SWEET DAY

Exhausted but fulfilled after a day at New Jersey's first ever South Orange-Maplewood Book Festival. Tons of authors and poets and panel discussions and book lovers. The panels I attended were stimulating and inspiring, the level of insight into craft and purpose was so high my mind is tired.

I was fortunate enough to take part in a panel with other poets about social and political activism in relation to poetry and hear some great responses to our current challenges. Lively discussions at the others, including one about gentrification and its impact on the health of all those involved in it, the newcomers and the displaced (best line of the day from Mindy Thompson Fullilove (author of ROOT SHOCK): "Facism is bad for your heath!") (the other panelist was Peter Moskowitz, author of HOW TO KILL A CITY).

I'm already looking forward to the second one, a year from now.