traveling poetry classes in november 2017 at argento's pizza in boyertown & dairy queen in limerick: focusing on rita dove and jim harrison's poems.

november's traveling poetry classes will focus on the works and styles of former u.s. poet laureate rita dove and jim harrison who wasn't a u.s. poet laureate but wasn't far from inching toward being one. harrison passed away last year. he co-wrote braided creek with good friend u.s. former poet laureate ted kooser, and he is also the author of legends of the fall and the farmer's daughter.

we'll practice reading their poems out loud and will discuss their styles, themes, curious phrasings, and anything else which stands out to us in their poetry. and testing out poems inspired by theirs to bring to class to share is welcome.

during the first class of the month, we'll meet at argento's pizza & family restaurant. the second class will be at dairy queen in gilbertsville. dress plenty warmly in case it's chilly or drafty. ya just never know with temperature nuances.

 next classes–

when: sunday, november 12 @ 1 p.m. & sunday, november 26 at 1 p.m.

where: for november 12, argento's pizza & family restaurant is at 833 east philadelphia avenue, boyertown, pa 19512; for november 26, dairy queen is at 1050 east philadelphia avenue, gilbertsville, pa 19464

optional themes of focus:

• sunday, november 12–rita dove-inspired poems
• sunday, november 26–jim harrison-inspired poems

cost: $20 per student, per class (we usually meet for 2 hours or more)

at either class, any other subject is always welcome for the sharing, including other variations of creative writing, too. we pick out the poetry in whatever we read and hear. bringing a few copies of your writings to share is helpful so everyone can read them or share. but just having your original copy to read from is okay, too.

if we ever have oddly inconvenient weather around the time of classes, i will update those who RSVPed to classes in advance to let them know if we are canceling, rescheduling, or relocating.

if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo dot com.

and if you know anyone who may be interested in our class, feel free to share this blog content onward.

also, if there is anyone who may want to join our class but lives in another area across berks, chester, and montgomery counties, we sometimes travel to a good variety of different places, so let us know, and we can see about planning classes closer to you.

a bat poem.

as a postcard-writing type, i send a few postcards out per week and have quite a collection (literary quotes, artist portraits, animal art, food art, american girl dolls (found at a stand at zern's), vintage french instructional charts, and i forget what else. jane austen character zombie postcards and naughty little naked people were my favorites, but alas, i've needed to cut back on my postcard-buying for perhaps obvious reasons. ha. so i'm using what i have until it's gone, aside from when i visit historical places and scoop up their tourist kinds.

below are scenes by a friend's son; he goes to college in philadelphia and kindly replied to a poetry prompt, which i don't send to everybody, but i had a feeling he would.

 

sidebar: according to the united states department of agriculture's forest service, more than 300 species of fruits depend on bats for pollinating to happen in the way that's needed for them to grow. plus, eating bugs so they don't overtake us is pretty cool.

my favorite lines in the poem are–

• key difference; they bite you, i don't
• (i also recycle)
• if you could only see our bones, we're exactly the same 

and talk of the bat's pal billy. good stuff.

poetry on rocks and in the water at st. peter's villlage in chester county.

something brief but eye-telling. here are some scenes from our traveling poetry class at st. peter's village in chester county after a palate-memorable lunch at st. peter's bakery (french hoagie with brie and finely sliced tomatoes, i loved you so).

and some brief rock-hopping served as its own reprieve on an autumn-trailing sunday afternoon.