DATES TO DATE, Living La Vida Local

Call me if any questions,  505-459-3482   and come on down!

April 17 -  Reading at Acequia Booksellers, 4019 4TH ST,  505-890-5365 in Albuquerque for UNM PresS Book The Singing Bowl. 3:00 WITH MICHAEL C. FORD, EMMY AND GRAMMY NOMINATED POET

April 21 – Benefit reading for Santa Fe Girls’ School with student readers and Poet Laureate celebration. 6:00 at 333 Montezuma Annex, near Guadalupe. The girls are awesome.

April 23, Poetry at Paul’s, 6:00, Songs from the heart, chant, drumming, poetry with Sita Jamison and Gregory Gutin.  see Poetry At Paul's, potluck, reading, and open mic.

April 25- May 1-  Boise Idaho, appearance on radio, Boise High School, therapists, Osher Institute, three readings,  and intro of US Poet Laureate, WS Merwin.

May 6 – Los Alamos, University Women, 4:30 reading and tea at Bethleham Lutheran church in Los Alamos

May 7^th, Southwest Writers, 10-12, 275-2556, Reverberations, writing inspired by others-- derivatives and homage.

May 8th, Church of Beethoven, 10:30, 1715 5th St, Albuquerque, $15, classical music and poetry, come at 10:00 for coffee

May 11-  Collected Works,  Launch for The Singing Bowl, 6:00 PM with didgeridoo by Leland Guthrie, Free

May 21 – New Mexico State Poetry Society – Albuquerque, lunch reading, 12-2:00, Cooperage, 7220 Lomas,  make lunch reservation mechistle@gmail.com, 505-889-4672

May 28^th – Unitarian Church  107 W. Barcelona in Santa Fe, reading, 4:00,  992-0665

June 2, Launch for Love & Death: Greatest Hits, Collected Works, 6:00 with

Miriam Sagan and Renée Gregorio

June 18, Mining the Unconscious, free poetry workshop at Community Gallery on Marcy Street  with Jane Lipman and me,  11:00-3:00 PM,  Poetry Reading by Particpants June 22 5:00 PM

at the Community Gallery

WRITE LOCALLY, SHOP LOCALLY, READ LOCALLY, LOVE LOCALLY, DREAM LOCALLY

Feeling Fluish

So, what I meant about the confetti that as I thought about all the various appearances in town I have made, and by town I mean Santa Fe (minimum 50 miles round trip) to Albuquerque (180 miles round trip) often for a five minute reading, I was thinking, what I am doing?  And I thought, confetti.  Then that word keep appearing in the way that pesky, light colored words blown by wind will do.  And I started to think heavier thoughts, and then I got the flu.

See, I was cleaning my desk area which takes over the dining area, an upstairs bedroom formerly lived in by each of my kids, sometimes in bunk beds,  let's face it, I am messy and hate cleaning.  But I was having a very good time and sorted all my pencils and made a cup with a broken handle for writing materials and a matching cup with a broken handle for art supplies.  I would be organized.   But then there is always the moment when a molecule of dust, a smidgeon, a speck, an inhalation comes into my throat and I get sick.  Like that!  And sick I got, with fever  of 101 and two horizontal days, and still I am dizzy and woozy and unfocused.  I am violently allergic to house cleaning and this is day five.

Then yesterday I went out barefoot, gingerly, to pick some jonquils before the winds brought them to submission.  That is how flowers grow here, the bulbs poke up, open, and then are destroyed on their first day.  It's a wonder I have skin at all.  Dear Oil of Olay.  But as I moved toward the blooms I would cut to uplift my spirits, I stepped onto something spiny, and horrible, a pufferfish or hedgehog on the lawn... But no, it was a Datura seed pod left by the curious Raw Food Men who were here earlier, feeding me flax seed crackers and raw chocolate by the pinky finger-full.  All day I limped, sure I would be growing datura from my sore foot, and I needed Frida Khalo more than O'Keeffe for that image, and so it has been a most puny and un Poet Laureate week, until today.

Today, when talking to my friend Cecile Moochnek  and the call waiting buzzing and I look at caller ID.  Gerald Stern, no other than, my poetry darling, my inspiration, and fellow Pittsburgher.  Jerry is my most inspiring teacher, though today I realized it was 20 years ago.  I loved how he sang when he came into class, how he danced, and how he flirted.  He was a notorious runaround, but I loved his voice which sounded like a cross between my brother and an uncle, pretty much any uncle,  if they had been poets.

When I must have hung up on him in my call waiting frenzy, he called back on the cell. He loved my book, or so he said.  He liked the Pittsburgh poems, and he really seemed to like the entirety of The Singing Bowl.   Or so he said.  He also said he was a Mongol, and later a Crypto Mongol, the first Poet Laureate of New Jersey, proceeding Amira Baraka who managed to get the program killed the the gay governor who soon after resigned.  But what I loved most about the call, besides the fact that Jerry's writing inspires me like none other, was that he and his beloved, the poet Anne Marie Macarie,  live four blocks apart.  When, after talking over a half hour, the call waiting buzzed him he left for dinner.  That seems so perfect for a fluish person. Four blocks. He loved my book.

The phone call hooked me up to Poet Laureate Central, I am picturing a Crypto Mongol at the switch, laughing.  I wanted to call everyone and say, "Jerry Stern and I were talking only today about the crypto Mongols."  I think I am on the mend.  My ego is recovering from the swift allergic blow, and the datura set-back.  The confetti, not the dust, is rising and I feel ever so slightly happy.

Tomorrow at 6:30 Mt Time I will be on Living Juicy with the estimable Rhea Goodman, streaming live on www.KSFR.org.  Check me out. I think I'm back in the game.  The wind is down, and there are two books in hand, not just all that colorful falderal.