St. Lawrence Area Poets

Tuesday's meeting was rather sparsely populated, which is not to be considered a surprise at this time of year.  School is out, people are travelling, on vacation, enjoying themselves at barbecues & similar activities.  The only suckers that showed up were me, JeanMarie, & Val Harrington.  As a consolation, we enjoyed the lovely evening in Ives Park by the banks of the Racquette River in Potsdam.  We shared our Challenges, stream-of-consciousness pieces written while listening to music.  The results were variable & interesting.  The Challenge for next month is to write a poem w/ the first line: "We wait all year for this," JeanMarie's idea.  She also brought up the idea of introducing live music into our poetry readings. She knows this fellow Josh Lazo who's a marvelously talented musician in Potsdam.  I've seen Lazo perform several times w/ various jazz ensembles & found his talent to be prodigious.  I have a recording of  Neil Fitzgerald's CD Natural Discovery, on which Lazo plays sax.   Anyway, as we discussed the possibilities, who came walking along but Josh Lazo & a friend, who was accompanied by a huge wet black dog on a leash.  Talk about serendipity.  Josh liked the idea of a music/poetry gig, but he's really busy now.  It's something we'll check out soon.

That's it, really.  Things are pretty quiet in the world of SLAP.  We do need to publish a SLAP poetry newsletter in July, so everyone send me your poems.  Bye.

Music: Midnight Creeps

Beverage: Yuengling Lager

Weather: Sunny & lovely

Miscellaneous: Metropolis, the novel

Contact John at ataraxia1114@aim.com