For the most recent meeting of the Women Bearing All poetry circle - we had a last minute change of meeting place, and ended up at a Carrow's on Shaw, between First and Cedar in Fresno, CA. It was not quite the intimate setting of a quiet tea house, as was our first meeting. Rather, there was a rowdy group of female basketball players from an out of town school, loudly whooping it up at a table close-by. I don't know if it was bravado to rev them up before a bit match, or if they had just beat our Fresno State team, but they were certainly in a good mood. Actually, the entire restaurant was in a lively mood.
Four women braved the crowd - to sit and try to be heard above the din - and belt out poems to one another in a booth in a back alcove . You should have seen us - we were a sight. Valerie, one of our poets that evening, had to take a phone call at one point and couldn't help but snickering at us from across the restaurant - the way we were sitting around in a very Middle America sort of place, not a hob-nobbing with the snobs sort of place, or a high-brow coffee joint, where a poetry gathering might be a common sight - but right in the middle of sprawling families, entire teams of ball-players, and grandpas and grandmas out for their chicken pot pie.
Right in the middle of all that, we found one another and shared our hearts, the way poets will, and discovered common ground, were moved to tears, moved to laughter, challenged to create more, create together, learn together, and meet again. We stayed up late, had more coffee than we should have, and a bigger dessert than normal, and when it was finally time to go, found ourselves journeying out to one another's cars, to see the visual art stowed away in the trunks of two of our poets. It felt very clandestine and underground. I can't wait to see those particular paintings again hanging in a show around town, and remember the first time I saw them - in a dark parking lot, in mid-December with fog swirling in, by street lamp, after a poet's gathering.
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