[Tour] Morehead

Morehead was a blast. Someone said it was like stretching our legs out at the start of our journey and that's just what it was. I opened the night; which always makes me a little nervous because I have nothing to judge myself against (I think that's what's supposed to make it less nerve wracking. Look at me, going against the grain) but it was all good.

I've gotten a chance to listen to Bianca, Frank, and Ricardo a few times, so it was really great to hear Crystal read her stuff. And damn. She says she's not a poet like Frank said once his voice is not an instrument. It was inspiring; the best thing for a writer or any artist, I think, is to be reminded constantly of what art can be, because when you write in a bubble you can't help but forget yourself within yourself.

The drive down was killer. It was only 2 hours, and I love the Kentucky hills more than the landscape of any place I've been in the world, but it was foreign in the same way I don't like taking back roads to get home in Northern Kentucky.

In any case, I got to check out some art at the Kentucky Folk Art Museum. There were so many trees on the hills it was a little spooky; like rigid hair on a great camel's back. I wish I could have seen it in spring.

The room itself was all brick, like a New York Nightclub, very intimate. It was nice, like a slightly more formal Running Word. At the end we closed with questions from the audience; that's always been my favorite part about any reading I attended as an audience member. Someone asked about Affrilachian Poets as a vehicle for giving representation to those with voices that aren't being heard, and that's what it is for me. I didn't write about being biracial, as important as that's been for me, until the Affrilachian poets, and that's heavy. This tour is gonna be great, I'm all kinds of nervous, and that's always a good thing.

Oh, I outsold myself from Chapbooks I brought. You should have seen how fast I ran to that car; the darker your complexion the slower you should be moving in the dark of a parking lot, but I shattered that rule, and probably my own land speed record.