Hocking Hills Festival of Poetry
Presented by The Power of Poetry
“I have
laid aside business, and gone a’fishing.”
(Izaac
Walton, The Compleat Angler, ca. 1650)
The Izaac Walton Lodge, up the slope from Lake Logan
Alan Cohen, who says he is “the planner, cook, schlepper,
dish washer, talent agent, etc.,” estimated that the Festival—whose theme, “Songs
of the Other World”—brought together some 140 poets and friends from as far as California and Maryland .
Special guests were poets Naomi Shibab Nye and Rosemerry
Wahtola Trommer and storyteller Will Hornyak, who read or performed from their
work each evening. More on them below.
First, we heard music, performed by pianist Evie Adelman and
flutist Gert Young, of Bach, Schumann, and others. (There was an occasional
flat note.) Laz Slovits played guitar and sang versions of Shihab Nye’s poems that
he put to music; one he played on the pennywhistle.
Three guests were teenagers, one who said poetry helped him
overcome a stutter. Two recited poems from the NEA’s Poetry Out Loud
competition; another, from Alan’s group, Wellspring of Imagination, read one of
her own.
Each evening, Alan read his own thoughtful essay on the
power of poetry. We also heard Kari Peterson read her poem, “Serving,” which
won the festival’s poetry contest.
The Featured Guests
First, why a storyteller? Immediately I realized that Will
Hornyak, like poets, celebrates language. Friday he began amusingly with the
Irish saying, “A writer is a failed conversationalist.” Most of his
folktales—about Death at an old woman’s birthday party, for instance—were Irish,
in perfect brogue. Saturday, he told a Nez-Pers creation story and a hilarious
story about frustrated young widows, nuns, and penises.
Saturday morning, he led a storytellers’ workshop. I didn’t
attend, but I heard plenty of laughter from the back of the lodge.
Both nights Naomi and Rosemerry read their poetry, each with
warmth, humor and grace; Rosemerry sang some of her stanzas. The ghost of
William Stafford breathed through poems by both poets. Also, Naomi often spoke
of Ted Kooser, and Rosemerry of Rumi.
Naomi’s poems thread metaphor with time and place; many draw
from her Arabic heritage (see “My Father and the Fig Tree,” in Tender Spot, for instance). Rosemerry’s
poems (such as “Epistemology” in The Less
I Hold) are very imaginative and sophisticated streams of metaphor. A few
of her poems, however, struck me as a smidgeon too cute.
Saturday morning, Naomi and Rosemerry presented a workshop
for poets. Their prompts were deceptively simple—write poems combining short
lists: what you don’t know, what you’re grateful for, etc.
It was all a great success. Other than small complaints
about the website and the anthology, Follow
the Thread, I have only one substantive suggestion: Hold at least one event
on Saturday afternoon. How about several small circles for open readings? Or
for discussion of selected poems, say, from Stafford ,
Kooser, or Rumi?
Come to the Hocking Hills Festival of Poetry next year. But
bring a soft cushion; you'll be sorry if you don't.
- Craig McVay, Columbus
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