Reading at Cobourg Poetry Workshop

September 21, 2017. What is it that inspires you to go deeper into a poem you’ve read a dozen times before and blow new energy through it? Marisa and I had an exceptional dinner in Cobourg’s Buttermilk Cafe with my current reading-mate Allan Briesmaster and his Holly and we laughed a lot. It could have been that. It could have been that as we pulled into the parking lot of the reading venue “Meet at 66 King” we literally nearly ran into a wonderful colleague from York, the poet Eric Winter, whom I hadn’t seen since he retired 30 year’s ago. Now 94, Eric has a grip you can hold onto and his face is clear of any signs of aging. It could have been that. It could have been the full house of listeners arranged in easy chairs around the elegant room, their faces glowing with appreciation as the first reader, jolly Wally Keeler wearing a “Write Supremacist” T-shirt boomed out verses like a pack of hounds after a fox on a chilly night, though this night was balmy enough for me to get down on my knees and chalk a line of verse on an approved square  in front of the venue reserved for sidewalk poetry. There was so  much cheerful, positive energy in the room that when it came my turn to read, I felt uplifted and that energy, not necessarily mine alone, flowed into my reading and lit up a poem I’d read a dozen times before. Ya, it must have been the energy of gratitude. Thanks, Cobourg Poetry Workshop.