Post by Melissa Varnavas, with much appreciation from web master Cathy.

Isn’t it funny how we seem to organize our lives on two different calendars–one that coincides with the calendar year and another which acknowledges that we simply do not process time or activities the same way in summer? Anyway, when I heard that September 18th was the NSPF’s first meeting of the “year,” I blocked out my calendar to attend.

“No,” I told my husband. “I am not working on the basement project today.”

I’d been in need of a little poetry “refresher” and I wanted to make sure nothing interfered.

One of the things I love best about NSPF meetings is how they leave you feeling energized, motivated to go home and read more, write more. I am always jealous of anything that takes me away from reading or writing after our 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. sojourn into poetic musings.

Everyone has busy lives, and I often need to rush from the meeting to take care of my nephews or accommodate my husband or complete some house project we’ve started. But it’s too hard to pull myself back to the real world after a NSPF event. Frequently, I leave those waiting for me in the “real world” disappointed as I arrive late and disgruntled being pulled from leisurely discussions of CK Williams or Emily Dickinson.

This past weekend a similar story developed.

Cathryn charged the group with bringing a few poems from a favorite author to share. Roberta Hung gave an interesting presentation regarding Emily Dickinson. She cited examples from Dickinson’s work to illustrate the influence of the famous artist’s “real” life on her “creative” one. (I hope that she’ll share her research so Cathy can publish it here. That way those who didn’t get a chance to come to the meeting can read what those in attendance were so lucky hear.) Then Mary Miceli explored a few poems of Mary Oliver’s and Cathryn offered a few from C.K. Williams.

After a little lunch we all sat back down to enjoy the reading of our own members’ draft poems. We were very lucky to have Claire Keyes, Amy Dengler, Marcia Molay, Roberta Hung, Mary Miceli, Elva Nelson,  Gladys Rydstrom, Olga Kronmeyer and Ellie Lataweic, as well as me (Melissa) and Cathryn.

Of course we did start the meeting off with some discussion of business and a tentative schedule was set for the upcoming year that I’m sure Cathy will be talking about soon. (Note from Cathy, aka Cathryn: Claire can’t do the workshop she had planned for October. Any ideas?) And as usual, the meeting tapered off into smaller conversations and milling around cars in the library parking lot. We just can’t get enough talk about poetry, can we?

And although I say I blocked off my day… Sure enough I ended up sweeping out the basement when I got home. Not to worry though. A little bit of NSPF goes a long way toward rejuvenating the poetic soul.