The Hidden Cathedral Poetry Celebration has begun!
To learn more about this April festival from Cathedral Arts of The Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, New York, go HERE. (And you can sign up to receive updates in your inbox...) Included will be some of my readings of poets you may not know, as well as a talk from Malcolm Guite and readings from Leonard A. Slade, Jr., Luke Stromberg, and Michael Joyce.
You could look happier; but oh, just at the last moment, you did smile, tinily and graciously, rather like the Queen Mother. Happily you are still demonstrably "soon" while she, poor thing, is "late". I take note - especially in these barberless pandemic days - that there are distinct aesthetic benefits in letting one's hair grow long. I envy the effect draping hair over the left shoulder confers. With the further hint there is plenty more to spare.
ReplyDeleteThe acoustic of the room betokens lots of soft furnishings and thus your upper frequencies are clipped. Given what I know of your upbringing I am impressed by the way you appear to have fashioned an accent for all seasons and all social levels. American but only just. At one point - speaking the phrase "well-known" - you thrilled me with an authentically British expression of the long o. Not that I would want you to speak British, perish the thought. But I have this image of you deep in discussion of Henry James in an Eaton Square salon, potentially vulnerable to Kensington snobbery, yet riding high and effortlessly over such mundane considerations.
Were we ever to meet - ah, what a dream - I would, without asking, order you a dry sherry. The driest of finos. You wouldn't have to drink it, just hold it.
Seriously though, my thoughts dwell on your familial burdens.
Thank you, RR! I am off in Carolina, bearing my mother to six appointments and doing mighty acts of cleaning and so on.
DeleteI suppose that I shall have to smile more. Of course, a person thinks she should have done this at 27 rather than 67, and does not want to appear a grinny goon.
Well, that's a lovely salon-vision! My accent (such as it is) is no doubt the result of my 6th grade teacher. When I moved to Wilmington, Delaware (three miserable years), my Yankee (Yankees don't think Delaware is Yankee, but it was) schoolteacher thought I was retarded because of my deep South drawl. So slow! Then she called in my father (PhD, analytical chemistry) and mother (Master's in LS), and they had the same stupid accent as poor little moi.
So of course I started to get rid of my accent, being generally humiliated and trodden-on! However, she inspired a character in A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage. That character insisted, bullied her way into the book. Rather like her inspiration. Poor woman, perhaps she didn't like teaching. Or children. Certainly she did not like me.
Thank you for the dry sherry in advance.