April 2005

Greetings from Inkberry!

Happy National Poetry Month to all: poets, lovers of poetry, and poetry-curious alike.

March was a busy month around here. (What month isn’t?) The big excitement came mid-month, when we presented nonfiction writers Michael Card, Florence Grende, and Jennifer Mattern at the Appalachian Bean Cafe. The three read to a packed house (it may have been one of our largest audiences yet), and needless to say, all were wonderful. Michael read from a long memoir piece he’s been working on, about neo-hippie culture in the 1990s (which was altogether too funny for me, since Michael and I are the same age, and, indeed, were in the same graduating class at Williams). Florence read several short essays, among them some very moving material about her outspoken mother. And Jennifer read an essay so hilarious and terrifying that it had me in stitches, about being mother to two children under the age of three. (Hilarious because Jennifer is naturally funny; terrifying because I’m not a parent yet, and her stories are enough to strike fear into one’s heart…) The Bean turns out to be a great venue for spoken-word — plus they make a mean cup of hot chai.

Behind the scenes this month we’ve been planning our summer season; the summer calendar goes to the designer today, and will hopefully go to press at the end of next week. Our summer plans call for excellent stuff, so watch this channel and our website for updates! (Sneak preview: expect another food writing workshop, this time in-person; an online humor-writing workshop; and the first weekend of NEA-funded programming on the theme of sense of place, community renewal, and rural living.)

Earlier this week I began teaching an online workshop called Speak Up/Speak Out, which encourages people to hone their political consciousness through writing (and hone their writing through engaging with politics). I’m having a blast so far. A few of the students in this workshop have taken online classes with me before, and a few haven’t, which is a great mix. It’s nice to be teaching again, especially on a subject that everyone agrees is relevant. (I happen to think poetry is extremely relevant stuff, but not everyone sees it that way; politics, on the other hand, clearly impacts our daily lives.) While I’m on the subject, allow me to insert a brief commercial: our next online workshop starts in late April, a class on finding one’s poetic voice.

And last night we kicked off our Celebration of Poetry, on the eve of National Poetry Month, with a poetry slam at Papyri Books. We’d never had a poetry slam before, so I was curious to see who would come, what the poems would be like, and whether it would be any fun. We had a great crowd, of whom nine brave souls got up and alternately read, declaimed, and rapped their words. (Each poet got to go twice, which added to the fun.) Some poems were serious, others funny; one poet read from her chapbook published about ten years ago, while another freestyled a poem on the spot based on suggestions from the audience. (It wound up being a kind of love poem for a manatee in the window.) Poetry was savored, prizes were distributed, and a good time was had by all.

Today is day two of our three-evening poetry festival; we’ll be presenting Diane Wald and Patricia Lee Lewis at the Appalachian Bean Cafe tonight at 7:30pm, and tomorrow night at 7:30 we’re presenting April Bernard and Mark Wunderlich at Frog Lotus Yoga. In both of these cases, one of the poets in question is a longtime friend of mine and the other is someone whose work I’ve long admired. Patricia is on Inkberry’s advisory board, and has roots in San Antonio, Texas, like I do; April comes from northern Berkshire where I live now, and was my first advisor at Bennington. And Diane and Mark are two fantastic poets who I’m looking very forward to meeting in person! This is part of the fun of running Inkberry: the chance to interact one-on-one with people whose words I love.

In the midst of all of this excitement, we’ve also had a note of sorrow; this month we said goodbye to associate director Tom Bernard, who’s stepping away from Inkberry in order to focus more fully on his job at MASS MoCA. In his year and a half with Inkberry Tom helped us secure an NEA grant, designed and implemented excellent programs (among them an online food writing workshop and our Creative Writing Boot Camp program at Drury High), and added untold quantities of energy, enthusiasm, and verve to the Inkberry world. We miss him already, and appreciate everything he’s done for us. I’ll hand the mike over to Tom to say his own farewells.

Don’t forget our poetry events the next two nights; if you’re in town, join us for some terrific spoken-word!

— Rachel

You would think after spending a year and change working for a literary nonprofit (and given that in my more charitable moments of self-assessment I consider myself a writer of marginally better than average talents), I might be able to muster up sufficient eloquence to say a fond and meaningful farewell now that the time has come for me to move on. You would think that, but you would be wrong. Because really? I got nothing.

Nothing, that is, except tremendous gratitude for the opportunity to work with Inkberry. I have boundless admiration for Emily, Rachel and Sandy. They created something powerful and important for readers and writers in our community; I’m thankful I had an opportunity to toil in the fields they tilled and sowed. My admiration extends to Inkberry’s board, whose energy, insight, talent and humor are invaluable assets to the organization. Finally, I’m simply in awe of all the students, past and present who have come through Inkberry’s in-house and online workshops. I’ve faced the terror of the blank page often enough myself to know that any act of expression takes courage and will, and that sharing the fruits of that courage with others is nothing short of heroic.

While I’ve mentioned her above in her capacity as an Inkberry founder, I can’t offer high enough praise to Inkberry’s fearless leader, Rachel Barenblat. Day to day, she serves as the heart, soul, brain, central nervous system, and, on those occasions when it needs venting, the spleen of Inkberry. It has been my privilege to serve as her Perky Kid Sidekick.

I wish I could offer an appropriate epigram to close my time with the organization, but at the moment, I can only think of a line from Mark Twain: “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” While I like the sentiment — I can only hope that I made a positive contribution to Inkberry, and that it will outlast my time with the organization — it seems a bit morbid for the occasion. Perhaps a better way to cast this idea is to close with a line attributed (that’s writer-speak for “I’m pretty sure he’s the one who said it, but I’m too lazy to confirm it with research”) to P.T. Barnum: “Always leave ‘em wanting more.” I sincerely hope I have.

Fondly,

Tom Bernard