As if on cue, Sunday morning of Calabash arrived with overcast skies. The sofa in the wide living room of the suite I was staying in was getting old already. I was waking up quite early each day because of the firm surface of my bed. On the verandah, the sea is a few yards away, and it makes sense to sit there, and watch the light creep into the sky, and pray and think and make mental notes. On Sunday morning, I could feel the muscles in my legs hurting. At first I wondered what had happened to me the day before—I had not been exercising at all, and yet my legs felt as if I had been doing extreme squats all night. Then I realized how little I sat down on Saturday.
The truth of the matter is that Calabash #9 may not have happened. Why might this be important? Calabash is a literary festival that takes place in a small village in a remote parish on a small island each year, and in the larger scheme of things, the possibility of a nine year old festival not happening may seem unimportant. But Calabash is other things. It is an International Literary Festival, it is free to the public, it brings together some of the best writers from around the world who donate their time and talents to read here, and for many people—several thousand to be exact—Calabash is necessary.
The exercise in silent poetry rages on. I drove in my truck up to The Hispanic Society on 155 St. on Sunday morning to do a walk through with a few of the future silent performers. I wonder if anyone’s read a great book called The Art of Memory by Frances Fitzgerald. Among other things (I’ve never finished it though I have assigned it to students…) it describes the practice of the study of rhetoric in the ancient world and how one would create a memory house to learn long speeches. To practice you would go to some public plaza at night that had lots of columns and lion statues to basically attach your memory tracks to these items and then when you delivered your speech you would move in your memory through the plaza you’d rehearsed in picking up cues from each staircase and statue you touched as you walked in the night.
There’s so much going on today. Kafka’s America, for instance. Jonathan’s panel at the Pen conference in New York. And something else. So much else. Lately I’ve been bumping up a little against Susan Sontag’s diary. I was wondering how a blog is different from a diary. Susan didn’t get paid to write hers, and she had to die first before we could read it.
Can poetry help this man woo the woman of his dreams (and support at-risk youth in the process)?

The Slovenes are coming! Five of them, anyway: Tone Škrjanec, Tomaž Šalamun, Gregor Podlogar, Ana Pepelnik, and Primož Čučnik. This could be big trouble (see their bio notes). Catch you unprepared? That’s just what they want! Better click Continue Reading This Entry below.

Tomaž Šalamun at Brown University, 2007



Calabash 2008 – Sunday May 25th
Calabash Sunday manages, somehow, to become something of a church service. Of course, the entire festival is about the word, and the spoken word and the received and given word and people at the festival like to talk about spirit and vibe and heart and such the like. But Sunday is Sunday and it is hard to shake the feel of Sunday morning in Jamaica. Early in the morning, in the silence before the sound system kicks into gear in the tent area, you can hear choruses and hymns carrying over the acacia bushes and zinc roofed houses—the rituals of prayer and grace. Some Calabashers want to have a real service at the festival on Sunday. They pull me aside each year, and pitch this ecumenical service for all who will come. I suspect it could happen, but I realize also that in the throes of the festival, I can only think that it would be another brilliant idea to be managed. And we have many brilliant ideas. We don’t try all of them. We simply can’t. But the suggestions will always come. These are not to be seen as criticisms. They are the gestures of those who see the festival as their own and they would like to see it embrace something of their own image. I think, though, that there is so much open beach at Treasure Beach, and praying people do not need the stamp of Calabash to make something happen. Calabashers have been known to turn a simple gathering at the beach into a service to music and dance, or a service to political discussion, or an improvised outdoor hotel, and much else.
Anselm Berrigan
Abigail Deutsch
Tonya Foster
Melissa Friedling
John S. O'Connor
Barbara Jane Reyes
Amber Tamblyn
Edwin Torres
Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
Don Share
Señor Smith to you. (1)
Vladimir, Ron, and Gregori (4)
dubious poetry: the palin comparison (3)
To Vaya in the Viva of Time (2)
Indie Publishing: Two Questions, Many More... (5)
Copyright © 2009 Poetry Foundation Contact: mail@poetryfoundation.org Privacy Policy / Terms of Use
Poetryfoundation.org article RSS.
Magazine RSS.
Blog RSS.