet on how to write thank-you notes, and I’m often asked questions about etiquette. (Honestly, I was not a debutante in 1920.) However, I see no excuse for openly insulting anyone, all the more so when you’re in front of a large crowd and the people and place you’re slamming are your HOSTS!

Instead of expressing any sympathy that Kansas City had to wait four years to get back on the AWP schedule, the announcer for the keynote address couldn’t resist poking fun at our city. Worst than a joke, this was pure ridicule. She baited the audience, asking didn’t we wish we were in Honolulu, Miami, LA, anywhere but here? She clearly dismissed us as Cowtown without doing her homework on all the wonders that await tourists. Our local writing community is considerable (many colleges around), and we put in a lot of effort to welcome the visitors.

We are NOT amused!