Archive for April, 2010
Cues & Tattoos 2010
April 20th, 2010
As I write this, I am at 34,000 feet, listening to Tori Amos, and staring out my window at miles and miles of mountain ranges. I’m on my way home from Denver, where I attended the Association of Writing Programs conference. This is basically a convention where writers go to network, buy more books than they can afford, stalk well-known poets, size each other up (“Oh, you got your MFA from [insert name of university]? Well, my book’s coming out from [insert name of small press]”) and pitch their manuscripts to anyone that looks like s/he might be famous and/or influential. I worked the table for Wave Books (the awesome poetry press where I intern). I also saw a lot of gorgeous books—print media is not dead!—went to a couple of readings, got some sort of altitude-related malaise, and had many drinks with William, my poet-friend Most Likely to Get His Book Published First.
But I digress. The reason I bring up AWP is that I have learned something this weekend—two conventions in two weeks is one convention too many. I had barely recovered from Cues and Tattoos two weekends ago before getting on a plane Denverbound. Am I exhausted? Yes. Was C&T worth it? Yes. I took some great workshops, saw a great show, participated in a great show, and got to spend some time with my favorite Orlandoids, Tammy and Mary of Yip Podcast. Read more
C&T Workshops: Flamenco with Rina Orellana Rall
April 09th, 2010
I sat down for my lunch today, yellow writing pad and fresh pen in hand, with the intention of writing a review of all of the various awesomeness that went down at Cues & Tattoos from March 27th to March 29th in Seattle. But when I got to reviewing the workshops I took, I found, at least with this workshop, that I was writing enough for a blog post in and of itself. I decided to just roll with it and come back to a more comprehensive review a scosh later…
I first saw Rina Orellana Rall perform flamenco in Friday’s Instructor Showcase. She was incredible. Her movements were strong and her entire body was expressive. Overall, her stage presence was very intense and captivating (if you want an amazing example of truly filling a space with your presence and commanding the attention of everyone in the audience, look no further, friends). Thus, it came as a surprise when I went to the workshop only to find that, in spite of the way she appeared on stage, she is a very small person, smaller even, than SK (hey, SK, no offense, ya?) However, even with everyone else in the class towering over her physically, Rina filled the room just as she had the stage. I do believe the term “powerhouse” would be in appropriate use here.