Dear Readers, Three years ago, I became a keeper of an archive: the records of the annual Fifteenth Avenue Poetry Contest, which ran from 1977 to 1992 in Phoenix, but all that remains from 1992 is the name on a plaque that commemorates winners. My sister sent the plaque and poems to me in Virginia: two binders of handwritten and typed poems glued in photo albums with yellowing pages. In between bouts of chemotherapy back in 2020, I created the archive, arranging the poems in order by year and placing them in acid-free clear sleeves.
1. Love your book and will get right on a review. 2. My father was a great story-teller and many of his stories from his own life he hand wrote in yellow legal tablets. I've been typing them into the computer for his grandchildren and their kids. We didn't play bar, we just polished off the cocktails last nights guests didn't finish. ;-) 3. Love you, kiddo - what's this surgery? XOXO MARNI+
I just read your post sitting in a tent at the Folk Festival. I'm listening to music from a place and culture very different from the middle class suburbs of my childhood. But it was folk music that shaped more than I knew. Yes, it was played by professional musicians, but it is the music of the people of a time and place. Music of an agrarian society a hundred or two hundred years ago, music of coal miners, farmers, shop keepers and Union organizers. It is about love and death, life and jealousy. It made me think, and it made me stick my head up above the edge of comfortable middle class life. There were other people out there, other lives, other kinds of success, other challenges.
I love you bringing up these memories! The 15th Ave Poetry Contest! You, your dad and Mom were so good at that and enjoyed it. I enjoyed reading them, such fun! But would never have even tried to write one. Not my area!! Lots of love to you dear Biz! I'm m thinking of you and sending loads of good wishes for your surgery!
1. Love your book and will get right on a review. 2. My father was a great story-teller and many of his stories from his own life he hand wrote in yellow legal tablets. I've been typing them into the computer for his grandchildren and their kids. We didn't play bar, we just polished off the cocktails last nights guests didn't finish. ;-) 3. Love you, kiddo - what's this surgery? XOXO MARNI+
I love this…all of this… especially the image of you playing “bar” as a kid. 😂😍
I just read your post sitting in a tent at the Folk Festival. I'm listening to music from a place and culture very different from the middle class suburbs of my childhood. But it was folk music that shaped more than I knew. Yes, it was played by professional musicians, but it is the music of the people of a time and place. Music of an agrarian society a hundred or two hundred years ago, music of coal miners, farmers, shop keepers and Union organizers. It is about love and death, life and jealousy. It made me think, and it made me stick my head up above the edge of comfortable middle class life. There were other people out there, other lives, other kinds of success, other challenges.
And I shall always be grateful for that.
Peace, Jay
I love you bringing up these memories! The 15th Ave Poetry Contest! You, your dad and Mom were so good at that and enjoyed it. I enjoyed reading them, such fun! But would never have even tried to write one. Not my area!! Lots of love to you dear Biz! I'm m thinking of you and sending loads of good wishes for your surgery!