Tayari's Blog: When Poets Play

Posted by TayariJones on February 15, 2007 11:39 PM
Filed under Travels & Rambles

This is a big weekend for DC poets. The annual Howard University Hearts Day Conference is this weekend. Poets from all over have swooped down on Washington to celebrate Nikki Giovanni, Lucille Clifton, and Mari Evans.

My good friend, Tara Betts, came down from NYC. (My affection for Tara has already been well documented on this blog.) With Tara comes good people. She got to DC around eight and we immediately rushed to Busboys and Poets to meet up with Remica, Derrick, and Alan.

Busboys is a place where it is hip to think. The women of Code Pink are frequent guests as well as other progressive folk. On the way out, we ran into DJ 2-Tone Jones (no relation) who told about the AM Radio project-- it's where visual art meets hip hop.

Although there were a lot of cool people in attendance, our little party was pretty self contained. There was much to celebrate. Remica was in a fine mood as she has just won the 2007 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize for her new book, Conversion. Derrick Weston Brown is the poet-in residence at Busboys. Alan King has two terrific chapbooks and you know all about Tara with her bad self. (And she just finished her MFA. Watch out world!) And what about me? Just a fiction writer in a poet's world. I am happy to say that nobody held it against me.

And, yes, there are pictures!

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There are 1 comments on "When Poets Play". If you'd like to leave a comment, click here to jump down to the comments entry form.

Comment #1, by Tara Betts [TypeKey Profile Page]

Tayari,I had so much fun hanging with your and you wonderful self. I finally got some good sleep today, so I'm looking forward to hanging with Rich. He sends many greetings too.

February 17, 2007 04:17 PM

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